At 08:34 27/04/04 -0400, Kory Heath wrote:
>At 06:08 AM 4/27/04, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>(BTW, concerning Parfit, he still believe (in his book "Reasons
>>and Persons") that we are "token". I have already
>>argued that with the comp hyp we can only be "type".
>>That means we cannot been made singular. The only argument
>>Parfit gives for our token self-identity is that we
>>would be immortal if we were type. That's not so easy,
>>but even if it were I don't think it is a convincing
>>argument.)
>
>I agree that it's not a convincing argument, but it does seem like an easy
>statement. If comp is true, aren't we immortal? If not, why not?
I do thing that comp (and/or Everett QM) leads to a form,
perhaps more than one form actually, of immortality.
But the very meaning of such statement will remain very
ambiguous without digging deeper in the personal
identity issue (which, despite Stathis Papaioannou's remark, is
not necessary for getting the physics/psycho reversal).
It is perhaps less misleading to say that what comp shows
is that "mortality" is no more obvious. It is less misleading
because comp will appear to have a necessary interrogative
status: no sound machine can ever entirely be convinced
of the truth of comp; a comp-practitioner should infer it
again and again. (I think the brain does just that in the form
of an instinctive dialog between the cerebral stem and the cortex).
Look perhaps at some of James Higgo "immortality" posts for
previous discussions on that not so obvious thread.
Jacques Mallah gave interesting rebuttal ...
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Received on Tue Apr 27 2004 - 10:48:45 PDT