[ExI] essentialism and/or continuity

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 23 May 2010 04:26, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> On 5/22/2010 12:44 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote:
>
>> On 20 May 2010 19:22, Damien Broderick<thespike at satx.rr.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Not at all sure that "essentialist" is the right word to describe someone
>>> like me. "Continuist" or something, maybe, if there is such a
>>> philosophical
>>> category.
>
>> let me understand your stance better: do you demand that any
>> arbitrarily low degree of material continuity is never broken at any
>> instant (as in Moravec-style uploading or in the seven-year cycle of
>> biological replacement of human molecules), but accept for the rest a
>> definition of identity which might allow for the entire replacement of
>> the "substratum" provided that such continuity is conserved
>
> In brief, yes.
>
>> And even in such case, would you really consider teleport as "death"?
>
> Only if it destroys the original. Otherwise it's a kind of high-fidelity
> copying or cloning. (I discussed this in THE SPIKE and we should probably
> not go on with it now any further for fear of igniting a tedious "Yes it is"
> "No it's not" endless thread.)
>
> I might as well add, though, that this is my provisional conclusion. If it
> turns out that there *is* something like a "soul" that flits from body to
> body and that comprises the core of continuing identity, I'd probably change
> my opinion. Or if there's a sort of resonance archive maintained outside the
> body that constantly interacts with the brain (as in my novel THE DREAMING
> and several of Spider Robinson's sf novels), that would also modify my view.
> Parapsychological claims do seem to support such a possibility, but I remain
> unconvinced. Note that I am not talking about religious doctrines or dogmas,
> except to whatever extent such traditions happen to encapsulate experiences
> that more rigorous methods (especially repeatable and highly theorized
> scientific empiricism) have so far failed to incorporate, or declined to
> investigate.

I don't want to start one of those discussions that everyone here
hates but I'm trying to understand what would and would not qualify as
maintaining continuity and not destroying the original. For example,
if every atom in your body were shifted 1 metre to your left would
that be OK? What if the shift was one atom at a time rather than all
at once, but still fast enough that it register as instantaneous to
human senses? What if during the process the atoms were discarded but
replaced with equivalent atoms, as occurs at a slower rate during
normal metabolism?


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou