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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: More Atheistic Wishful Thinking
Message-ID: <673@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Sep-85 15:43:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.673
Posted: Fri Sep 20 15:43:05 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 07:48:56 EDT
References: <1566@umcp-cs.UUCP> <714@utastro.UUCP> <1590@umcp-cs.UUCP> <726@utastro.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 17

In article <726@utastro.UUCP> padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) writes:
>
>Now here's the absurdity bit. Suppose your wife meets you after you
>have been resurrected into two identities say, which one does she 
>identify as being her husband? 

That isn't an absurdity.  It is a social problem, and one which has not
been dealt with as yet (for the obvious reason that it has never happened).

But to put the question a bit differently, suppose a perfect copy of you
is made.  Which does your wife identify as her husband, you or the copy?
The answer is that she has no way of knowing.  (Assume she does not
witness the process; one of you walks into a room, and two walk out.)

There are going to be real social problems when (not if -- an opinion)
such technologies are developed, because our social system makes assumptions
about the singularity of identity which do not stand up to close examination.