[ExI] Yesterday's Mashed Potatoes

[Lee Corbin]

Rick writes

[Keith wrote]
>> > While information has to be embedded in matter,
>> > the particular material is not important.  It the
>> > pattern of information that makes one person
>> > different from another, not the particular atoms.
> 
>> which was well said, and is the vast majority view here.
> 
> So then we have an original  and a copy or copies, but no 
> subjective awareness transfer.  This  reminds me of many
> archived debates.

No, no, no!  You've got it entirely wrong, Rick!   The
above point made by Keith is *entirely* unproblematical
among the great majority here. Bringing in *copies* is
where things get dicy.

And now you do bring it up:

>>> This makes me think that:
>>>
>>> If it is the "pattern", then the information should be
>>> readily transferable when uploading, or even
>>> duplicatable if one were cloning.
>> 
>> Quite right. Are you beginning to consider that this in
>> fact might be the fundamental answer to your query,
>> namely that uploading (if carried out according to
>> the criteria usually mentioned) would be no more
>> disturbing to who you really are than a good night's
>> sleep is?
> 
> Sure, but then I'm still sleeping while the copy is
> out having a good time.

Are you quite reading people's emails carefully? You
seem blissfully unaware that I was addressing the
*first* part of your point above---namely, the /uploading/
portion.

You act as though I had just commented on the *second*
part of what you wrote (which at this point I did not!).

Also, try giving one last proofread to something before
you post it---that would catch a lot of errors. But if you
are one of those "peck and post" types, you probably
have glazed over the end of this sentence already and
are pecking away a reply.

>>> Wikipedia: "A pattern of information (or form) is
>>> the pattern or content of an instance or piece of
>>> information. Many separate pieces of information
>>> may share the same form. We can say that those
>>> pieces are perfectly correlated or say that they are
>>> copies of each other, as in copies of a book."
>> 
>> Thanks for the wiki quote. Yes. That's just how many
>> of us look at survival through copies.
> 
> The copy survives but the original bites the big one.Lee

Was that period supposed to be a comma, by any chance?
It sort of looks like---now, thanks to you---as if I had 
written that line and were signing off or something
 
Now *this* last statement of yours is where all the endless
contention has come. I'm hardly going to enter into an
argument about it here with you, until you say something
I haven't heard a million times before. (I've been in truly
exasperating face-to-face conversations with people who
reply---no matter what I've just got through explaining---
"yes, but it's still just a copy, Lee", as if that *automatically*
conferred a distinct.... ah, what?... a distinct "soul", perhaps.)

Lee