[ExI] What should survive and why?

[Lee Corbin]

Eugen writes

> On Thu, May 03, 2007 at 07:38:31AM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
>
>> Notions such as "maybe we die every instant" or "maybe we die
>> whenever our EEGs go flat", are misconceived, and very harmful
>
> But this is precisely what Slawomir is saying. Flat EEG lacunes
> are literally death, to him.

I'm still hoping that he'll reply and pin down exactly when the Slawomir
life function went from 0 to 1 around the time---I guess---that he was
conceived. I read recently somewhere that conception is a *process*
that actually requires hours.  Unfortunately, I didn't record where
because I did not anticipate that I'd be arguing with anyone who
believes in a quantum soul or its equivalent.  To be more precise,
I didn't think that I'd be arguing with anyone who believes that
living/dead is like 1/0.

I appreciate and agree with the remainder of your remarks.

Lee

> People have been known to produce paradoxes by sticking to the
> wrong kinds of definitions.
>
>> > That would mean that you could have a test and be informed that, even though you don't realise it, you died in the last hour 
>> > (with
>> > the appropriate adjustment to the pronouns that that would entail).
>>
>> Why isn't that *theoretically* possible?  Why isn't it *possible*
>> that this could have happened?  I can imagine being suddenly
>
> It is possible, but it is relatively demanding technically, and
> it would be a pointless prank practically.
>> ...
> ...
>> I agree that in all *practical* situations that have come up, and
>> will even come up in teleportation and uploading, you are entirely
>> correct.  We need to nail down the thing that, as you say, people
>> have traditionally been worrying about.  That's why Heartland
>> is out to lunch entertaining conjectures that an EEG going flat
>> for a tenth of a second is *necessarily* death, just because his
>> arcane definition says it is.  Clearly, we cannot treat life and death
>
> I'm glad we're on the same page here.
>
>> as 1 and 0, as well you and I already know.
>
> For some reason, many still subscribe to the boolean notion of identity.