Re: David Gerrold - War with the Cthorr

In article <g0so21$dil$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
mchary@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Michael Alan Chary) said:

[ to Wayne Throop ]

> 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?

If "*immediately*" is taken literally -- meaning, I suppose, that
only single Planck-Wheeler intervals pass between (a) "snapshot of
living Samantha is taken," (b) "Samantha is struck by effects of
weapon" and (c) "Samantha is dead," and then the snapshot from (a)
is used to reconstruct Samantha -- then _I_ would say that no
homicide has occurred[*1].  Various societies' legal systems may
feel otherwise, of course.

 *1: _Other_ crimes or torts may have been committed with Samantha
     as the victim, of course, and they may be ones that don't exist
     yet in any real-world legal system because the cir***stances
     have never arisen, but I don't think that she has been killed.

-- 
William December Starr <wdstarr@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>