“ Who is this self that we are so interested in?”

Great question, often asked. I see the self as a representation. A representation of the body, both internally and in relation to the world. This is sort of “old hat” in philosophy of mind, but getting to the thought experiment, I agree with another poster that I’d only submit to the experiment in the face of extinction, death.

I see teleportation as a complex process, and my main anxiety would be the possibility that something could go wrong, wildly or even slightly; that the person emerging from the machine would be somehow irrevocably altered in some negative way, or DOA.

..but even supposing the universe/multiverse is infinite, we don’t know if it’d have or allow more than one set of laws, but I don’t see why not. Could an infinite multiverse entail an infinite number of different physical laws? Sure, why not?

I guess if string theory is true it probably sets limits on the number of possible physical laws.

Yes, I thought about that right after I posted. :rofl:

I’m pretty sure your variant is false. Everything that happens must obey the laws of physics.

“ 1. No restrictions: all possibilities that we can and cannot imagine are there. The problem is that this includes supernatural because we imagine it - fatal for materialism;”

I think this is incorrect. An infinite multiverse does not mean anything one may imagine can actually happen. What an infinite multiverse implies is that everything that is physically possible must happen, and then logically must happen an infinite number of times.

In an infinite multiverse there’d be an infinite number of exact copies of you and me and everyone else.

“If the way one acts in a different way is action then it doesn’t change one’s internal monologue, it shuts it up long enough to put you in a different space ( then one may have a different conversation). In extreme active situations that monologue is completely shut down, it’s no longer relevant, it has no benefits.“ — Myself, I do a lot of internal monologue. Sometimes I find it helpful, but other times I find it counterproductive, so I shut it down and engage in something else, like meditation, walking, calisthenics, whatever.

I was being ironic.

I’m smart enough to know that “seems to oversimplify” or “another broad simplification” is not a worthwhile objection to every statement that you happen to disagree with. Later.

Ahem. Everything we write or speak or think is a simplification, an estimate of reality. My last word on this for a bit. Maybe later..

To oversimplify even more, I evaluate most philosophers as introverts and most entrepreneurs as extroverts. Yes, I know those personality traits are arbitrary models, and even so most individuals are both in some degree.

He has a philosophy of life in the everyday and colloquial sense, as do we all: a basic set of principles for operating in the world, but that isn’t mostly what we’re doing here. We’re participating in something, a set of questions and answers, discussions that resemble academic philosophy, the most salient aspect of which is a set of rules. Formalism is the best word I can think of right now.

True, some of us are better at formal language than others, and there’s no strict requirement as such, but I see that as the ideal. I’m only self-taught, but it seems to me that for many philosophical questions the ideal formalism would be the syllogism; 1. Major premise 2. Minor premise 3. Conclusion.

No, that’s not a requirement here, and it’d probably make some discussions less interesting, but to return to my original argument, this’s probably not the sort of discussion the typical successful entrepreneur would be interested in. He or she would, I think, have little patience for that.

We have a finite length of time in order to get our life’s work done, so of course we don’t have time to do everything, therefore we tend to go where our interests and abilities lead us. Philosophy and entrepreneurship are vastly different disciplines, so very few individuals would be able or even interested in making that sort of crossover.

People, most people, aren’t very logical in the sense that you mean, but having children addresses deep psychological needs, and very often, practical needs. Not everyone lives in a welfare state, so having children may represent a source of labor and insurance for the future; someone to look after us in our old age, that sort of thing.

Pedantic Point: Yes, global population is growing, but hardly exponentially. Laugh out loud!

Really? It’s 50/50 you mean? I doubt that. Source?

Have you read Thomas Nagel’s The View From Nowhere? It’s been years since I read it, but as I recall, some of it is in a similar direction.

Starthrower, thanks for your interesting response.

I was a big Star Trek fan back in the day, but I don't base my current thinking on these matters on imaginative constructs such as "black goo that thinks".

I would say that black goo is not sentient because it does not have sufficiently complex structures to produce mind. The required structures might not be neurons, but complex structure is a must, in my view. I could of course be wrong about that. I've been wrong a time or two.

Hurrah for sapiens sapiens, a territorial primate, who’s closest cousin, in a manner of speaking, is pan troglodytes? I see it as in the nature of the beast, which may be modified somewhat by civilization. Hurrah for civilization, as imperfect as it is!

Are you addressing gays or guys? :P

Who’s to say only one can be correct? I’d say the first two are correct, roughly speaking. The third is religious mambo jumbo.

I think of mind as a process of the brain. On my view, mind is specifically the net sum of billions of neurons firing at any given moment. It is already physical, which is to say electrochemical. Mind is a neural, electrochemical process, nothing more, nothing less.