At 15:23 -0800 12/10/00, Jason Joel Thompson wrote:
>From: "Chris Russo" <extropy@russo.org>
>
>> You could remove the hard drive from that first machine and duplicate
>> it exactly. Then, you could take both hard drives and put them back
>> in identical laptops and "wake" them. They would both be running all
>> the same programs you were - all at the same point of execution
>> points as when you put them to sleep. Which was the original? Who
>> cares?
>
>If those programs have discrete self-awareness physically associated with
>their hardware, then *they* care-- and that's the whole point.
"self-awareness"s would be parts of the programs, so they would be
copied as well. Whether or not they cared would be undefined at this
point.
Around and around and around we go, ever-avoiding calling this
"self-awareness" concept metaphysical or sentimental illusion.
Regards,
Chris Russo
--
"If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought
or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet
hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance
which does harm."
-- Marcus Aurelius, MEDITATIONS, VI, 21
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