Brent writes
> >>Given that just after the cloning, the clones would quickly diverge, becoming different people; it
> >>seems you could be happy contemplating the fuller, richer life of all the people you know just as
> >>much as if they were clones of yourself.
> >
> > So I suppose that day by day you become someone different?
> >
> > If you were to get an unexpected call during the next hour,
> > would that make you a different person than you would have
> > become without the call?
>
> Sure - a little different, even if it were expected.
Well, the whole point, is *how* different. For example, we imagine
that if you were suddenly absconded from your residence a few
moments from now, conscripted into Al Qaeda and forced to learn
Muslim fundamentalist slogans and to enjoy killing unbelievers
working for the Satanic powers of the west, (I am sure that
this would require quite a bit of brainwashing), then it's
safe to say that after a few years of that you become someone
else.
Even if some atom bombs fell, and you were forced into a horrible
struggle for survival along the lines of Mad Max, you'd probably
become someone else.
But in all *practical* matters, you do sacrifice in the hear-and-now
so that the Brent (say, of next year) does not have tooth pain,
right? Or are you so good-hearted, that you would gladly go to the
dentist just so that someone else's teeth won't hurt next year?
I mean to say that there really is no use denying that you are the
same person from day to day under normal conditions, and it tells
us something that only philosophers would ever conceive of, let
alone believe for an instant, that they were not the same person
from day to day.
Lee
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Received on Fri Jul 07 2006 - 00:49:29 PDT