>> Certainly not! I'd never say such a thing; a tomato is a
>> vegetable, not a fruit.
> It's a fruit!
That's actually a great example of the pointlessness of mental
masturbation exercises like this whole "copy" nonsense. It is
perfectly reasonable and entirely philospohically consistent to
call a tomato a fruit in certain contexts (such as botany and
genetics) and also perfectly valid and consistent to call it a
vegetable in other contexts (cooking, law).
It is perfectly rational and entirely philosophically consistent
to call a copy of yourself "you" in some contexts and for some
definitions of that term. It is also entirely consistent and
rational to call it "not you" in others. There is not even any
real debate about what such a process would do: everyone knows
exactly what the result of such a copying process would likely do,
how each thing would likely feel and behave; there simply aren't
any interesting facts in controversy here. There may be some
interesting debates on legal/moral issues, though, but even some
of those are pretty easily resolvable.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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