[extropy-chat] the self identity quest - another reply to Jef Allbright

[david ish shalom]

Thank you Jef for your detailed reply. you say: "but I don't see how such a
"desire and intention" fills in any essential gaps in the
information constituting personal identity." my reply: Suppose I am now
timid and introverted person, my scientific capabilities are limited  yet my
ideal self which I seek very seriously is of a warm and friendly person,
extrovert and outgoing, even charismatic person, very fluent in English and
with huge scientific knowledge and acumen etc. now for me personally who I
am? The answer is, my identity is not determined by what I am now  with my
limitations and faulty nature, but my identity is mainly determined by what
I am going to be in the future, enhanced human being or even post human
being. Yet I will always remember from within who I was, the salient
information regarding my former existence, my past limited abilities etc. so
naturally in the capturing of my personal identity I will place more
importance to my future enhanced self than to my far from perfect present
self. That means apparently much reduction in connectedness, yet, it is not
so much reduction since my enhanced self already constitute great deal of my
present self identity, thus compensating for this apparent reduction in
connectedness. the self identity is the most dynamic component of the
personality and enable us to go through much change in our life without
loosing our self identity. This by no means "imply a convergence of all
individuals toward an imagined abstract future identity"  since firstly much
of my older self will be preserved and remembered and experienced from
within, thus differentiating myself from any other person; but yes in the
future, when we will all be connected to super intelligence and to all
knowledge and information of humanity and machines together and
synchronously connected to each other at will, there will certainly be some
convergence of all intelligent beings of the future. I call this future
Self/s as me keeping my complete individuality, but at the same time being
connected to the whole and to others, achieving convergence and my personal
uniqueness at the same time.

"gather anonymous results from a large sample population for the purpose of
understanding shared perceptions and values." Bainbridge Personality Capture
is just  the contrary, to gather individual information from a large number
of questioner questions, to gather the salient information about that unique
personality.

"Are you sure you mean it will be "perfected" or do you mean "improved"? I
mean it will be much improved to comply with reliable identity capture
procedure. After all, Bainbridge did not meant to capture the self identity
but the capture of the personality and understanding the difference in these
two different albeit resembling notions itself can lay the base for this
improvement to be achieved quite soon, if enough resources will be diverted
to that matter.
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