[extropy-chat] What should survive and why?

[Lee Corbin]

Heartland writes

> Lee:
>> I *am* interested in how "my string" varies, even varies from
>> moment to moment. Assuming that "my string" is just a
>> digital readout of my state, that is.  So long as it remains
>> 99.99999999999% the same from moment to moment,
>> that's okay. And even if it's only 99.99999% the same---
>> in case I am disintegrated and a copy you made of me
>> yesterday is teleported to my present location---that's
>> still fine (provided that there is something in it for us
>> Lee Corbins, e.g. a nice fat
>> check---because I will not lose memories for nothing).
> 
> 
> What if the strings were 98% the same from moment to moment?
> Please explain why 99.99999999999% would be okay and 52%
> or 1% would not be okay.

Yikes!  Are you kidding?  I would "estimate" that maybe around
age 17 the legal entity known as Lee Corbin had 50% of the
core memories that make me who I am.  To be summarily 
replaced by a 17-year old version of me would be, in my calculus,
like dying by about one-half.  From "moment to moment" is a
very rough period of time, but the idea is that I should remain
very much the same person for years and years.

> Where's the dividing line (give me a percentage) between "okay"
> and "not okay?" Also, quantify the time interval between moments.

I have now explained the basic meaning of those. Since identity
*is* memory, then it's a tautology that to the degree I lose some
I become someone else. If it was not some very high figure like
99.99999999999% from moment to moment, then I would too
rapidly become someone else.  Even as it is, I am annoyed that
I am rapidly (over the decades) becoming someone else.

> Should we compare two strings every nanosecond, microsecond,
> second, minute, hour or perhaps a week to make it more practical
> and less annoying? Please justify all your choices.

Ah, when you wrote above "Where's the dividing line (give me a
percentage)" I was afraid that this was just another symptom of
your apparent belief that life and death is like 1 and 0, and that
there are sharp dividing lines.  There are not.  To what degree
is the Ship of Theseus not the same ship after a number of years?
We know that *eventually* --- were it slowly transformed into
the Queen Mary --- that it would be silly to think of it as the same
ship. Yet there can be no absolute dividing line (unless you believe
in something quite akin to souls).

> Lee:
>> When we talked on the phone, we would agree that we had exchanged *bodies*
>> not memories. The creature in Santa Clara California would want the old Slawomir
>> body back (I assure you), and rightfully consider it *his* body!
>>
>> Clear enough?
> 
> Not yet.

Eh?  Why not.  This seems simple.  If we had a 100% swap of memories,
then I would be in your body, and vice versa. What is unclear?

> Lee:
>> Don't you agree that it is our memories that determine who
>> we think we are (and, I go on to claim, who we in fact are).
> 
> Yes. (surprised?)
> But if I prefer "memory content" instead of "memories" as a determinant of who we
> are because "memory content" or just "memory" implies also skills, beliefs, and
> patterns of perception, not just recollections of past events.

Yes;  I have not been especially consistent myself on to what degree
these other things are important.  But how important to *identity*
are they?  Consider if you lost some.  You would then seek medical
advice and complain that *you* had lost these patterns.  An exactly
similar scenario about swapping entire memory can be easily seen:
the Slawomir complaints would issue from wherever the bulk of the
Slawomir memories were.  Not from where the skill set went.

To press the point, if I woke up tomorrow with your beliefs, then
(except for the peculiar aspect that I could not recall their development),
I would suppose that I had somehow abruptly changed my mind, that's
all.

> At this point you still have not answered the question I was really asking so let
> me ask it again using different words:
> 
> Why do you think preserving *who we are* matters? There
> are so many other things you could be focused on preserving
> into the future so why it is most important to preserve who
> we are, let alone who *you* are?

Ya know, it's just this prejudice I have, ya see?  I want to stick
around a while, and that means that I have to get more runtime,
and that means that my memories must be encased in a running
process somewhere sometime.

Lee