X-Message-Number: 21280
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 20:34:10 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: More on Identity Issues

I want to respond briefly to a portion of James Swayze's posting, #21246:

>Perhaps we really should make a comprehensive list of the philosophical 
>problems with each side
>of the issue and compare them. I will even offer one from the patternist 
>camp to begin the list.
>
>Patternist list:
>
>1. If you don't upload and make backup copies eventually something will 
>cause your physical
>death.

There is, as I see it, a confusion of concepts here. What is meant by 
"backup copies"? Are backup copies persons in their own right? Clearly it 
would be unnecessary to go this far in "backing up" oneself--you could just 
duplicate the information, and not activate it as a "program".

>Non patternist list:
>
>1. A backup copy should have rights too if indeed it is equivalent to the 
>original

Again, you could fulfill the needs of redundant information, as protection 
against death, without creating another functioning person. No problem here.
...
>Ok, now I leave it up to everyone else to contribute more.

To me a compelling reason to favor the patternist position is that it 
leaves the door open for resurrecting the lost individual after all else 
fails--including cryonics, which either may not work or, as is so often the 
case, may not be tried at all.

Mike Perry

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