h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What is the point of removing a button from the orange bar at the top and bottom and giving it a whole bar of its own that takes up room and bandwidth? Anyone up to date on these matters around here? Why have they done this and what's changed?

Doh! I meant to say '0 to 10.' Anyway, my contention was simply that:

'me-ness' is a property dependent upon a large number of states;
immediately after duplication, there are two 'me's present, because there are two people;
since all the states in the original and the copy are the same, their 'me-ness' is the same also;
thus, we have two 'me's, both of which are the same.

Ergo, it doesn't make a difference whether one of them is destroyed or not, or which is the original and which is the copy - both are the same person, and 'me' for each is, at the instant after duplication, identical.

Have you got any problems with this argument, or any other arguments I've ignored or failed to answer appropriately?

- Jordan

I agree, Macalypse, and it looks pretty ugly to boot. The site as it was had a nice harmony between the function/declaration bar and the informative area below. Now it just looks, well, dumb.

- Jordan

ah Jordan interesting argument....
2 of you...
may the hevens gard us all
i take it this is a body and spirit thing and not that theres a doupleganger running around
well i agree that there is a spirit and that it is the same as we are if only slightly more enlightend...

Anthea

Dopplegangers it is, I'm afraid.

And the disagreement between Jordan and toxxin basically proves my point. Personal identity, given implicitly, is underdefined. Do we go with actual physical components (toxxin), or a "template" (Jordan)?

Noggin

Can't we have both? That is, both the physical incarnation and the soul-template are required for an individual?

sorry i dont beleve in dopplegangers....
i meen even if someone looks the same as you the mind and the nature of that person will be different therefor the two are not the same

Anthea

Not just a doppleganger - an atom for atom duplicate.

Noggin

The fact that most people think that even an atom for atom duplicate couldn't be you if the original still hung around shows that there must be some popularly agreeable value. Perhaps a slow-moving curve in the first for dimensions is a place to start, along with a noninterrupted continuous sense of identity, and consistent memories. I'd argue that the answer to "What differs you from your doppleganger?" can't be boiled down to one or two simple statements like "the soul" or "the continued existence of the physical body".

Oh yeah right, now doppelgangers.

Come off it. Has there ever been anyone else that ever existed who was even remotely as *you* as you are?

I don't think so.

And I think I speak for all of us when I say so.

So okay, what do you all want for breakfast tomorrow?

az

Wonder how many people just gave up on it and joined some other web forum.

Sorry everyone, just thinking aloud...

> The fact that most people think that even an atom for atom
> duplicate couldn't be you if the original still hung around shows
> that there must be some popularly agreeable value

The fact? One or two people in a highly selective discussion forum is hardly 'most people' - unless we have a representative average man in here...

I suspect that there are very few people who have ever seriously considered this situation.

Jordan. We have a problem!



Seems like a contradiction in terms there. If two people are in a room, I don't see how they can both be me. If you hurt one, will the other suffer? If you kill one, will the other one die? So which one do you have to hurt for me to suffer?

Heathen Sceptic

>>Is all sacrifice equally valid? Is the sacrifice which sets out to take others with you in order to achieve a specific spiritual or political aim, valid to the god to whom it is offered?<<

Not to me, no. Nor, as far as I have ever found, to my Lady or those of the High Gods I honour. But I am not one of those likely to pledge myself to a god/goddess whose worship involves such a thing, as you know. And there are gods who were honoured in such a way in history, and maybe they would see things differently.

However, there is evidence from the sources (and I am picky about sources, as you also know ) that the enemy were dedicated to Odin before battle by the casting of a spear over them... And that the practice of sacrifice to Odin, in a particularly bloody form, was certainly known if rarely performed, mostly on a captured enemy warrior who would have certainly known exactly what was in store once the thing began...

It was all a long time ago, from the point of view of heathenry.

But for a modern Palestinian woman who has lost her family to terror? Maybe the feelings of such a person are not so far from the feelings of a warrior who has seen his family home burnt and destroyed by an enemy and has the chance to go to their camp one night and killl as many as he can, whether in the name of his god or in the name of simple revenge.

I hope with all my heart that none of us ever faces that choice. Because we do not know what we would choose to do, whatever we might hope we would decide. Family is so precious to us, and a child, a father, a loved one is so important...

Sacrifice comes in too many forms. In modern times, we all make sacrifices. Some are easier than others. And for the suicide bomber, maybe the choice of form is valid for them, and for their god...

They certainly think so.

Jez

az

I'll have a warm croissant, with butter, and a decaf. coffee (filter, fairtrade) with a glass of fresh orange juice, please.

Jez

marking

Higgy - mind if I call you that? Well, you can't object for another twenty four hours, so...
"The fact?..." Yup, at least from my calculations. Nearly all of my philosoph class agreed; Toxxin's point is the one most of them made, that they can't both be the same person. But you can conduct your own survey, of course. Simply go around and ask anyone you wish, "If I made an exact atomic replica of you, and it was standing over there, and you were standing over here, would that mean that you were it?".

Surely the term "an exact atomic replica" is misleading?
If you made a table, about 3 feet high, and you measured it with a 36-inch marker, you'd be satisfied that it was three feet high. But if a friend came over with some giant calipers, accurate to a thousandth of an inch, and he says "This table is not 36 inches high, but 36.003 inches high!" would you care? No, because the accepted standard for tables is roughly, within a few inches. If you were measuring electronics or something, you'd have to be more precise and use the calipers.
So the term "exact atomic replica" is just a standard - there are more and less detailed standards we could use; and I'm sorry, thread, but I've just forgotten why I'm making the whole point.
Prematurely senile Mal over and out, for now. See if you can figure out just where I was leading, for me.

Mal. I'm gratified that your class largely agree with me. I think you were out of order on the last bit of your post though. Our copy of you or me is identical, atom-for-atom, by stipulation. This is a thought experiment where all the details are exactly as stated. I take it that most of your class would be about as keen on being beamed up as on road testing an electric chair.

toxx

I'm not the physician here, but isn't it impossible to have exactly the same qualitys of an atom, or the atoms'll follow the QUIP (Quantum Inseperability Principle) and *become* the same atom, in different places, doing the same thing in different space. Okay, now I'm getting overly pedantic. Yup, remember, Mal, it's just a gedanken-experiment. Okay, gotcha.
Yup, my class said that between a choice of a ship that has 50% chance of you surviving the journey, and a matter transportation/copier that worked 100% of the time - they'd always choose the ship.