[ExI] Continuity of experience

Spencer Campbell lacertilian at gmail.com
Fri Feb 26 21:40:30 UTC 2010


Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>:
> If I tell you that sneezing destroys M what is your response? Your
> response is that that's silly: you sneezed a few minutes ago and
> you're still the same person, and your friend next to you also sneezed
> (it was dusty environment) and you aren't in mourning for him either.

Actually, no. My response is: I have no possible way to refute that
statement. I am perfectly comfortable with absurdity*. It is certainly
self-evident that people survive sneezing, but it is certainly not
self-evident that M survives sneezing.

So we could argue the metaphysics of sneezing for a while, if you
want. It *would* be a whole lot sillier than talking about
mind-scanning, if only because we've already sneezed at least once
each, but it would likely run along a similar course.

Any possible conclusion to either would, I suspect, be equally
unverifiable. Some arguments carry more logical weight than others,
though. Mind-scanning has more variables to grab hold of, what with
all the different ways of copying and potentially recombining, so it's
more subject to analysis; whether or not such analysis is futile.

*That is, self-consistent absurdity. I'd immediately crumble under a
paradox** similar to the one you've been repeatedly hitting Gordon
over the head with, to no apparent effect, for the last few centuries.

**Zombie neurons.


Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com>:
> What about a hundred yoctoseconds?

That's... that's almost TWO SEXTILLION planck times!

I shudder to think what would happen to M in a blackout of that duration.



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