[extropy-chat] Will we all choose to become one mind only?

[Lee Corbin]

Jef writes

> As I see it, clearly one of those conflicting systems of thought is going to
> lose representation, corresponding to "dying" within the mind of the person
> hosting the struggle.

Yes, that sounds like what has happened to me when my belief system
underwent a major change.

> Maybe here again we see the same fundamental difference in our views.
> In your [Stathis's] view (I'm guessing) the difference is that no one died, no
> unique personal consciousness was extinguished.

Okay.

> In my view, a person exists to the extent that they have an observable
> effect (no matter how indirect); there is no additional ontological entity
> representing the unique core of their being, 

Perhaps you are only targeting the concept of a soul. But consider someone
of very high integrity---integrity in the sense of wholeness and lack of internal
inconsistency, tension, or resolved (or unresolved inner conflict). Might we not
say that there *is* a pretty whole "self" to the person?  (Surely it is this thing
that people can be said to be wanting to protect and which they want to
survive in memory-erasure or duplication experiments.)

Lee

P.S.

> BTW, I just received Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic from the used
> book store, and in skimming through it I find his precise use of
> language a real treat, but his actual thinking on Positivism may
> elicit a different reaction.

'Way to go, there, Jef on your stamina and focus in your reading.
You keep tackling and discharging rather formidable books that
I tried to read thirty years ago, but gave up on.