[ExI] What should survive and why?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 04/05/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:

> It seems to me
> > that Heartland is claiming that there is some objective criterion for
> death which trumps what an ordinary person would understand
> > by the term.<
>
> > 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
> shown overwhelming evidence including video tapes of Lee's
> behavior over the last weeks---how in some ways it resembled
> how I act today and in some ways not, and have to conclude
> that by some TREMENDOUS agency beyond our present
> unassisted human ability, the old Lee had indeed been replaced
> by *me*.  (One easy way is to show that Lee actually commited
> moral crimes of which I am incapable.)


I neglected to specify that you have not noticed anything unusual happen in
the last hour, and neither has anyone else, other than the test result. I
think it is enough to leave it as vague as this, because it is how we know
that we remain the same person from moment to moment in ordinary life.
People do, as a matter of fact, quite often develop delusions that they are
someone else, and it is generally immediately and unequivocally evident that
this is the case. But although it's crazy to go around believing that you
are someone you are not, it would also be crazy if you started wondering
whether you really are the person you think you are, and as a result started
demanding more and more stringent tests to ascertain that you aren't
deluded. (That's rather paradoxical, like the case of the man who had an
irrational fear that he was going mad, to the extent that he was actually
diagnosed as being delusional and treated with antipsychotics).

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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