by Mitsukara » Thu Aug 06, 2009 11:58 pm
For some reason I can't place, I didn't read this until just now. I'm sorry, both for my own sake and for the impolite act of not getting around to it!
That said, I was very impressed by this story; I really like how it's told through first person perspective in such a way. The concept itself aside, it's the perfect way to express the point, and it works really well. It took me a moment before it hit me- oh, this is the backup's perspective!
My mind tends to simplify the whole debate, and I'm not sure if maybe that's a bad/dense/presumptuous thing on my part;
If you make a duplicate of a person, both have sensory experience of their own. They share some of the same past, but unless linked completely, that experience diverges after the copying.
Regardless of what their experiences include, the fact that they both have their own distinct first person perspective qualifies them as an individual, the way I see it.
But the troubling thing is, if you make a copy of Person A called Person B, but Person B is a seperate entity... even if Person B is immortal, Person A still ceases to be, and if Person A only lived through their own perspective... they're dead, and gone. That would still suck, even if literally what they were is continued, as a duplicate, in Person B.
I think Pastel Defender Heliotrope theoretically addressed this- Fuschia and Cursor started as totally seperate entities, but connected; in a way it was temporary, but the connection was still intact, although it only went one way (from Fuschia to Cursor) most of that time. Eventually, at the time of Fuschia's death (if I understand and remember right), which Cursor was actively aware of as it happened, the connection was turned on both ways (that's what the Spatchcock Horology chapter was all about). As a mental perspective, as an awareness, they were connected and working as one again, right through the death of Fuschia's flesh.
In a way, though it's hard to say how absolutely it applies, it could be said that Fuschia completely survived that, because as her body died, her perspective and awareness was still fully connected to another mind that, itself, continued to exist.
Would that work? I don't know, but short of just enabling the fleshy brain to survive forever somehow, it's the best idea I've really heard.
The simple point of how I see it is- you see what you're doing right now? See how you're feeling, the sense of being "you", of being in a place and of being something? More tactilely, the way you see through your eyes, right now? That is first person perspective. That is "you", or as you would put it, "I"- that's what a person is, I think. Each and every instance of that out there is a person. Separate or connected, it counts, and to lose it... really utterly lose it, to never be somehow saved or retrieved or restored, is the most horrifying thing I can imagine. That's what I fear in dying.
...or so I see it.
Now, something else a bit more complicated that I'd like to point out as an issue / question is the issue of moment to moment existence. That which I just described as "being you" also only seems to apply to right now. You remember the past, but it's stored memory, you aren't feeling it right now- it might be very vivid, but not all of it is. And there's constantly a new moment. Are you a different "you" now than you were just a moment ago?
Yes, of course the culmination of past experience forms the way you are right now, etc. etc., that is clear; but the perspective issue remains. The "me" I remember from a moment ago... I don't feel being that anymore. i feel right now, and by now, I don't feel the same moment I felt even when I typed that. It's very similar, and cumulative, but it's like a separate perspective in a way.
I don't really have definitive answers or understanding of any of this. I do think every moment counts for something, and is worthwhile. If what I blindly hope actually turns out to be somehow true, then every single moment that ever happened actually still exists, even if "I" don't feel like I'm there any more right now- and it would be totally awesome to have an external perspective, to see all the past as if it were right now. I hope this information, the past, is actually being maintained in some way.
Because, alternatively, there might not tangibly be anything but right now- that the "past" is gone because it changed into now, and now is going to keep changing into "later". That memory is just some kind of temporary present construct. This honestly seems a lot more likely based on what we're able to recognize, and it's a scary thought because it means information can actually be lost because it's constantly changing.
I dunno. I hope it's all backed up somehow, and the more we can try to do to maintain it, the better, just in case there is no magical unseen nature to reality.
Also, I hope I didn't just completely go off topic and sound like a rambly crazy person. If so, I apologize ^^'
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"You know, I’m really glad I don’t use my butt for anything except sex." ~
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