Re:The Ghost Protocol – Digital Identity for Immortals
by adrih on Monday May 03, 2010 @01:55PM
(#1315459)
Don't these questions hint at "death" being a leaky abstraction?
It seems that people have their own definition of death with details added to the general concept. Then, when exposed to these hypothetical scenarios, they either say "it is murder" or "it isn't murder", depending on what their personal definition of "death" is.
The problem is that if we redefine death as "no chance of ever coming back", some people would still not be ok with being temporarily disintegrated because they believe it would be someone else who would come back.
So the concept of death should actually be split in two: death as in "I believe it would not be me anymore", and death as in "the functional unit defined as you would not be operational anymore".
It seems that people have their own definition of death with details added to the general concept. Then, when exposed to these hypothetical scenarios, they either say "it is murder" or "it isn't murder", depending on what their personal definition of "death" is.
The problem is that if we redefine death as "no chance of ever coming back", some people would still not be ok with being temporarily disintegrated because they believe it would be someone else who would come back.
So the concept of death should actually be split in two: death as in "I believe it would not be me anymore", and death as in "the functional unit defined as you would not be operational anymore".