Comments on: Cryonics and Philosophy of Mind

By: Patrick Clancy

Patrick Clancy — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:08:56 +0000

The mind is not algorithms on a substrate – the computer science meme has been far too influential in people’s views on this subject. The substrate and the “patterns” are not separable (IMO, though I’d prefer to be wrong).
If a matter duplicator could make a copy of you, without affecting the original, you might be willing to allow this. If the duplicator has an option which destroys the original as the copy is made, I doubt you’d be willing to use that option, no matter how convincing the arguments that the copy is “really” you.

By: Titus Quinn

Titus Quinn — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:01:31 +0000

The “original” is the real you. Regardless of how many copies you were to make of yourself, your existential situation will not change – if your “original” dies, then “you” are no less dead. It would existentially be no different than if you were survived by children (the traditional method of immortality by re-identification). The problem is purely epistemological: how does everybody else distinguish the original Troy from the copies of Troy? They cannot. Some philosophers then wimp-out and say that the original you does not exist, but that’s not true (the original Troy would protest if we tried to snuff him, no?) – it just becomes difficult to pick him out of a line-up.

By: Troy McConaghy

Troy McConaghy — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:45:41 +0000

So my life will be extended by the wonders of Newspeak?

By: J. Storrs Hall

J. Storrs Hall — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:46:35 +0000

Suppose you own two houses. Which one is really home? The fact that the answer is fuzzy and subjective doesn’t invalidate the existence, or desirability, of either houses or homes. The problem is just semantics — in an era when people can be copied, the naive concepts behind our current usage won’t apply, and we’ll have to come up with new words, and/or tack new meanings onto the old ones.

By: Troy McConaghy

Troy McConaghy — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:06:26 +0000

Suppose I make a copy of “me” (defined however you like) and the process doesn’t kill me (the original). Then the original and the copy will only be identical for a short time. Our thoughts will drift apart, our opinions will begin to differ, and we’ll become different people. Which one is really me?