[extropy-chat] Survival tangent.

[John K Clark]

"Ian Goddard" <iamgoddard at yahoo.com>

> Why should properties of a mind/self resemble quantum properties of
> electrons?

A mind does not have the quantum properties of an electron, but a brain
does.

> It's a big leap from that to the view that one
> mind/self can be in two locations at once.

Mind is not macroscopic (or microscopic) and mind is not an object, so being
at two places at once is simple,  in both meanings of the word simple.
I believe the position of a mind is a concept of very limited value, if it
has any meaning at all it's the place the mind is thinking about.

> But I see no reason to assume that the self of the original brain would be
> somehow connected to its copy.

In thought experiments people always take the part of the original, but try
being the copy. Yesterday I copied you and then instantly destroyed the
original. Do you feel dead?  You still remember being you yesterday and last
year and when you were nine, you can see no discontinuity between yesterday
and today. You had no last thought so you have no reason to complain,. And
if I didn't tell you I'd made the copy you'd never had known anything
unusual had happened. What more do you expect from survival? It's true
I can't ask the you of yesterday his opinion on the matter, but that is
ALWAYS true even without my pesky copying.

 John K Clark