On Sunday, February 16, 2014 5:01:55 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: > > Have you forgotten now that I was responding to your own contention in > response to Stathis that if a living person could be duplicated both of the > resulting persons would be original? Perhaps you would care to respond to > my comment with respect to what might be inferred from this contention of > yours rather than yet again straying from the subject. >
What both Stathis and you are asking me is the equivalent of "If we discovered a chemical formula that would turn lead into gold, are you claiming that it would not really be gold". My answer is "there will never be a chemical formula to turn lead into gold, because the commonality between lead and gold is not at the chemical level." My view is that what we see as objects are generic approximations rendered in spatial terms, and that what they approximate is actually an experiential phenomenon which is eternally unique in some sense, and shares qualities with other phenomena in other sense. My view is that a subject or person also shares qualities with other subjects, but that subjectivity itself is not shared with objects, it cannot be inferred from objects, modeled from objects or ideas or mathematics. The idea of duplicating a person by duplicating the arrangement of the atoms of their body at some particular moment of their lives is no more plausible than a cartoon character trying to draw a second cartoonist. Craig > David > > > On Sunday, February 16, 2014 2:18:54 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >> >> On 16 February 2014 17:48, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Ah, but then you would be faced with the questions posed by the UDA/MWI >>>> arguments, because there would then be two conscious "originals" who >>>> claimed equal possession of the same history to that point. That is all >>>> you >>>> need for the duplication arguments to go through. >>>> >>> >>> They would each be their own originals, not the same original. In >>> identical twin is as identical as identical can be. >>> >> >> You are blatantly ignoring the challenge this presents to your contention >> that a conscious person cannot be duplicated in principle, by quibbling >> over the meaning of copy and original. If Craig were the person duplicated >> (whilst asleep, say) and there were then two originals (A and B) each of >> whom laid claim to being Craig with the same history, how would you know >> whether you were A or B? >> > > A single cell can be divided into many, but full grown organism can't be > cut down the middle longitudinally and grow into two separate bodies. Even > as a single cell, mitosis can't be induced by slicing a zygote in half - > the motive for reproduction has to come from the inside out. I don't think > it will ever be possible to duplicate an organism without growing it from > scratch. A cloned brain would have to grow in a vat and would come out as a > new born unique individual (who would have comparable similarity to their > clone parent as an identical twin separated at birth does). The problem is > the assumption that duplication is a possibility in the first place, and > that the barrier to duplication depends on complexity alone. What I'm > saying is that consciousness is an event, not a structure. You cannot > duplicate an event because it is connected to all other events. > > Craig > > >> David >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> > . > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
