X-Message-Number: 25343
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 08:43:36 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #25329 - #25340

Hi everyone!

Well, I guess I've now been declared unable to discuss RBR's ideas.
You get to choose: is RBR correct and my mind has ceased to work very 
well, or am I correct and RBR still needs to define what he means
by continuity in the case of QEs?

For however you answer that question, I will point out that in math
functions are not "continuous" without some extra definition of
continuity, and we now have many different point-set topologies
in which we can make such definitions. It's so easy to put around
the notion of continuity without bothering to define it  --- doesn't
everyone know how to define continuity as a matter of instinct?

Bob Ettinger almost touched upon this issue when he stated that
in his belief things spread around themselves (ie a bit like
quantum mechanics) so that it wasn't as if we experienced the
world in entirely separate experiences, one after the other. A
simple comment from mathematics on this issue suggests that we
don't even need to make such an assumption: think of the rational
numbers, which are pointlike but dense in space and time. In
such a case, you would be continuous if at any time t, your 
positions during the period t-e and t+e (where e is small) would
differ from one another by another small number d ie. 
| inst.you.1 - inst.you.2 | < d. Such a notion would raise problems
with RBR's ideas, so far as my poor damaged old mind can understand
them. Every one of these instances would be different and separable
from any other. Close, even very close, but not the same.

If I understand this discussion, it seems to me that a definition 
of continuity for QEs becomes quite critical.

In any case, perhaps those of you who subscribe to PERIASTRON
will find my article about injuries to identity interesting in the
context of this discussion.

            Best wishes and long long life for all,

                Thomas Donaldson

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25343