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

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 02/05/07, Heartland <velvethum at hotmail.com> wrote:

Lee:
> > 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".
>
> That joke has gone stale a long time ago, don't you think? Actually, a
> good joke
> has at least some truth in it. This one had none, as you know. Perhaps you
> don't.
>
> Lee:
> > Now *that* statement is utterly clear---and correct!
>
> The original terms were correct enough and they were, in fact, Stathis'
> terms.


One of the problems in this debate is that the terminology can seem to imply
the conclusion which is at issue in the first place. This is where I find
the concept of the observer moment useful. An observer moment, or OM,
unambiguously specifies an instance of conscious experience. Even if all
hell breaks loose with duplications, we can always point to Stathis no. 347b
at 20:01:04 hrs on 2nd May 2007 in Melbourne, Australia, and everyone will
know what we mean regardless of their view on personal identity. This
terminology does not imply that OM's have any special ontological status of
their own, nor that, for example, Stathis no. 347b is or isn't the "same
person" as Stathis no. 347b one second later, or Stathis 356a at the same
time in the adjacent room. How the OM's are related to form individuals, and
what death means in terms of the existence of non-existence of certain OM's,
is then the problem of personal identity, restated more cumbersomely but
also more precisely.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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