[ExI] Open Individualism

[efc at swisscows.email]

On Sat, 6 Jan 2024, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote:

> Thank you Daniel, I appreciate your insights and I too was feeling echoes of that discussion.

You're welcome Jason! =)

> What it comes down to is whether we believe only what we see, or do we take theories literally and adopt some (less certain) belief
> in the implications of our theories.
> 
> Unless one is careful, it is hard to make a metaphysical commitment either way. As both denying the existence of other universes, as
> well as accepting the existence of other universes is a metaphysical commitment. To remain agnostic one must be silent on the
> question, to neither accept nor deny the existence of other universes which we do not see.

I agree in the strictest and most consistent interpretation. There is
another "trick" that some people employ and that is to argue that the
one who deviates from the "common sense" view (that there is a physical
reality with individuals in it) is the one who has the burden of proof,
and absent proof, the common sense view wins.

However... you know me, I am attracted by the agnostic point of view,
and I do accept that that means that in some cases we can only shrug our
shoulders and say "given our current evidence, we don't know".

I do think however, that there are plenty of people (atheists come to
mind) who do favour the strategy where the burden of proof of is shifted
onto the believer in god.

> As it comes to personal identity, the absolutist instrumentalist position could conclude only that they are a single thought moment,
> and could never have any evidence that other future thought moments (from their perspective) exist or will be experienced. The
> existence of future points in time, would be a theoretical conjecture, though one we must accept to operate as functioning beings in
> the world. Thus, even the conventional / folk view of personal identity makes unprovable metaphysical assumptions concerning the
> existence of unobserved entities (future experiences).

Could you expand here? My interpretation would be that all future events
have a probability of occuring and are validated by them actually
occuring. But this is not what you mean I think.

Best regards, 
Daniel