LS Deep Space Nine

From: Bruce Dalton (broocie@hotbot.com)
Date: Tue Feb 09 1999 - 12:49:31 GMT


Magnus, Boone, Diana and squad

Magnus:
>>Sure, we can make exact copies of all the four
levels.
>>Well, perhaps not just yet but some day. The
problem here
>>is that we have to make that copy by sampling
each and
>>every inorganic pattern in the body, just as we do
when we
>>record a CD or shoot a movie. The problem is
that such a copy
>>would be as static as Roger's jazz CD and Rick's word processor.
>>As Troy pointed out, we can't copy DQ, so the copy will be
>>all static.

Boone:
>Why is this so? I agree that we can't copy DQ, but wouldn't our clone
>meet DQ upon his first thought or step, just as the rest of us?

If I recall correctly static patterns by definition are capable of dynamic change so I would agree with you that our hypothetical clone ought to meet and be affected by DQ.

Boone
>Well, I'd really like for you to prove me wrong -- for some reason, I
>just feel that we can't "copy" a human. Since I'm fairly new here,
>forgive me if I'm just dumb. :-) Anyway, best wishes to all of you
>(cloned or not).

The reason it *seems wrong* to you is because it is wrong. We are talking about science fiction here. As I've been trying to point out it is technically impossible to copy a body.

I tell you the makers of Star Trek have got a lot to anwer for. Scenarios liek this are typical of that show and they are, for the most part, totally grounded in mind/matter dualism. But because dualism so ingrained in our minds it seems plausible that
*one day* perhaps our "pure mind energy" will be able to separate itself from the body (as Picard did in one episode), it seems plausible that the Vulcan souls are similar but slightly different from the human souls (as was discovered in another episode).
And we all take it all in. After all science has done so many wonderful things that no doubt *one day soon* they will discover how to separate our minds from our bodies. But there is doubt about it, lot's of doubt.

Diana wrote
>I think the problem you're having with it might be that in Pirsig's self
>there is no center of the self which is the way the SOM presents it.
>Pirsig's concept is just a convergence of patterns jostling with each other
>with no particular location of a knowing self.

Well, with all respect, it isn't a very clear definition. But in any case if you accept this definition then I think it just proves my point even more that you can't copy bodies. If the patterns are just converging with no particular center then how can
you hold them still, how can measure them, how can you even say what they are?

Bruce

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