FW: IDENTITY-What it means to be 'me'

From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Thu Dec 06 2001 - 17:02:51 MST


>as a Parfitian which
>would you prefer: a) To live another say 50 years (a "normal" life
span), or
>b) die tomorrow and be replaced by an identical copy that will 1000
years?
>(Obviously, for some functionalist at least the choice is simply
whether to
>live 50 or 1000 years. I have phrased the question so as not to beg the
>question against Parfitians et. al). I think most of us, no matter
where we
>fall on the continuum you outline would take b, although I would be
curious
>to hear from those that would take a.

I've got to agree with Damien on this one. 50 years sounds better than dying
tomorrow.

Why? Because I have a big attachment to "me", whatever that is, but as to
patterns of atoms and/or information which are strongly or even exactly
like me? I couldn't care less. Well, I'd probably actually care a bit about
most other people out there (I really do like people a lot), but there are
limits.

Emlyn

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