[extropy-chat] Agency as Prime Determinant of Personal Identity

[Lee Corbin]

Slawomir writes

>>> What Jef is pointing out here is that Lee's model fails with respect to
>>> identity over time. If we compare two patterns of the same active brain at two
>>> different times, say, 1s apart, these two patterns are almost certainly going to 
>>> be different.
> 
> Lee [writes]
>> Yes, for the NTH TIME, the patterns at one second apart are *slightly*
>> different.  IT IS A MATTER OF DEGREE.
> 
> Yes, we fully realize that, but "slightly different" is still "different," no? If 
> it's indeed a matter of degree then you need to explain what degree of change is 
> allowed before someone turns into someone else and why this is important.

No, I do *not* need to explain exactly what degree of change is allowed
before someone turns into someone else.  I will do so only after you specify

1. how much loss of light is required before day turns into night?
2. how much mass is required for a molehill to gradually become a mountain?
3. at what temperature cold becomes warm (as in "cold days" vs. "warm days"?
4. the precise charateristics that separate cars from trucks?
5. the integer number of stones requires before one or two stones becomes a heap?
6. the cutoff in melatonin levels that makes a person either "black" or "white"?
7. the exact point in the animal kingdom at which consciousness exists?
8. how much clearance through a jungle before a tangle becomes a path?

and on, and on, and on, and on.  Slawomir, honestly, I am beginning to 
experience the frustration with you that John Clark and Jef did.

Personhood *has* to be a matter of degree, as is everything outside logic,
mathematics, and quantum mechanics.  And I do mean *everything*, as
my eight challenges above illustrate.

Since you think that something either *is* or *is-not* you as something
is 1 or 0, then I'm even further convince that you believe in souls, or their
equivalent.  Yes:  something either has your soul or it doesn't. 

Except that souls don't exist.

Lee