[ExI] [extropy-chat] What should survive and why?

[Heartland]

Heartland:
>> 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.

Lee:
> 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.


The rules of this calculus are all arbitrary, subjective (thus unverifiable) and
messy. I really don't know why you keep asserting there is such a thing as
"degree of death," and implying this assumption is unassailable. My usual
response to such statements is, "Can you be little pregnant too?"

Lee:
> 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.

Of course there are. Life and death *is* like 1 and 0. There's no such thing as
"degree of life" either. A small flame or an inferno is still fire.

Lee:
>  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.

It would still be a ship, wouldn't it? :-) Who cares to what degree Queen Mary
contains Ship of Theseus if the thing still allows me to sail from point A to B?

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?

Heartland:
>> Not yet.

Lee:
> 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?

The scenario itself was clear enough, yes. It's the way you answered the original
question that was a bit less clear.


>> 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).

Heartland:
>> 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.

Lee:
> Yes;  I have not been especially consistent myself on to what degree
> these other things are important.  But how important to *identity*
> are they?

I might ask you, to what degree specific memories are important? After all, I could 
abstract a
single memory from specific memories of the people who went to a zoo and file it 
under "Standard Zoo Experience." There's nothing special about our memories. The 
higher the abstraction level, the more alike they become (eventually approaching 
the same type).

Actually, in light of this, I would like to update/retract my quoted comment above.
Memory is a poor determinant of who we are, if at all. An alien examining humans 
would
have a similarly hard time identifying essential differences between individuals as 
we
would identifying essential differences between individual ants. None of our 
personal memories are terribly special, important or worth preserving. They are a 
luxury, not a necessity.


Heartland:
>> 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?

Lee:
> Ya know, it's just this prejudice I have, ya see?

So your motivation to preserve memories reduces to a personal prejudice? I'm afraid 
you have to do better
than that, Lee. I would like you to tell me precisely what's hiding behind that 
prejudice. Only then we can move on to the *really* good stuff. Perhaps Stathis 
will take the bait. :-)

H