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I think you're in one of those Walt Whitman self-multitude modes here, which is entirely a fine thing, consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds and so forth. Regardless, I'll pick a nit. Your piece on the resurrection-afterlife of the Jehovah's Witnesses chronicles your skepticism of the is-a-clone-really-you issue, and you specifically phrased it as "really you" in asking JW members to explain how there could be a continuity of identity between your original self and the resurrected/restored-from-cosmic-backup self after the day of judgement. Yet in your FAQ and in passing elsewhere, you seem to come down pretty solidly behind the notion that there is no "really you" in the sense that normally holds, in that there is no separate consciousness or identity. Each of us is the sum of our mental and physical parts, and no more. If that's the case, then there really is no difference between you and an identical, JH-produced clone of you. If it's identical, it's just as much "really you" as you are. Lacking a higher existence, you are your parts and if the JW's say your parts will be recreated then that's that. You're back, exactly as real and conscious as you ever were. In a sense, there's no break in the continuum of you because there's no continuum of you to break. There's only your moment to moment gestalt. And as you stated in the review of the human consciousness book, stream-of-consciousness is only a process because we don't perceive the blank spots. Three hundred years rotting in the grave before the JW's resurrection-afterlife kicks in would be no different than a blink of your eye, or a non-dreaming period of sleep. One moment you're on your deathbed, the next you've been cloned by Jehovah. From one perceived moment to the next, three centuries later, you are identical gestalt. They may be kooks, but the other materials on your site suggest that aspect of their theology can't be dismissed on the basis of bong-hit science fiction, which is how I've always seen the clone-ain't-me debate. (As distinct from the Scientologists, and I'll leave that obvious joke as an exercise for the reader.) On the other hand, while I agree with the mechanistic notion of life and consciousness I think we do come close to the "really you" when we consider society. Our role in the world, our friends and loved ones, all the people we've interacted with and the ripple effects thereof that extend around the globe and across time--from one person's perspective, the entire world is just the penumbra of their own identity. The trouble with the cloning debate is its failure to get beyond the individual and consider society. If your clone pops up three centuries later and the world is completely different and your social network is gone or radically changed, are you still you? Are you "really you"? The answer there I think is "not for long." You will change because the world you are in has changed, and the world you changed is gone. It would be as if you went from a quarter moon with a large penumbra to being backlit by an eclipse. It's still the same moon, but somehow it's not what was there last night. In short, I think the clone is as much you as you gets. But from that point forward you are what you make of yourself. And soon your previous gestalt may grow distant from your new one, the way childhood looks so different from the perspective of maturity. Anyway, that's enough bong-hit SF for one night. —John Tynes 50% Chance You're God: more bong-hit SF top |
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