If the numbering changes because posts are sent to AAH, you are going to be confused by your own numbering system. Far better to use the linking facility.
Dave,
- I don't think that you're saying what you mean to be saying.
I tend to doubt that, though I suspect he's not saying what you want him to say.
- First you say that your specifications reapplied would produce a copy of you. It would not produce you.
Yes. Note the "re" in reapplied. If I use a recipe twice I get two identical but separate cakes, not one cake. One is a copy of the other.
- Then, when I say that you seem to be saying that there are no specifications for you, you say that there are,
That's because godless dave isn't saying that there are no specifications for 'you'. On the contrary, like everyone else, he's pointing out that your DNA inherited from your parents
is the specification for 'you'. Along with your experience and memories, this is what shapes the
process of consciousness from which the sense of self arises.
and provide the above. But, are these the specifications for "you," or are they specifications for copies of you?
Both. When the sperm combines with the egg and parental DNA is combined to form the child's DNA, that is the first (and in reality, the only) time the specifications for a particular person is used.
In your thought experiment where a person can be copied/replicated/cloned, that DNA would be used again, and all the experiences and memories leading up to the moment of copying would be the same. After the moment of copying (and please remember this is not possible in reality), the two identical but separate selves would begin to diverge and become non-identical selves, as their experiences and memories from that point would be different.
At no time following the moment of copying would these two identical but separate selves be one self/one consciousness - there would be no instance of one consciousness looking through both sets of eyes.