[extropy-chat] What should survive and why?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 01/05/07, Heartland <velvethum at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Stathis:
> >> >> >> If I-now think I've survived as a continuation of I-before,
> >> >> >> then that's what matters in survival.
>
> Heartland:
> >> That doesn't matter at all. Why should it matter? Is there an argument
> for why
> >> this should matter? If it exists, I would love to read it.
>
> Stathis:
> > Because that's how people define survival, as in not dying.
>
> That argument breaks down quite easily. What you're saying here is that if
> I think
> I-now survived, then it must be true that I-before survived and that this
> mechanism
> for determining truth (I think it is true -> it is true) is reliable just
> because
> most people use this mechanism. Let's apply this logic to something that
> has
> nothing to do with survival so that emotional attachments to our ideas
> about
> survival don't blind us to the fact that this argument doesn't work.
>
> Many centuries ago someone believed Sun revolved around Earth. Even though
> overwhelming majority of people at the time shared that belief, was it
> really true
> that all these centuries ago Sun actually revolved around the Earth? Did
> people's
> (subjective) beliefs cause Sun to revolve around Earth? Of course not, so
> the
> argument is not a reliable way of finding truth.


No, the appropriate analogy is this. Many centuries ago people believed Sun
revolved around Earth. They also believed that their faces felt warm when
they looked at the Sun. The former is an empirical belief about the world,
which scientific evidence proved wrong. The latter is just an expression of
how people feel. Even if it could be shown by science that the Sun was not
really there at all - that it was just a projection on a big screen - that
still would not have changed the fact that when you look at what *appears*
to be the Sun, your face feels warm. People might have been surprised and
even upset to learn that the Sun was an illusion, but in the end they would
have said, "Oh well, we've lived with it this long, the important thing is
that the illusion, or whatever it is, continue."

Just because I-now thinks I-before survived does not cause "I-before
> survived"
> statement to be true. In other words, I-now cannot subjectively determine
> if
> I-before survived. I-now can determine that I-before survived based on
> objective
> evidence only.
>
> The only thing that I-now can determine subjectively is I-now's survival
> (I think
> therefore I am therefore I survive) which is what I think you've been
> focusing on
> exclusively while completely ignoring I-before's fate.


Suppose it is claimed that there is some objective criterion X for death,
easily shown by medical tests to have occurred or not occurred in the
preceding 24 hours. There is no doubt that criterion X is a real physical
effect, and there is no doubt that the tests accurately detect its presence
or absence. The question is, how do we know that criterion X actually tests
for death?

Stathis:
> >> > You haven't answered yet (that I have noticed) what you would do if
> >> medical
> >> > science discovered that you didn't actually survive a situation you
> >> hitherto
> >> > believed harmless, such as falling asleep or being photographed by a
> >> traffic
> >> > camera.
>
> This question is posed in such a way that it assumes the conclusion you
> haven't
> proven yet. You said, "what you would do if...you didn't actually
> survive... ." Now
> think about it for a minute. You're asking me what I would do after I
> died. Well,
> not much because I would not exist anymore and people who don't exist are
> incapable
> of doing anything. You assume your conclusion which is that
> someone-before-being-fatally-photographed and
> someone-after-being-fatally-photographed is the same person. You have not
> shown
> that yet.


Yes I have: just as clearly as you have shown that a flat EEG means death,
despite the person actually believing that "he" has survived. I'm telling
you that when you were zapped by that camera today, you were killed, and the
person reading this is actually someone else who has only been alive for a
few hours. Can you show me any evidence that I am wrong about this?

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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