[ExI] Let's play What If.

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2010/11/11 Alan Grimes <agrimes at speakeasy.net>:
>> There is no contradiction in the assertion that the person survives
>> even though the original is destroyed, because survival of the person
>> and survival of the original are two different things.
>
> In that case the concept of "person" is meaningless.
>
> In Existential Nihilism, if you can't poke it in the arm, it doesn't
> exist. Similarly, there is no such thing as society, forests,
> governments, wars, etc... Because these concepts are fundamentally
> fictions, they obscure and obstruct a true understanding of the reality
> in which you live.

Sometimes we can agree on a particular instance of a vaguely defined
thing such as a country or a person. We can then try to come up with
definitions to see if they fit. The problem with these personal
identity discussions is that some participants assume a definition
when that definition is inconsistent with their own usage of the
terms.

A1 Proposed definition: a country is a geographical region populated
by people who all speak the same language.
A2 Switzerland is a country.
A3 The people in Switzerland do not all speak the same language.
A4 If we agree on A2 and A3 we must reject A1.

B1 Proposed definition: a person survives from t1 to t2 provided that
the matter in his body remains the same between those times.
B2 Alan has survived from Tuesday to Wednesday.
B3 The matter in Alan's body was not the same on Tuesday and Wednesday.
B4 If we agree on B2 and B3 we must reject B1.

So that is the challenge: come up with a definition of personal
survival that excludes destructive copying but allows the situations
where normal usage of the term says we have definitely survived.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou