Eugene Leitl wrote:
> Michael S. Lorrey writes:
>
> > I guess you missed my irony. I agree with you, but despite the fun logical tricks
> > of people like John Clark, an upload created from a scan is NOT the same individual
> > as the individual who was scanned.
>
> How can you say that? You sure can't compare that to the Real
> Thing(tm), because it's gone (the scan was destructive).
Ah, I was under the impression that we were talking about non-destructive scans. However,
be that as it may, even with destructive scans, I know who is who. The original is dead.
Thanks to scanning technology, there is an almost exact copy who thinks he is the original
but is not. The original may have set a will naming the future scanned copy as his heir,
and all of the original's friends and associates would not be able to tell if the copy is
or is not the original. As I said, the rest of the world may think the copy is the
original, but to the original individual, the rest of the world can suck eggs.
>
>
> And in the hypothetical case you could create an exact clone, you're
> of course know that it bifurcates (gives rise to two individua) as
> soon as it is allowed to evolve (unless these are exactly synched
> deterministic clones receiving exactly the same input, which is a
> hypothetical in machina-only scenario).
>
> This is all as clear as mud. I wonder what logical tricks you speak of.
Johns old short stories about the guy who makes a copy of himself, one kills the other
(not sure which), etc... All John illustrates is that the rest of the world can't tell the
difference, and if the original is too forgetful using John's magical duplication process,
it may lose track of or not be able to prove that it is the original, but I say there is
an easy way to tell, so long as the duplication process does not duplicate to the exact
isotopic ratios. In addition, any one who has been a corpsicle and revived will have
carbon 14 ratios that are markedly different than a new chick, at least for some period of
time after revival.
Mike Lorrey
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:04:12 MDT