Re:You Only Live Twice
by aaronblohowiak on Friday December 12, 2008 @08:07PM
(#396341)
Your entire counter-argument is based on a Ship Of Theseus quandary about what "I" is, and not about the "practical" grounds.
It is not a ship problem. I'm talking about me being conscious of being alive. If a resurrected body does not contain my consciousness, as my thought experiment shows, then cryonics is pointless since it does not keep me conscious of being alive. If you still think it maps to the ship problem, see if you can exactly demonstrate the mapping.
It's weird that people don't seem capable of distinguishing between their own consciousness and someone else's consciousness.
The practical grounds point is made by others.
A bit more explanation why it doesn't map:
Given another living body constructed exactly the same as mine and in the same state, it still does not have my consciousness. However, physically speaking, both the replicant and my own body are identical, since particles do not have individuality, as Eliezer points out. The ship problem is a question of whether identity obtains, whereas identity is not a question in my thought experiment. Thus, the two do not map.
Another issue is that the idea of revival doesn't even make logical sense. What happens when two bodies with the same construction are revived? Which one has my consciousness?
Or think about it like this: an exact replicant of my body has been revived while I'm still alive. Obviously, the revived body does not have the same consciousness, since I didn't suddenly become conscious of living in two bodies or a different body. Why would this change by delaying revival until after I'm dead? And if it doesn't, why should I care?
So, I don't really see the case for cryonics. It seems to be flawed on both practical and logical grounds.