[extropy-chat] How to be copied into the future?

[Heartland]

Eugen:
> Do you think that "instance of your type" would have a good case in court?

Not yet.

Eugen:
> Why don't you sue that gal at Starbucks, because she wilfully disrupted your
> "Slawomir" process by a really strong double latte?

She did?

Heartland:
>> If you had a perfect twin right now, would it be OK if you killed him too? I
>> imagine you would still argue with the guards, while being dragged to your cell
>> or

Eugen:
> "Yes, your honor, we had to anaesthesize this person, because of an appendectomy.
> Please don't be too harsh with our sentence. We just wanted to spare him the
> experience of having his belly slit open while fully conscious".


Quote: "We just wanted to spare him the experience of having his belly slit open
while fully conscious."
Subtext: I've already assumed that the guy who opens his eyes after the operation
will be one and the same.

When you say "spare him" you assume the conclusion you haven't even begun to prove.

Heartland:
>> even a death chamber, that you should go free since the victim's death was not a
>> big deal because the type of your twin's brain structure still remains or
>> because

Eugen:
> Excuse me? I'm not a type believer, and I believe, you've just murdered a
> strawman. Guards! Guards!

I'm having hard time believing you do not worship at the altar of type (after all,
you don't think there's anything wrong with cryonics). But if I wrongly accused
you, I apologize and am curious about what exactly you do believe.


Eugen:
> I wish I could murder that thread. It never goes anywhere.

Define "anywhere." I hope you don't define it as, "everyone involved adopts Eugen
Leitl's position."

I used to think I could convince someone of my beliefs about survival in a matter
of few posts. The reality is that it takes many steps to change someone's mind. At
each step you need to convince him/her of some point that is necessary to build
your argument. It's a slow process that could take years or even decades depending
on how emotionally attached a person is to his/her irrational beliefs. The people
with other points of view obviously apply the same process to you and it's entirely
possible that somewhere along the way it is your belief that will change.

So even though a casual observer might think that no progress is being made, this
debate moves forward (if we ignore the hecklers). I admit that it moves forward at 
snail's pace but that
shouldn't surprise anyone. After all, people are intimately connected to their
ideas of survival and abandoning them involves overcoming emotional obstacles which
takes a long time.

And besides, it's fun to talk about these things and argue (politely) with people. 
If you
don't want to play, then don't play but stop planning on taking away our ball. That
would be totally not cool.

Lee:
>> I recall that Heartland *specifically* said that it's not the atoms that
>> are the problem

John K Clark:
> True but for ever time I've heard him say atoms are not important I've twice
> heard him go on and on about atom's space time trajectories and how
> important they are in defining identity; on Monday Wednesday Friday and
> Saturday atoms are important, on Tuesday and Thursday they are not, and on
> Sunday he rests.

Huh? Oh well, nevermind.

Look, Lee understood my argument (even though he disagrees with it) based on a 
small fraction of posts that I've written to you. Is it really my fault you still 
have no idea what I'm talking about?


John K Clark to Lee:
>> And that's why he [Slawomir] also thinks anesthesia is the
>> equivalent to death. Do you [Lee] really want to defend
>> that 18'th century idea?

Lee:
> I may disagree with someone's opinion, but I will defend to
> the death their right to be understood correctly.   :-)

..and you are doing it admirably, I might add. :)

Lee:
>>> And according to him, that's the whole ball game.

John:
>> And that's exactly what makes his idea downright comical.

Lee:
> And it's blunt statements like that that have caused the degeneration
> of your exchanges with him to wry shouting matches. Or is that all
> you're here for?

Has there been a doubt at any time that he's here for something else than just 
that? I also recall a recent, somewhat amusing, "free energy" thread where "bull 
manure" was being gratuitously applied to poster's comments by a certain someone. 
:)

Lee to John:
> Can't you see that you keep begging the question?  What if you
> are killed tonight by some gangsters, and replaced by an actor
> they've paid to imitate John K.Clark.  The person acts like you do,
> and since (say) you're a recluse, no one notices (he has studied
> your emails carefully).  What if, to make it convincing, they also
> somehow hypnotize that actor to actually believe that he is
> the person he's imitating?  Then *you* are dead, regardless of
> your phony criterion of "subjectively".
>
> Subjectively he thinks he's you.  Does that make him you? OF
> course not!

I agree with that!

Jef:
> Slawomir's position, no matter how dressed up in talk of
> atoms and space-time trajectories, reduces to nothing more than
> arguing against the well-known identity of indiscernibles.

If you meant "for" instead of "against," then you're correct. Leibniz ended debate 
about what it means to be identical back in 17th century (I think) as far as I am 
concerned.


Jef:
> The opposition argue in functional terms that to the extent a
> difference makes no difference, it is no difference.  However, they
> continue to state this as if "differences" can be completely
> objective.
>
> Both sides appear to be utterly blind to the necessity of an observer
> function, to any discussion of meaning.

And I think Leibniz's law applied by a creative observer could be that function. I 
suspect you mean something else.

Jef:
> If this debate ever develops from "what is personal identity" to "what
> do we mean by person identity" then it might get interesting.

You might be referring to others here, of course. I stopped caring about personal 
identity a long time ago. These days I'm only interested in what it means to 
survive which is what I was going after in the first place.

H.