[ExI] Open Individualism

[Jason Resch]

On Sat, Jan 13, 2024, 4:10 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Jason Resch wrote:
>
> Various things about uploading and duplication...
>
> It seems we agree on the various duplication scenarios, we just prefer to
> use different terminology, but this started as a discussion about 'Open
> Individualism', which I'm still no closer to understanding.
>

If you agree that you become all your duplicates then you are just one step
from accepting the premise of open individualism, which follows if you make
the further assumption concerning your duplicates:

That they need not be exact copies for you to become them.


> >>> 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
>

There are two organisms, but how many unique "experiencers" are there?

Is there a large number because over time each organism produces many
unique experiences each of which is had by its own unique experiencer?
(This is empty individualism), are there just two experiencers, because
each experiencer is a continuation of the same material organization/body?
(This is closed individualism), or is there only one experiencer, as the
experiences are mere contingencies, like they are for the same organism in
two different times. (This is open individualism).

The reason transporters, duplicates, amnesia, split brains, etc. are useful
is because they highlight the flaws and assumptions in our (usually
unquestioned) conventional view of personal identity where we equate each
person with each particular organism.

But consider how badly the conventional view (i.e. "one person to one
organism") fails to address the situation where we anesthetize the corpus
callosum and cause a temporary split brain which results in two independent
consciousnesses in the same skull (this is a recognized real-world
phenomenon that occurs after split brain surgeries, or in the related
diagnostic Wada test).

When there are two independent consciousnesses do we say they are two
different people? What happens to those persons when the anesthetic wears
off and the consciousness fuses into one? What causes the two minds to
split and fuse in the first place? Which hemisphere (one, both, neither) do
you become when your consciousness splits during such a procedure?

We can non longer use the notion of a "biological organism" to handle the
individuals that appear in this situation. Instead we see the division and
fusion of consciousness is a matter of integration: when information is
shared between them, they recognize they belong to one and the same mind,
when this integration is lost they each feel as if they are their own
separate individuals, unaware of what the other hemisphere knows or is
thinking.

Open individualism suggests that you and I (and all others) as separate
organisms, may be much like the split hemispheres of a split brain patient,
each believing they are separate, but really only under a spell of
non-integration.


>
> > Can you use the fact that you are only presently aware of "now" to
> refute eternalism?
>
> From what I can understand, eternalism is the view that the future, as
> well as the past, is fixed. I don't think that's likely to be true, but
> wouldn't know how to refute it through what I'm presently aware of.
>

That's what I believe to be the correct answer. Some people believe that if
those other times were real and existed, that they could feel it (even from
the perspective of this time), and therefore declare it false because they
only feel that they are in one moment of time.



> > Can you use the fact that you are only presently aware of "this branch"
> to refute many-worlds?
>
> I don't have any interest in many-worlds, it may or may not be true, but
> don't really see the point in agonising about it. It has the same status,
> in my mind, as the simulation argument. Can't be proven or disproven, so
> maybe it's true, maybe not, and either way, what can we do about it?
> Nothing.
>

My point here was the same as above, related to eternalism. Some people
think that if they were in other branches they would perceive that fact
directly.



> > If not, then I would argue that neither can you use the fact that you
> are only presently aware of "Ben Zaiboc's POV" to refute open individualism.
>
> I don't see how that follows,
>

All the many conscious perspectives that exist are already non-integrated.
Therefore we should not expect any of them to be able to feel the other
perspectives from the POV of one of them. So this lack of direct
apprehension of the other views cannot serve as evidence against the
hypothesis that a single experiencer possesses all these perspectives.


but anyway, I'm not trying to refute it, I'm trying to understand what it
> means. "There is only one person" can't mean what it seems to mean, as it's
> clearly not true. There are lots of people. So what does it mean?
>

Before I can answer that, we have to be very clear how we are defining
person.

If you define person by "biological organism," then I agree, there is
clearly not one person. But if you define a person as "a particular
consciousness", or as "one who experiences", then the answer to how many
people there are is not so obvious. As the split brain scenario shows,
there are flaws with defining persons as particular "biological organisms".
It gets no easier when we consider transporters, cloning machines, mind
uploading, etc.



> "There is only one person in this room at this moment" is true. "There is
> only one person in this town" is not. Clearly 'one person' in Open
> Individualism has some special meaning that people don't ordinarily use, or
> are even aware of. Can you explain what this special meaning is?
>

A more nuanced definition of person, one usually centered on consciousness.
When I ask, for example, whether one survives a star trek style
transporter, clearly they do not if we define the person by a particular
body or collection of atoms, but clearly they do if we define the person by
their mind/consciousness. So what is the better, more accurate way of
defining a person, and to decide what ordeals a person can survive?



> > You can experience great pain and you can experience great joy. Those
> two experiences couldn't be more different from one another, but they are
> both experiences you are capable of having. I would argue then that your
> experience of eating an apple is not so different from the experience of
> that New Zealander eating an apple 200 years ago, at least the two
> experiences are more similar than the two extremes of consciousness
> experience you are capable of having. All conscious experiences have in
> common, the feeling of immediacy, and that is all that is required for it
> to feel like it is your experience.
>
> I've no argument with the idea that two humans, no matter how different,
> have lots in common. Just because two things have lots in common, doesn't
> mean they are the same thing, though. Two grains of sand have much more in
> common with each other than I do with some New Zealander 200 years ago, but
> they still aren't the same grain of sand. Nobody claims "there is only one
> grain of sand".
>
> I can't make any sense of this 'one person' thing at all.
>

Perhaps this analogy can help: one ocean contains many drops of water.

Each drop of water, while unique, is nevertheless a part of a greater
singular whole. Each conscious experience is like a drop of water. They are
unique and different.

The question of personal identity, is how do we group these drops into
particular collections of drops which we call "persons".

Empty individualism says each drop is its own person.

Closed individualism says some of these drops can be placed into certain
buckets, and these buckets represent all the experiences a particular
person has.

Open individualism says all the drops belong to one big bucket, the whole
ocean.

I'm not sure if this analogy helps or not, let me know and keep asking good
questions. :-)

Jason
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