[ExI] Is a copy of you really you?

[SR Ballard]

My opinion is as follows:

The amoeba question is just the Ship of Theseus. It has whatever answer you would like it to have. The “daughter” amoebas are simultaneously the same as the “mother” amoeba without actually being the mother amoeba. 

If you were to copy yourself instantly with exactly duplicate memories, then you(a), as an agent would be unable to tell if it was you(a) or you(b) that was the mother-copy or the daughter-copy. Effectively, you(a) and you(b) are now just a normal set of twins.

>From now on, any question about copies can be answered using the logic of twins.

If I (twin-a) am killed, do I continue to live on through them (twin-b)? No.

Assuming that the mother-copy is marked in some way, and we can know that twin-a is the mother-copy, then clearly twin-b has no claim to twin-a’s property, wife, children, etc just as in a normal twin relationship. 

However, because twin-a is here the mother-copy, they might be obliged to some kind of “parental duty” in the form of money or lodging to ensure twin-b can start off well in the world. 

The only way we could consider twin-a and twin-b to be one “you” (one coherent identity instead of twins) is if there was continuous bidirectional uploading. For example, you(a) and you(b) go about your daily experiences as normal. When you sleep your “consciousness file” is synced. After sleeping you will have some form of “shared” memory with your other self. That is the only way that “you” could exist in two bodies: if you were able to, in some way, share consciousness between the two.