Re: QTI & euthanasia

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:03:50 -0800

Quentin Anciaux wrote:
> 2008/11/1 Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>:
>
>> Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>>
>>> 2008/11/1 Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>:
>>>
>>>
>>>>> Well if I'm Kory or Bruno, I'm not me...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> You distorted my hypothetical. Could you not still be you and simply
>>>> have the mistaken notion that your name is "Kory"? If your earliest
>>>> childhood memories were replaced by Bruno's, would you cease to exist?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I think I cannot be me without *my* memories... I equate memories and
>>> me. If not what is me, if I'm still me without my memories ?
>>>
>>>
>> But surely you don't require *all* your memories just to be you. And
>> what about false memories? What if you had just one memory that was
>> false of you but true of Bruno? You have no doubt forgotten many things
>> from your childhood, so, as measured by information, you are quite
>> different from the person you were then.
>>
>
> You are implying that identity doesn't exist. What I'd say is that the
> only thing I'm sure of in this world is the 'I'.. the particular 'I'
> that is me. So no someone with the memories of the childhood of Bruno
> and my current memories is not me... only because my current memories
> are not consistent with Bruno's childhood, it follows than they
> couldn't be my current memories.
Inconsistent how? Surely not logically inconsistent. Perhaps there
would be a nomological inconsistency. Or consistency might require
something very improbable (like you being born in Belgium, but not
having a Belgian birth certificate). But aren't some of your memories
also improbable. How do you know they aren't someone else's.

> If my memories are erased and my body
> still live, I think it's equivalent to have killed me... I'm (the 'I'
> that is currently me) dead for all practical purpose. Now you would
> say that I'm dying as time goes by because being different than a
> second ago... but my memories still carries the same 'I'... and 'I' is
> living in time and not an instantaneous data. I don't believe identity
> is an illusion... and I need more than what if to disprove it.
>
>
>>>>> And if my grandma had b...
>>>>> her name would be grandpa.
>>>>>
>>>>> If consciousness is information and feeling being an 'I' (and also a
>>>>> particular 'I')
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> I think that is a false intuition. I don't believe that you directly
>>>> feel being Quentin Anciaux, it is a memory and an inference made up of
>>>> many bits of information. You are not feeling it at every moment, but
>>>> only when you think about "Who I am." at which time an appropriate name
>>>> and life history comes to mind.
>>>>
>>>> Brent
>>>>
>>>>
>>> It is not an intuition, it is an assumption
>>>
>> Your "feeling being a particular I" is an assumption? How can a feeling
>> be an assumption? Isn't it a perception or at most the interpretation
>> of a perception?
>>
>> Brent
>>
>
> Ok, but it is the only perception that I'm sure of, only because 'I'
> is needed to perceive.
>
> Regards,
> Quentin
>

But you don't directly perceive "I". You have many perceptions that
form a temporal sequence and which have a point-of-view in space and
which evoked associations consistent with a certain fixed content of
memory. From this an "I" is inferred. I don't believe one can directly
perceive "being I". Bertrand Russell argued this same point many years
ago in support of his neutral monism.

Brent

>
>>> (that can be false,
>>> sure)... Is counsciousness information ?.=> yes ? Is this information
>>> finite ? (should be... what could be infinite length *information* ?)
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Quentin
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>> is information and indeed a finite length
>>>>> information... then one bit of difference and I'm not me... anything
>>>>> else but me.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Quentin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>
>


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Received on Sun Nov 02 2008 - 16:04:22 PST

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