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

[Lee Corbin]

Slawomir writes

> 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).

We are both most concerned with *survival*, i.e., not dying. Staying
alive, that is.  It's just that I believe it only requires runtime incorporating
preserved memories, behavior dispostions, beliefs, and values. 

For you, it means "instance of a running process", where you define
instance so that it doesn't involve either temporary suspension or
replacement by other atoms.

> 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.)

Yup, we totally disagree.  Was there, by the way, an exact instant
at which you came to be?  That is, one millisecond earlier, there was
no Slawomir, and one millisecond later there was?

> 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.

All I can do is say that most people would get used to teleporting,
and consider worries about it causing *death* to be oldfashioned
relics of outmoded philosophies, much as no one today would
consider a heart transplant as constituting itself a threat to survival.

Lee