From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@rawbw.com)
Date: Fri Mar 21 2008 - 06:09:51 MDT
Jeff writes
> On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 11:59 PM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin@rawbw.com> wrote:
>
>> Has it ever occurred to them that they can approximate the
>> entire trajectory of a moving body by assuming its mass is
>> concentrated at one point? Answer me that, and I'll tell
>> you whether or not they're idiots.
(Honestly, don't understand the relevance of my paragraph there
to the following)
> Nobody is arguing that the self isn't a useful concept in many
> situations (or at least, that's not what *I* was saying.) What I'm
> saying is that it may be useful for some situations to speak in terms
> of a self, but ultimately it is an approximation and is not required
> in an exact description of reality.
So using the dread "is" again, would you also say that "ultimately
planets do not move in ellipses around the sun" that it is merely
sometimes useful to say that they do, and that "ultimately it is
an approximation and is not an exact description of reality?
Okay, fine. Then give me an example or two of an "exact description
of reality."
> And in particular, it breaks down in situations which involve copying
> minds... where you have to resort to a more accurate description in
> order to truly understand what's going on.
By the way, this sounds like more "personal identity" discussion which
I thought was banned. Want to take it up there under a real thread
having to do with PI? http://groups.google.com/group/PersonalIdentity
We can talk basic epistemology, though, about just how real are
"orbits" and what "exact descriptions of reality" might consist of,
but please say nothing further about it applying to selves.
Lee
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