X-Message-Number: 11069
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 05:57:20 -0800
From: "Joseph J. Strout" <>
Subject: Re: which one is you?

In message, 11060, Jan Coetzee <> wrote:

>Make the assumption you were uploaded and then ten copies were made.
>Which one will be you.

All of them, of course.  They will all be the same person as the original,
and the same person as each other.  Over time, as they accumulate different
experiences, memories, habits, and personality traits, they will gradually
become different people (and, of course, less the same person as the
original), just as we are not exactly the same people we were years ago.

Everybody jumps on personal duplication like it's some kind of
philosophical show-stopper, but I think this is just because we have no
experience with it.  There is no philosophical or logical problem with
there being multiple instances of the same person.  *Practical* problems
abound (illustrated humorously by the movie "Multiplicity"), and I think in
general duplication is a very bad idea, but logically there it's no problem
at all.

Cheers,
-- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout           developer: MacOS, Unix, 3D, AI     |
|                 http://www.strout.net              |
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