[extropy-chat] What should survive and why?.

[Lee Corbin]

IN the Eternal Exchange between John Clark and Heartland,
the words are being misinterpreted by both sides---really a
sign of bad writing.

Here is the latest example. John writes

> Heartland, High Priest of the Unique Atom and Sacred Original Cult Wrote:
> 
>> Just because I-now thinks I-before survived does not cause "I-before
>> survived" statement to be true.

One needs to phrase "I-now" and "I-before" much much more carefully
to avoid misunderstanding.  I can see why John got upset at that phrase.
But if you had written instead, "Just because an entity legally known 
as Slawomir the High Priest at time 1 believes that Slawomir the etc.
at time 0 survived, does not make it true".

Now *that* statement is utterly clear---and correct!

> It is of course possible that my subjective experience could be disconnected
> from reality, that dog I'm looking at might not objectively exist, I could
> be having a hallucination; but you go much further.

Actually, all that is necessary is that some AI did some great surgery
on the former John Clark, as explained in previous posts.  Of course,
your point is taken that this is extremely improbable, and that for all
normal intents and purposes, there is no reason to believe that anything
weird happened.  In this, John seems utterly correct.  And it is 
Slawomir who tries to make the case that something as innocent
as a temporarily flat EEG makes a 1/0 difference in survival.

Lee