2009/2/11 Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>:
>> But the same could be said about everyday life. The person who wakes
>> up in my bed tomorrow won't be me, he will be some guy who thinks he's
>> me and shares my memories, personality traits, physical
>> characteristics and so on. In other words, everyone only lives
>> transiently, and continuity of consciousness is an illusion.
>
> I think I understand your point, but I don't see that the continuity of
> consciousness is any more an illusion than any other continuity: the continuity
> of space, the persistence of objects, etc. You are just generalizing Zeno's
> paradox. But once you look at it that way, the question becomes, "Why imagine
> the continuity is made up of discrete elements?" It is this conceptualization,
> points in space, moments in time, observer moments as atoms of consciousness,
> that creates the paradox. So maybe we should recognize continuity as
> fundamental. The continuity need not be temporal, it could be a more abstract
> property such a causal connection or perhaps what Bruno says distinguishes a
> computation from a description of the computation.
I don't think it makes a difference if life is continuous or discrete:
it is still possible to assert that future versions of myself are
different people who merely experience the illusion of being me.
However, this just becomes a semantic exercise. Saying that I will
wake up in my bed tomorrow is equivalent to saying that someone
sufficiently similar to me will wake up in my bed tomorrow.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Wed Feb 11 2009 - 07:25:46 PST