Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> Wrote:
> Your duplicate earth doesn't explain anything. It merely restates
> your position. You claim that the duplicates are somehow connected
> or mystically "one". But you don't explain why you claim this.
If you're on the Extropian list I assume you believe that mind is what the brain
does, if the brains are identical then what they're doing is identical and so the mind
is identical and the feeling of self is identical. That doesn't seem very mystical to me.
> According to this line of reasoning, I don't ever need to watch a
> movie. It doesn't matter whether my particular hardware experiences
> the movie. Someone somewhere probably saw the same movie and reacted
> the way I would.
What on Earth are you talking about? If I have not seen the movie but my
(semi) copy has then we are no longer identical and I am not him anymore.
Nothing vary mystical in that either.
>>Me:
>>Try the experiment. Switch the position of the two hydrogen atoms and you
>>find that the state of the system remains identical, the two could be
>> instantaneously changing position and there would be no way two tell and
>> no reason to care.
> Why do you assume this? One may be sharing a bond with an oxygen
> molecule, while one is not.
Ok, before the switch one hydrogen atom is bound to oxygen and one is not,
after the switch one hydrogen atom is bound to oxygen and one is not.
No detectable change.
But wait, now a new hydrogen atom is bound to oxygen and a new one is not!
How can you tell?
You can't.
By the way, this business about instantly changing identities isn't just some
silly game, it's behind the entire idea of exchange forces in physics, you can even
use it to derive the Pauli Exclusion Principle and that is the foundation of chemistry
and that is the foundation of biology and that is the foundation of us. I show just
how this can be done and some other stuff too in my dialog "Waiting For Zed" at
http://www.extropy.org/eo/articles/zed.htm
>You still aren't explaining why you think that just putting
> them in the same environment mystically links them so that they
> become "one" with each other.
I believe I have explained that, identical things do identical things.
Nothing very mystical about that either.
> What transfers the consciousness between one to the other?
I've answered this several times also, Information. If you don't like my
answer then criticize it, but don't keep asking the same question.
>When I send you these notes, and you read my exact sentences
Maybe that's the problem, I haven't read your exact sentences I've only
read copies.
>I don't feel that I am transferring bits of consciousness to you.
But my consciousness at this instant would be different if you had not sent them.
Nothing very mystical about that either
>If your goal is to preserve information, all humans could die and floppy
> disks could live on. However, those floppies aren't alive,
Straw man, we both know why.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:34 MDT