Quote:
Originally Posted by Zell
The main problem I see is that of multiple realizability. I think a mental state can exist in several different kinds of systems, not only brains.
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But that doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with the issue here.
My interpretation of what Bill was saying, which you were responding to, is that he is a particular physical entity. It has nothing at all to do with mental states. If something else has the same mental states as Bill, they're both not Bill. One is Bill and one is similar-to-Bill.
This is what I was trying to point out earlier with the example of the hydrogen atom. Even if you have two identical hydrogen atoms--or two identical newborns--they're not both the same atom. You can obliterate one with an antihydrogen atom and the other one is still fine. They're not identical in that they each exist in different places simultaneously. If they don't exist in different places, then they
are identical. But then, like Bill pointed out, they only number as one.