[ExI] What should survive and why?

[Lee Corbin]

Stathis writes

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

I claim to have already dispatched such a "subjectivity" criterion---
by raising the (remote) possibility of someone tampering with my
memories in just the right way

> 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.

We're not far apart!   I would amend what you have just written to
say that we cannot "know" that we remain the same person from
moment to moment---it is a conjecture, of course, like anything
else. And Heartland has a point in saying that any part of it that is
subjective is pretty weak.  We strongly and rightly *believe*
that we are the same person from moment to moment, and from
day to day, because it has withstood the test of criticism for ages,
and we cannot parsimoniously believe that some tremendous agency
has been messing with our minds. 

But the key overriding evidence would be *objective* evidence.
Again, one could be shown some videos that would make one
doubt that he was the same person he was even an hour ago, or
a few minutes ago.  Do you agree with this:

      Were objective scientific means of measuring approximately
       how much memory change was going on, then we would
       be the same person from moment to moment if and only if
       the objective facts were that our memories had undergone
       only the usual small quotidian changes to which we are
       accustomed to (or we think we are familiar with) in daily life.

       The "subjective criterion"---when we are engaged at a basic
       level as with Heartland---is worthless.

> 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.

I totally agree!  And that is because it is so remarkably unlikely that
agencies have been altering your memories. We simply *must* fall
back (outside extraordinary circumstances) on the usual meanings
that every other English speaker employs. We *know* (or, in this
discussion I should write "know") that we are the same person from
day to day, because alternative hypothesis are without any
substantiation.

Lee

> (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).