Charles Goodwin wrote:
>From: "Bruno Marchal" <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
>> I ask first the biological version: "which way do you feel
>> having
>> ending up?" or more simply "are you the biological or the digital?"
>> Bio-Charles makes at this point some medical observation on itself and
>> discovers he is the biological: so for him it was just false to say that
>> he has end up as both.
>> Let us ask the same question "are you the biological or the digital?" to
>> the digital Techno-Charles. As expected, Techno-Charles makes some
>> medical
>> observation on itself and discovers he is the digital one. So for him too,
>> it was just false to say that he should have end up as both.
>
>That is what I meant when I said that our notion of 'I' was incorrect.
>Charles
>did, in fact, end up as both. Obviously neither of the versions of Charles
>which
>*now* exist feel as though they ended up as both, because THEY didn't end
>up as
>both. Only the original version of Charles ended up as both, and he's no
>longer
>around to ask.
This would mean the "original version of Charles" died in the process.
But in *that* sense the "original version of Charles" dies every instant.
Why are you saying the use of "I" was incorrect. The term "I" is an
indexical: its *meaning* remains the same although its *reference* can
change according to the locutor using it. (Similar things happens for
different indexical terms like "now", "modern", "current", "artificial",
...)
Now, both with MWI or even just comp, we learn that I, actually any "Is",
differentiate(s) all the time. This does not change the meaning of "I" but
entails the possibility of multiplying its references.
That's hardly new, amoeba does that since a long (earth) time.
There exists computer science tools for defining "self" and making precise
the meaning of "I" by finitely describable entities, including their
possible contextually dependent references.
Such tools relies on diagonalisation.
Perhaps you can look at
http://www.cis.udel.edu/~case/self-ref.html
(or wait patiently for diagonalisation 2 on the parallel list!).
Bruno
Received on Thu Dec 27 2001 - 06:37:01 PST