The Mindset wrote:
What's the big deal with continuity? You are your mind. You are nothing else. Make a perfect copy of it, and that perfect copy is you, because you are your mind. Nothing else.
Let's say you make a copy of your mind but don't destroy the original. There are now two seperate individuals who count themselves as 'you' running around. You say they count as two individuals, yes?
Now let's say we destroy the 'you' from which the copy was made. There is still an entity called The Mindset running around, but it is not the original Mindset. It's a copy with all the same memories and mental patterns, but it's still seperate from the original Mindset.
Let's say you were were the original which we just tossed into the disintigration booth. We've just destroyed 'you,' but there's still a copy of you running around, so it's all good, right?
The only exception to this line of reasoning that I can see is if you're a hivemind with your copy, but we aren't talking about that.
Basically, here's a scenario:
You're sitting at your computer. An omnipotent space gerbil appears and makes a perfect copy of you. He then waves his whiskers and consigns the you sitting at the computer to oblivion. There is still someone with your memories and thoughts running around, but the you who was sitting at the computer is gone forever.
"Please tell me that you haven't heard military gossip about a fleet of invisible battleplates."