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

[Russell Wallace]

On 6/22/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
>
> Exactly. Or they might believe that they'll become a particular
> sun flower, or a particular river that they're fond of. And they'd
> be just plain wrong, if not nuts.
>

Nor is this entirely a straw man. For example, in Philip Pullman's classic
'His Dark Materials' trilogy, a dying character (with clear authorial
approval) anticipates continued existence as "part of everything" on the
grounds that his atoms will survive; as one reviewer puts it, "This is the
very height of narrative dishonesty... Atoms are just atoms, and if that's
how we end, let's not prettify it with misty-eyed descriptions." We can see
that the reviewer is correct: while there may be room for philosophical
disagreement about whether one is justified in anticipating continued
existence as a duplicate, there is no coherent philosophy in which one is
justified in anticipating continued existence as something which entirely
lacks the capacity for thought.
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