[ExI] Fwd: Open Individualism

[Jason Resch]

On Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 6:15 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 19, 2024 at 10:03 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Would you care to name which other possibility that is missing aside from
>> these three?
>>
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UvJ5X8ovzz6ZrJJWKDoiUvj2g6p6H6p-nUz1XdDt6aU/edit#slide=id.g2ac585a35ce_0_43
>>
>
> That a person is defined by something other than observer-moments.
>

I agree a person isn't "defined by" these observer moments. But one of the
questions of personal identity is "which experiences are had by which
persons?"

However we might define "person," I hope you agree that this question is
meaningful.

Experiences are something we as persons have. So the question: which
experiences are mine? Which one's will I experience? Leads to the three-way
split in theories of personal identity. That is, how do we assign which
observer moments, are experiences that will be had by which persons?


  In theory this is closed individualism (as each person contains a set of
> zero or more, potentially more than one, observer-moments), except that any
> given observer-moment could belong to more than one person, without open
> individualism's "all observer-moments are shared" criteria.
>
>
>> Exactly, you have come upon the central concern of personal identity. You
>> have three options:
>>
>> 1. You are only a single isolated thought moment
>> 2. You are a collection of some thought moments, but not others
>> 3. You are all thought moments.
>>
>
> 4. You are zero thought moments.
>

Then it's not conscious of anything, and I would say would not qualify as a
person.

(Anything in you that appears to be a thought moment, is in fact something
> else.)
>

A thought moment is simply the smallest indivisible time-slice of a
conscious experience. If indivisible conscious experiences exist, thought
moments exist.


2.5. You are a constantly changing collection of some thought moments, but
> not others.  (As distinct from the static set your image in that GDoc
> implies.)
>

The question which experiences ultimately belong to you, or will be had by
you, is agnostic on time. It will thereby include all times in which the
person has/does/will exist.


3.5 Only those thought moments that are you, truly exist; there are no
> actual thought moments other than yours.
>

So there is a single thought moment, and it is you in this moment? I
suppose if that is true, all three definitions of personal identity
collapse to being the same thing. They would only differentiate when there
are more than one thought moments. I wonder if there is a name for this
"singular solipsism" idea.

It's quite creative.

Jason
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