First of all, fuck off with "can't think in hypotheticals from other points of view". I've had accounts banned from this site for less.
Second, no, my complaint is about the framing, not the issues. (Did you miss "if there is or isn't one"?) From the "summary":
The third possibility is the continued existence of some kind of immaterial part of you, which might be called the soul... Your first two choices were consistent with the view that psychological continuity is necessary for survival... But your last choice sees the end to your psychological continuity, since the continued existence of the soul does not provide it. So you first ended bodily continuity and then you ended psychological continuity. Perhaps you made these choices because all along you thought that the continuity of the soul is what counts?
No, dumb game author, I made the first two choices consistently and the third one inconsistently because the rules said I had to act as if the soul existed in the third one, which by the game's own definition means abandoning the sufficiency of the other two types of continuity!
After all, the teletransporter transmits information about body states. Why would the soul follow this information? Given the lack of reasons to suppose a soul would do this...
"The lack of reasons to suppose?" I've got all of two sentences saying "the soul exists", why is your inference about its teletransportability better than mine? Maybe the soul moving from one to the other of me is precisely why teletransportation isn't death!
I choose Freeze.
I chose that Psychological continuity defines life.
It sounds like you took 'soul' as meaning 'life' and chose that. But that was not necessary to live.
Congratulations! You have survived!
You chose:
Round 1: It's the teletransporter for me
Round 2: I'll take the silicon, thanks
Round 3: Freeze me now
There are basically three kinds of things that could be required for the continued existence of your self. One is bodily continuity, which may actually require only that parts of the body stay in existence (i.e., the brain). Another is psychological continuity, which requires the continuance of your consciousness - by which is meant your thoughts, ideas, memories, plans, beliefs, and so on. The third possibility is the continued existence of some kind of immaterial part of you, which might be called the soul. Of course, it may be the case that a combination of one or more types of these continuity is required for you to survive.
Your choices are consistent with the theory known as psychological reductionism. On this view, all that is required for the continued existence of the self is psychological continuity. Your three choices show that this is what you see as central to your sense of self, not any attachment to a particular substance, be it your body, brain or soul. However, some would say that you have not survived at all, but fallen foul of a terrible error. In the teletransporter case, for example, was it really you that travelled to Mars or is it more correct to say that a clone or copy of you was made on Mars, while you were destroyed?
The soul question did not ask that.
It stated that the soul has minimal impact on the person. Nature and Nurture still played the dominant role in personality, and memory. The soul does NOT remember and does NOT contribute to you, your personality.
It also did not ask you to believe in a soul. It said that it had recently been proven that souls exist, not that you MUST answer the question as if you believe it. The question asked "FOR YOU TO LIVE".
What does 'LIVING' mean?
If you freeze, and the soul dies, but it doesn't contribute anything, does it matter? You can very well choose to let the soul die, because to you, that isn't what defined life.
What this teases out, is if a soul does not provide any information about you, do you care? If the soul does NOT contribute to the next person, and you can't remember it, does it matter?
Typically people that believe in souls think that they are the essence, even if they don't continue on mentally. They think there is something immaterial that makes them 'alive'.
But even in this question, since soul contributes nothing, you can choose to freeze yourself and kill the soul.
You did NOT have to answer to save the soul. If that is not what defines life for you.
> I've had accounts banned from this site for less.
Unless you're dang under an alias, I think getting accounts banned from this site is rather beyond your power. And you sure don't sound like dang.
In fact, you sound much more like the kind of person who gets banned than FrustratedMonky does. HN doesn't usually ban for bad arguments; it does ban for hostility to other users.
Note that this has nothing to do with whether you or FrustratedMonky are right. It only has to do with who gets banned, and why.
You've somehow come to the right conclusion despite misreading the sentence. Yes, obviously, it's my accounts that got banned. For saying things way more mild than "can't think in hypotheticals".
I've had some stern warnings from dang. So yes, I am more careful now.
When it comes to questions like these (mind, consciousness, etc..) where the other persons personal perspective enters into the argument, their personal view point is what is making the argument, it makes it difficult to not respond that does not look like personal attacks.
Second, no, my complaint is about the framing, not the issues. (Did you miss "if there is or isn't one"?) From the "summary":
The third possibility is the continued existence of some kind of immaterial part of you, which might be called the soul... Your first two choices were consistent with the view that psychological continuity is necessary for survival... But your last choice sees the end to your psychological continuity, since the continued existence of the soul does not provide it. So you first ended bodily continuity and then you ended psychological continuity. Perhaps you made these choices because all along you thought that the continuity of the soul is what counts?
No, dumb game author, I made the first two choices consistently and the third one inconsistently because the rules said I had to act as if the soul existed in the third one, which by the game's own definition means abandoning the sufficiency of the other two types of continuity!
After all, the teletransporter transmits information about body states. Why would the soul follow this information? Given the lack of reasons to suppose a soul would do this...
"The lack of reasons to suppose?" I've got all of two sentences saying "the soul exists", why is your inference about its teletransportability better than mine? Maybe the soul moving from one to the other of me is precisely why teletransportation isn't death!