[ExI] What can be said to be "wrong", and what is "Truth"

[Bryan Bishop]

On Monday 13 October 2008, Lee Corbin wrote:
> I believe that my concept of personal identity is as real as the
> concept of "species". For example, it's silly to deny that elephants
> exist as a separate species, or that my car exists as a real assembly
> of components, and so on. You may disagree with me, but to
> suggest that I have some sort of death-grip on these concepts
> is not correct: I believe in one's personal identity to the same
> degree as I believe in elephants, and *all* knowledge is conjectural.

I'd like to throw at you that elephants are different than your identity 
because of the very practical consequence of mating an elephant and a 
nonelephant. When you get down to it, they don't mate, and thus aren't 
the same species. More specifically either mating doesn't lead to 
conception, or the resultant embryo fails to successfully mate usually 
through genetic abnormalities leading to death and such. This is 
a "field test" use of that 'elephants' classification .. a test 
for 'living' is hard as well, but it's much more along than any 
equivalent for identity, which is necessarily subjective within the 
assumptions of our discussions so far.

- Bryan
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