[ExI] Time and Personal Identity

[Jason Resch]

Copying from the other thread:

>       > Extend this with other genes, one at a time, and let me know when
> it leads to
> >       > you being "dead forever" "experiencing nothing" "an eternal
> blank", with
> >       > "someone else" (who isn't you) walking around living and
> enjoying the world.
> >
> > I am curious if what I wrote here was of any help in relaying my point.
>
> I'm not so sure.
>

In brief, I am asking:

What factors were necessary for you to be alive and experiencing something
right now in this moment?
What had to happen?

- If you put on a different shirt today, would you still be alive and
experiencing something right now?
- If you ate something else last week, such that your brain had different
atoms, would you still be alive and experiencing something right now?
- If you had a gene mutation during your development, making your eyes a
different shade of color, would you still be alive and experiencing
something right now?
- If you forgot something trivial yesterday, would you still be alive and
experiencing something right now?

All these questions probe at personal identity. What, and how much can be
changed without losing who you are? What is the minimum that would have had
to have changed before you were born to make sure you would never live?

If you get to the point of denying any necessary contingencies, and say "it
doesn't matter if you change that factor, or that factor, so long as
someone was born, I would have been that person" then this is a step
towards open individualism.

If, however, you make your existence contingent on some material fact -- "I
had to have exactly these atoms make up my body, and no others would do" --
then you are firmly in the space of closed or empty individualism.

My question was meant to gauge where you stand on this
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20250303/1ee38315/attachment.htm>