[ExI] Uploading and selfhood

[Michael Miller]

Yes, very good. The point is that true and false are abstract human categories (just like selfhood...and Napolean). Reality has no truck with such things. We can only speak subjectively, and in doing that we have to admit that our own context in asserting true or false may be denied as valid by another. There is no "true" or "false" out there. There is no Napolean out there. It's a mental construct which people define in different ways to suit different purposes. It's entirely irrelevant how we answer the question, it changes nothing. A clear cut answer will serve only to obfuscate matters further by confusing people into thinking that there is such black and whiteness.

Hope this makes things less muddy ;)


and apologies for sending this straight to your own address initially again Lee - Yahoo's being inconsistent with this list for some reason.

----- Original Message ----
From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2008 5:19:16 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood

Michael writes

> Lee said
> 
>> [Concerning the following simple inquiry under the hypothesis
>> that a following a devastating plague, a certain "lunatic" now 
>> living in a mental institution in the U.S. who believes himself
>> to be the same person as Napoleon I of France, is the sole
>> survivor on Earth]
>>
>>      The Emperor Napoleon (1769- ), formerly of France, but
>>      now living in a certain city in the U.S., turned out to be the
>>      last living human on Earth?
>> 
>> Well, is that true or false? 
> 
> Sometimes matters don't divide up neatly into those two words.

Why, naturally, of course.  Haven't you heard that there are "shades
of gray"?  Or rather, perhaps you suppose that some of us have
never heard the phrase, or mastered the notion of a continuum.

But seriously, does this mean that you *also* do not lean one way
or another towards accepting or rejecting the above statement? 

> In fact, probably most of the time [matters don't divide up
> neatly into those two words].

Oh?  An assertion by you?  May I infer that you believe your assertion
to be true, or would that also fall into the category of things that cannot
be so simply characterized as "true" or "false"?

But then, there I go again.  Asking for yes or no....  :-)

Lee

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