Kory Heath wrote:
> On Nov 1, 2008, at 7:07 PM, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>> We can ask how similar each one is to the Kory
>> that stepped into the teleporter, but there's no fact of the matter
>> about which one is *really* Kory.
>>
>
> I completely agree with that. But I don't agree with (and don't think
> the above implies) the following:
>
>
>> And there's no sense to the question
>> of what "I should expect to experience" because "I" is nothing but a
>> process of experiencing anyway.
>>
>
> I don't know what to make of this response. Forget about teleporters
> and copying for a minute. Let's just talk about ordinary life. Even if
> I accept that the concept of "I" is a convenient fiction (and I
> essentially do, in some sense), I still mean *something* when I make a
> statement like "I expect to be still be sitting in this room one
> second from now",
There are thoughts and perceptions of a room from an interior viewpoint
now, which will be part of a very short sequence leading to thoughts and
perceptions about this same room from the same viewpoint. Unless of
course you're just referring to your body still being in the room.
> or "I just burned my finger and it's hurting, and I
> expect to still be feeling pain one second from now." Our considered
> views of personal identity might force us to translate those
> statements into something very different than what they seem, but they
> clearly still mean something.
>
> In this mundane sense, it's perfectly sensible for me to say, as I'm
> sitting here typing this email, "I expect to still be sitting in this
> room one second from now". If I'm about to step into a teleporter
> that's going to obliterate me and make a perfect copy of me in a
> distant blue room, how can it not be sensible to ask - in that
> mundane, everyday sense - "What do I expect to be experiencing one
> second from now?"
It's sensible to ask because in fact there is no teleporter or
duplicator or simulator that can provide the continuity of experiences
that is Kory. So the model in which your consciousness is a single
unified "thing" works. But there are hypothetical cases in which it
doesn't make sense, or at least its sense is somewhat arbitrary.
Brent
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Received on Sun Nov 02 2008 - 22:04:56 PST