[ExI] [tt] Identity thread again

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Mark Gubrud <gubrud at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> "My identity," and indeed, identity in general, is a fictitious
> property ascribed by a "subject" to its "objects" as it regards the
> actual universe.


### To answer your fictitious email, no, the concept of identity is not
really fictitious. But my fictitious self is not interested in elaborating.
After all, this would be all fiction, wouldn't it?
---------------


> "Objects" are just a useful way of organizing the
> world, one which reflects many survival-important, functional features
> of the world. Tigers, berries, and sticks and stones are "objects," so
> are other people, so is one's self. [The greatest confusion arises, of
> course, when the "object" is the "subject" itself; this is exactly
> what gives rise to the (illusory) "hard problem of consciousness."]
>

### Again, no, not really, the hard problem of consciousness is not
entailed by our mind's ability to categorize self. This does not need
elaboration.

---------------------

>
> One can articulate (obvious) reasons why it is useful to organize the
> world this way. But the physical boundaries of our "objects" are fuzzy
> and mutable. The question of identity is just the mind's question, "Is
> this the same object I saw before?" One can lay out criteria for a
> definite answer to that question, and such criteria are not entirely
> arbitrary. But there are often cases where criteria that seemed to
> resolve the question unambiguously in most or all situations up to
> now, fail to resolve it in some new situations. The fundamental reason
> for this is that our ascription of "identity" to "objects" is just an
> aspect of how we think.
>

### Well, yes, obviously. How could it be something else?


>
> So, you are entitled to define or redefine "my identity" any way you
> like; what I won't accept is any argument that your concept of
> "identity" is the true and correct one, and that you can use this
> putative "fact" to justify the otherwise unjustifiable - such as, for
> example, the "replacement" or "transformation" of nature, human flesh,
> human beings, and even all humanity, by or into technology and its
> products, on an argument that "identity" is somehow preserved.


### I won't accept any attempts to deny me the right to replace my own
human flesh with technology, whether based on some fictitious arguments
about my identity or not. What you want to do with yours is your problem,
just stay away from mine, will you?

Rafal
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20150314/a63257c3/attachment.html>