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Dreaded_Anomaly comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 7 - Less Wrong
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That's a weak use of permanence. Nothing about the process of sleep requires that it be permanent, so sleep does not have the inherent property of permanence. Sometimes, people incidentally never wake from sleep, but that's not permanence in the way that death is inherently permanent.
I don't agree that we stop being intelligent when we sleep. You continue to assert this, but without supporting it. Again:
Also, if intelligence "stops" and "starts" from the same physical generator, i.e. the brain, (which isn't what happens with sleep) then it is the same one.
(Edited to add article link.)
What makes it inherently permanent? The only difference between sleep, cryostasis, and being shot in the head is how likely you are to be revived. It's never certain, and it's never impossible. Death is permanent by definition, but that just means we're never quite certain anybody is dead.
Pretty much everyone's brain is made of the same quarks and leptons, so the same physical generator doesn't exactly narrow it down any. I would explain what I mean by that, but the link you have already does it.
Yes, it does. The link says, actually:
The physical generator includes the configuration of those quarks and leptons, which is what gives rise to the specific intelligence.
The configuration isn't the same when you wake up. It's similar, but how do you know how similar it has to be?
Again, there's nothing prevent a given configuration from ever occuring again, so you can't tell if someone dies. Also, the configuration I had when I was little no longer exists. Wouldn't that mean that as I live, each earlier instance of me is slowly dying?
When the butterfly emerges, is the caterpillar dead? I don't think so. Life still exists, and though its form changes, there is continuity from one moment to the next. The same is true for intelligence. To say otherwise is to stretch the meaning of "death" beyond relevance.