[ExI] Uploads are self

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 24/03/2026 12:08, Jason Resch wrote:

> functionalism is silent on the question of which experiences instantiated in which places are experience[s] you can expect to be yours.

I agree with John here.

Functionalism says that you can expect the experiences in your own mind to belong to you, and nobody else (even if other people have very similar, or even identical, experiences, which of course we can't actually verify).

--
Ben

On Tuesday, 24 March 2026 at 11:23, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 21/03/2026 21:19, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>>> Functionalism is a theory in the philosophy of mind. If one accepts functionalism, then that is enough to establish the uploaded mind will be conscious.
>
> Yes. And an implicit belief in functionalism is the reason you feel certain that solipsism is untrue and your fellow human beings are conscious, except when they are sleeping or under anesthesia or dead.
>
>>> But functionalism is silent on the question of which experiences instantiated in which places are experience[s] you can expect to be yours.
>
> No, and when discussing this topic great care is needed in the use of personal pronouns. According to functionalism the "you" of yesterday is the "you" who says he remembers being the "you" of yesterday. And yes, if two beings are able to do that then they are both the "you" of yesterday. Using this procedure one can always look back through time and see a continuous chain of "yous", but trying to do this into the future does not work, it would be like pushing on a string. As Hugh Everett said in his original PhD thesis that introduced the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, it would be like asking which one was the real original amoeba after it reproduced by dividing in two.
>
> And if you reject functionalism then you'd need to take the idea that you're the only conscious being in the universe seriously. Do you really want to do that?
>
> John K Clark
>
>>
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