[ExI] Open Individualism

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 07/01/2024 00:21, Jason Resch wrote:

     >>> If you step into a star trek style transporter, but some error 
causes
     >>> 5 identical copies of yourself to beam down, which one do you 
become?
     >>>
     >>> A) none of them
     >>> B) one of them
     >>> C) all of them

     >>"Which one do you become?" is not a sensible or meaningful question.

...

 > Let's say someone comes to your door with the following proposition:

 > He will pay you $1,000,000 to scan you, destroy you (kill you, 
painlessly), then create a perfect replica of you to take over your life 
from that point forward. Do you take him up on his offer?

No.

 > Here, you need a theory of personal identity to decide whether or not 
you are killed, or whether or not you are paid a million dollars to be a 
test subject in using the first teletransporter.

 > Faced with this proposition, you can't avoid the issue by saying it's 
a meaningless question.

That's right. but it's not the same question. In the original question, 
you get into a transporter, which disassembles your body and recreates 
it somewhere else (and accidentally creates more than one). In your 
second question, you are non-destructively duplicated, leaving your 
original body intact, which is then murdered. I know there are people 
who regard destructive duplication as the same thing, but I don't. Maybe 
you can translate that into a 'theory of identity'. I won't try to. I'll 
just say that the crucial thing is the timing. Destructive scanning 
instantaneously (subjectively, anyway) translates the subject into the 
new form/s. Non-destructive scanning leaves the subject intact, with 
their own ongoing experiences. So non-destructive scanning plus 
subsequent destruction of the subject equals murder, destructive 
scanning does not (which raises the interesting question of what about 
if the subject is rendered unconscious before the procedure?).

...

 > Do you consider any questions that asks: "What do you expect to 
experience in the next moment?" to be meaningless?

No. I consider questions that refer to a singular 'you' in the context 
of multiple duplication to be meaningless. A bit like sending an 
interactive novel to 5 different people, then asking "what happens 
next?", and expecting just one answer.


 >>    The same thing applies to someone who is duplicated multiple 
times. Each
     resultant person is the same in the sense that they can correctly claim
     to have been the original in the past, and they are all different from
     each other because they are now separate minds that have different
     experiences since the duplication. They will probably retain the same
     basic personality traits, and will probably express them in different
     ways, depending on their individual circumstances. They will each be an
     independent person, with the same past as all the others, up to the
     point of divergence.


 > But does your consciousness survive? That's what people are concerned 
with.

I don't see why that question occurs to you. Of course it survives, in 
multiple instances. How could it not? If it didn't, there would have 
been no duplication.
If you sent a story to 20 different people, you don't ask yourself "does 
that story still exist?", even if you had deleted the copy on your own 
computer, you wouldn't doubt that the story still exists.


 >>    If you insist on the wording "which one do you become?", I'd have to
     answer A and C. Which kind of illustrates that it's a silly question.


 > I think your answer shows the silliness of the conventional view of 
personal identity. Your answer indicates a preference for either empty 
individualism or open individualism, which are both logically more 
tenable, but empty individualism is non workable as a decision theory 
since it allows no expectations and makes behaviors like saving for 
retirement (or any future planning) pointless.

I think my answer shows the silliness of the question. Or perhaps, the 
fact that we're not used to thinking in terms of multiple selves. I 
normally use the example of an amoeba dividing to illustrate this. When 
an amoeba divides into two daughter amoebas, by replicating all its 
organelles and splitting into two, which one is the original amoeba? The 
question doesn't mean anything, does it? The original becomes two. The 
question "Which one do you become?" is the same. Conventional experience 
doesn't apply, because people have never done this before. When (as I 
hope will happen) it becomes possible, we'll have to change the way we 
think about personal identity, and it will cause many people 
considerable problems. Doubtless it will spawn new 'Theories of Identity'!

Ask yourself this question: If you are duplicated, creating two new 
people, and only one of them is 'you', then who the hell is the other one???


      >>> The "2024-you" is also different in many ways (different place,
     different atoms, different experience), from the "2023-you".

      >>> But we also, as a matter of general practice, believe/assume that
     despite these difference, they are experienced by the same person.

 >>    I'd agree with both these things: Different, and also the same,
     depending on which factors you're considering.


 > That's good. I would then add that person identity theories attempt 
to specify which factors ought to be considered.

I assume here you mean 'in each case', as they are different.


