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Comment by energy123

There's nothing you need to solve because definitions of words are subjective social constructs that are neither correct or incorrect. Definitions are axioms.

You have chosen to define the word "you" to require continuity, under some rubric. By that definition, a copy of you isn't really you. That's correct under your axiom, but it is incorrect under other axioms.

The functionalists I am trying to channel in this conversation have a different subjectively chosen definition of that same word, that is internally coherent assuming functionalism is a true description of the world.

You may wish to argue that their definition/axiom lacks utility, but that's subjective and cannot breach the boundary into a claim about objective correctness (logical deductions) under the axiom.

> You can have a tennis match with different balls which is functionally identical to have it with the same ball, because the ball in the game is an abstraction that lives _outside_ the ball itself.

This sounds like solipsism not dualism vs. monism. In non-solipsistic monism, social constructs can exist outside of a collection of minds, because other minds also exist.

parent energy123 5 months ago

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