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

[Heartland]

Lee:
> 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.

(Whenever someone starts telling me I believe in souls it's a sure sign that 
whatever I've said so far must have completely gone to waste.)

Lee, I still don't think you realize what this is about. I'm talking exclusively 
about preservation of life, not about preservation of personal identity (in a sense 
of preservation of memories, beliefs and values). Yes, there's a huge difference 
between the two even though it seems like I'm the only one here who has thought 
about this long enough to spot it (there might be others but I simply don't know).

So while we can talk endlessly about degrees to which we can preserve memories, 
beliefs, and values, all of this psychological identity stuff is completely 
orthogonal and irrelevant to the issue of life extension, FOR THEY ARE TWO 
DIFFERENT THINGS! (Apologies for the caps but sometimes you need to yell to be 
heard) :-)

So just like you can't be "little" pregnant, you can't be "little" alive. Yes, 
life/existence *is* binary; you're either alive or dead. (At least that's the short 
version.)

Lee, this post 
http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2006-November/030557.html and the 
one before that was designed to steer you onto the path at the end of which the 
difference between preservation of personal identity and preservation of life 
should be visible and undeniable. Unless you can show me how preservation of 
personal memories (or values or beliefs) implies preservation of life, I'm afraid 
that extending this dialog will not bring any more progress.

In any case, I still consider the discussion we've had as interesting and useful. 
Thanks.

Slawomir