For years I have often gazed at the beautiful Charles River near my home. If I look at the Charles today, I tend to think of it as the same body of water that it was a day ago, or a decade ago, when I commented on the river’s continuity in How to Create a Mind. This is because even though all of the water molecules passing through a given slice of it are completely different every few milliseconds, those molecules act in a consistent pattern that defines the course of the river. It is the same for minds. As we place nonbiological systems into our bodies and brains, the continuity of our
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