: mchary@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Michael Alan Chary)
: Um. No, because they can never be the same given the hypothetical. At a
: minimum, they are standing a few feet apart.
Note the bit I follwed up with, "assuming translation invariance".
The laws of physics are translation invariant. It doesn't matter
if they are standing a few feet apart.
Yes, their environments are different, and they immediately diverge.
But that was a given of the scenario. So shrug.
: But human beings are not simply constituted of their component
: particles. They are also made of people's reactions to them.
I disagree. Sure, their future state is dependent on other people's
reactions to them, but hey, other people are outside their lightcone.
So they aren't part of what makes up a person *now*.
Yet, if you want to say that a person is this distributed process that
extends beyond their own physical body, that's fine, but I'd say that's
a good deal larger a departure than just taking the physicallist pov.
: Does it make a difference who has the original particles?
According to physics, there's no difference. In fact, there's really
not a physical fact about "who had the original particles", to one way
of thinking. A particle is a particle is a particle. Indeed, the fact
that particles have no hair (so to type) is why people can speculate
that all the electrons in the universe are actually one particle that
keeps bouncing back and forth between the begining and end of time,
and encoutering itself a kajillion times in between. Speculate, and
actually sort of keep a half-straight face while doing so. Kinda.
: Well, how about if you murder Samantha. Upon being charged with the
: crime, you reveal yourself to be Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, Soooooper Genius,
: and you produce a duplicate of Samantha identical in every respect to
the
: Samantha *immediately* prior to the instant of death except that this
: Samantha is made of particles taken from the atmosphere other Lexor. Do
: you still face the chair?
Well, not if you are a few feet to the left.
Then the chair is on your right, and you're not facing it.
Ahem. Anyways, that only depends on the law, not any facts of the matter.
If a doctor sodomizes a patient under anesthesia, and removes all physical
evidence so the person cannot know any different, should they be held
accountable? If so, how much? If Lord Aquitane conspires against the
First Lord, and actually fields an army against him, with eyewitnesses,
but is able to disband the army and remove all physical evidence before he
can be brought to trial (and, mind you, not even removing the witnesses,
just the forensic evidence), should he be accused of treason? Aside from
resorting to the Juris Macto, I mean.
Shrug. It's somewhat beside the point. And you're still trying to use
an intuition pump based on assumptions in a world where a person's history
cannot be forked, nor joined, to emotionally appeal to the conclusions you
want to reach in cases where histories *can* be forked or joined.
So... shrug. I reject your intuition pump, and substitute my own.
( And I considered adding "Now quack, damn you!", but decided against it.
)
It's just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right
With your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight
But it's the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane,
Let's do the Time Warp again!
--- from Rocky Horror Picture Show
Wayne Throop throopw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://sheol.org/throopw
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