[ExI] head transplant again

[Mike Dougherty]

On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 8:15 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> Suppose a 10-stone weakling gets a 20-stone testosterone-charged body.
> How will he change? And vice-versa.
> Or a body with allergies? Or muscle memories, like piano-playing, or
> tap-dancing, or much increased / reduced sex drive? Will left-handed
> become right-handed?
>
> I would expect changes to personality, so that in a few years the
> patient will be a different 'you'.

Suppose you change from sneakers to boots, are you still the same
"you" ?  If you are measuring your identity by terrain-capability,
then perhaps you have.  In that case you 'become' a different person
while wearing an exoskeleton (or, similarly, while driving a car);
while wearing oven mitts (capable of holding hot items without
burning); while using a calculator to do math (vs. bare-brained);
after eating a large pasta or turkey dinner; etc.

This identity question seems to polarize into answers where "you" (or
"I") am some ineffable soul-force that exists outside the machinery or
every piece of hardware and software that you may access is hashed
into the pronoun.  We might agree that "you" are the skills you
possess.  Then 'I' ask to join 'your' network on LinkedIn because the
extended "you" includes the other people to whom 'you' can introduce
'me.'   (pronouns emphasized to illustrate how unconsciously we apply
these fuzzy boundaries around identity)