[extropy-chat] Indexical Uncertainty

[Robin Hanson]

At 07:55 PM 10/16/2006, Russell Wallace wrote:
>I was just following Lee's notation.   A better name might be "Index#2923".
>But it is more about minds than bodies.   You know you are a mind, but you
>might not know which body that corresponds to.
>
>To see why it doesn't make sense to say "I might not be me", 
>consider that fundamentally there is nothing ontologically 
>privileged about one's past and future selves as opposed to other 
>people. Do you think it makes sense to ask "why am I currently my 
>current self as opposed to my 10 year old self or my 70 year old self?"

I think I agree to your claim about lack of privilege.   Whether it 
makes sense to ask "why" depends on more details, but it can make 
sense to ask which of these creatures you are, if you are 
uncertain.  And it could make sense to ask which of them will 
remember being you, or which ones you remember being.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323