03-27-2012, 03:39 PM | #941 | |
Computer Scientist
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dallas, Texas
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Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question
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Isn't the numerical identity likewise an invariant? Last edited by jeff_wilson; 03-27-2012 at 03:43 PM. |
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03-27-2012, 03:42 PM | #942 |
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: OK
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Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question
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03-27-2012, 04:02 PM | #943 |
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lund, Sweden
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Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question
Up to this point I have (to the best of my knowledge) responded to every single post directed at me, in the order they have appeared. Then whswhs decided to accuse me of not responding to his posts (when the fact of the matter was that he had not responded to my posts and instead choose to drag up an argument I had already responded to, a response that went unanswered). I then ask whswhs to explain what posts I have not responded to. No answer. Everything else I get an answer to but that. I remind him. No answer. And then he again accuses me of not answering, despite the fact that I have charitably responded to every last post directed at me. And in my absence a few of you decide to have a little pat-on-the-back victory dance. It's rather hard to engage in a fruitful intellectual discussion in an environment where such behaviour seems to be tolerated.
This is, to my knowledge, the first post I have written in this discussion that is not preceded with answers to every single post directed at me. If I am wrong, please explain why. Why should I waste my time responding to people who prefer slander and bullying to the simple courtesies of intellectual honesty? |
03-27-2012, 04:03 PM | #944 | ||||
Join Date: Mar 2012
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Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question
I've been monitoring this discussion with some interest for a while now and I'd like to chip in on the Zell side of this argument.
I'm a bit of a functionalist / eliminativist myself and right now I'm just seeing a bunch of "continuity" vultures circling around and bullying a single person. Quote:
b) That you did. c) He responded. #864 -> #870, look it up. I'd quote it here myself but... it's 6 posts. He didn't fall silent as much as defend himself from other people while reminding you to respond: Quote:
Quote:
a) Use their memory. b) Use magic to detect the continuity of the machine. c) Use magic to detect the continuity of all machines, everywhere. You think we use (c) when we should be using (b). I think both are impossible and we should use (a). You can't separate out yourself from the system you're considering; you are a part of the physics of the universe and what you think is "continuity" is simply memory present in your mind at a given moment. Quote:
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03-27-2012, 04:13 PM | #945 |
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lund, Sweden
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Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question
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03-27-2012, 04:15 PM | #946 |
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: OK
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Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question
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03-27-2012, 04:21 PM | #947 | |
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: OK
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Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question
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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. |
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03-27-2012, 04:26 PM | #948 | |
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lund, Sweden
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Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question
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I also fail to see what this has to do with the kind of identity people supposedly have. If someone made a perfect copy of this measuring instrument, calibration and all, and replaced the first instrument with this copy... does it matter? For the sake of argument we can assume that this instrument has "identity" if you want, but it doesn't show us why we should care about it. The copy of the instrument is just as good as the original instrument and fills the same purpose. |
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03-27-2012, 04:30 PM | #949 | |
Join Date: Mar 2012
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Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question
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Fundamentally, I see human minds as types (very small sets of possible information encodings that all map to the same combination of personality, memory and skills), while actual physical / digital copies are just tokens.
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"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." - Edsger W. Dijkstra |
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03-27-2012, 04:38 PM | #950 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lund, Sweden
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Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question
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Quote:
Once again I ask, what posts have I not responded to? |
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