      >>> Personal identity theories attempt to answer the question of what,
     and how much, can change while retaining the identity of a person.

 >>    The answer to that depends on what your definition of 'identity' 
is, so
     it's a circular question. You could create a philosophical field 
called,
     say, Fish Identity Theory, that attempts to answer whether Sardines are
     animals or fish. There is no definitive answer to a question like this,
     without any other context (the most realistic answer, of course, is
     "both"). Insisting on one or the other is really more of an invitation
     to have a pointless argument than a genuine question.


 > What differentiates concerns of personal identity from taxonomy is 
that there are definite hard answers to the questions or concerns: i.e. 
will you, or will you not experience this particular conscious experience?

 > It makes no difference to the fish what we call it, but it surely 
makes a difference to you, whether the transporter kills you (ends your 
consciousness permanently), or takes you to Paris.

You are assuming that 'you' means the same thing before and after the 
procedure. My point is that there is more than one 'you' afterward, each 
fully entitled to be called 'you'. We are not used to thinking in these 
terms, which is what I think causes these misunderstandings. This is why 
the question "what happens to you?" doesn't work, because people tend to 
baulk at the answer "you are duplicated". People then ask "ok, but which 
one is REALLY you??", which I hope you can see, is a silly question.

The key thing to wrap our heads around, I think, is that 'you' doesn't 
have to be unique. And I do appreciate, this is hard. I struggled with 
it for quite a while. But the conclusion I came to in the end, is that 
assuming that there can only be one unique 'you' is a form of dualism. 
And I reject dualism completely. If the same mental pattern is 
duplicated, then by necessity, the same person becomes two, or more 
people, in every way. This is the same as copying a CD or a DVD. A 
pattern of information is duplicated. There are now 500 spreadsheets, or 
30,000 Beethoven's fifth Symphonies. The question "Which one is the real 
one?" is meaningless. They are all the real one, all identical 
duplicates of the original single one.


      >>> Empty individualism says any change at all, no matter how small,
     constitutes a new person. Closed individualism, says you can only 
change
     so much while being the same person. Open  individualism says 
there's no
     limit to how much can change and yet still remain the same person --
     that all variations of material composition of the body or 
psychological
     content of the experience, are mere contingencies.

     >> Ok, so there you have three different views on the matter. 
That's all
     you can say. You certainly can't say if one is 'righter' than the
     others, without further qualifying context.

 > Only one of these theories can be correct.

I disagree. Each different theory is looking at a different aspect, 
which is why I used the taxonomy examples.


 > Your last two answers are consistent, in that they recognize 
time/space interchangeability. That is, there's no fundamental 
difference between the same person existing in two times, vs. the same 
person existing in two places.

There is a considerable difference. the first is commonplace, the second 
has never yet happened.


     >>And I'm still no closer to understanding what 'Open Individualism'
     actually means. "One numerically identical subject, who is everyone at
     all times, in the past, present and future" is a sentence that makes no
     sense. What does 'One numerically identical...' mean? 'Identical' is a
     comparison, so you have to have at least two things, for them to be
     identical to one another in any respect. 'One identical thing' is
     meaningless. Can we replace that with "one person", for clarity, or
     doesn't that work?. The rest just reads as gobbledigook. Can it be
     boiled down to "one person, who is all people"? At least that sentence
     is coherent. As for what it means...


 > Boiled down to one sentence, it is the idea that: "There is only one 
person."

Ok, well that is demonstrably not true. There are at least two people, 
you and me (ok, I know about me, but... (and that's a different 
discussion!))

     >>Your definition above is different, though. You refer to how much
     someone can change and still be thought of as the same. The Wiki
     definition talks about everyone already being the same.

 > When I was talking about change, I was referring to changing the 
material composition of the body and the content of experience, while 
remaining the same person.

The only thing left then is memory. If that remains the same, then I'd 
say, yes, same person. If not, then there is no basis for considering 
them to be the same person.

  > If anything about the body or experience is free to be changed while 
not destroying the person, then there is only one person.

Fine, but what has that got to do with the Wiki definition, which 
encompasses all people, not just one?

Someone in New Zealand, born 200 years ago, has a different body, 
experiences and memories to me. We are definitely not 'the same person'. 
As far as I can see, this idea of 'Open Individualism' seems to be 
claiming that we are. Or have I got that wrong?


Ben
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