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

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 4/29/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:

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!


If it's done perfectly, then you would have to say that the actor is you,
wouldn't you? The converse situation is that the gangsters don't kill you,
but knock you around and brainwash you so that you forget everything about
your past and identity, and instead have false memories implanted. In that
case, the gangsters have done almost as good a job as killing you outright -
and I say "almost" only because there may be some hope that the procedure is
reversible.

Stathis Papaioannou
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