[extropy-chat] Survival tangent.

[Heartland]

S:
>> Again. I've always assumed that, by definition, "identity" can have at
>> most one referent.

John Clark:
> Well that's exactly the trouble with your argument; you're assuming the very
> thing you're trying to prove.

Oh, so that's what you and Jef ("the J's?") thought I've been doing all this time? 
Well, that certainly wasn't my intention. If it was my intention to prove *that* I 
would have certainly picked a better argument, wouldn't I (stay tuned)? Except I 
wasn't proving that. My sole focus has been to have a meta-discussion about what it 
means to live and survive. Yes, I admit that while doing that I assumed that life 
was an instance, not a type, just like I assumed that 1 isn't 2, the Earth is 
round, 3AM yesterday comes before 5PM tomorrow, and that little kittens are cute (I 
know, you're going to fight me to death on that last one :)) not realizing that all 
this time you were still stuck on trying to figure out how many things it takes to 
have one thing.

So, here's a quick observation that might help you. 1kg + 1kg != 1kg. (Regardless 
of whether you understand the implications of this or not, this basically rules out 
that cute "afterlife through duplication" fairy tale. There's no such thing as 
afterlife. I'm really sorry about that.)

S:
>> Are you really saying that we can stretch the meaning of this word to
>> include more than one thing?

John Clark:
> It's amazing, armchair philosophers try to tackle deep problems without the
> slightest nod to the revolution in physics over the last century, you're
> arguing as if it's 1906 not 2006. But even in 1906 you should have know
> better, even then you should have known that more than one thing could be
> fast or beautiful or red or small or Heartland.

When will you understand that "life" is not an adjective but a noun and "live" is a 
verb? Stop inventing arbitrary referents for clearly defined terms.

John Clark:
> In closing let me ask you a very simple question: do you believe the
> Heartland of yesterday has continued into today?

There's no such thing as you-at-t1 and you-at-t432. A mind is nothing more or less 
than a single instance of a *process* defined across all ts during an interval. I 
guess in your language that would translate to "yes." (I might also add for the 
millionth time that what *I think* has absolutely no influence on *what I am* 
physically. Thank you.)

Slawomir