[ExI] Next moment, everything around you will probably change

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 15/07/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:

> Now that's logic for you.  Since it's not the same season it was a few
> months ago, then it must follow logically that today it's not the same
> season it was yesterday.  On the contrary, logic grabs you by the throat
> and forces you to admit that things change gradually.
>
> Okay, so Gordon a.k.a. is a convenient fiction.  What do you care
> whether this convenient fiction lives or dies?

There is no absolute sense in which it is the same season today as it
was yesterday. The Earth moves in its orbit every day and it is only
by convention, not by logic, that we decide there are four seasons in
a year. With personal identity it is stronger than convention, since
we have a very profound psychological tendency to believe that we are
the same person from day to day. This is a useful belief from an
evolutionary point of view, perhaps the single most useful belief.
Nevertheless, it is possible to deny this belief without being guilty
of either an error of logic or an error of fact, because in the end
"same person" is just as much a matter of convention as "same season".



-- 
Stathis Papaioannou