<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Jan 4, 2024 at 2:29 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
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On 04/01/2024 16:29, BillK wrote:<br>
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<pre>open individualism posits that all individuals are
fundamentally connected at the level of consciousness. From this
perspective, you and I are not separate individuals with distinct
identities but rather manifestations of the same underlying
consciousness or awareness.</pre>
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Hm. If this is so, then why is there no experience of it?</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The "you-now" is not, I presume, experiencing the same thing as the "you-from-5-minutes-ago". Yet by convention we say both conscious states are experienced by the same person.<br></div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div> I
certainly don't experience any consciousness but my own. Can anyone
claim otherwise?<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>You don't remember experiencing any consciousness but your own. But memory is no guarantor of what you have or haven't experienced. Someone had the vivid experience of eating the breakfast you ate 947 days ago, but I doubt you have any memory of that experience. To whom does that experience belong?</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
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I don't see how all individuals (or even just two) can possibly be
'connected at the level of consciousness' without being conscious of
it. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Consider the diagrams I created here, which compare and contrast three theories of personal identity: <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UvJ5X8ovzz6ZrJJWKDoiUvj2g6p6H6p-nUz1XdDt6aU/edit?usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UvJ5X8ovzz6ZrJJWKDoiUvj2g6p6H6p-nUz1XdDt6aU/edit?usp=sharing</a></div><div><br></div><div>We have the habit of drawing arbitrary borders around some collections of experiences, and say "this person experiences these experiences but not those other experiences", but by what logic do we base this? What if we drew the borders in a different way? What does that change? Is there any physical fact that defines which experiences are to be exclusively perceived? </div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>The conclusion is that we must be separate individuals with
distinct identities, or we would all be aware that this was not the
case. This seems to describe a 'hive mind', and we are definitely
not that.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Open individualism has nothing to do with hive minds. I think that excerpt from the AI's description is misleading. From any perspective, our knowledge and memories are limited by the neurology that perspective currently has access to. It will *seem* as though you are only ever one person, because that is all your present memories will ever provide evidence for. But this is like concluding there is one objective now (and that no other points in time exist or are as valid/real as the present) because those are times are times you happen to not be in. It is the illusion that there is some special selection (now / here / me / this branch of the multiverse), that makes *this* more real than the other times / other places / other perspectives / other branches. But this is only an illusion created by the limitations of one's current vantage point. By studying the issues, we can come to realize other points in time are real too, other locations we're not in are just as real, other branches of the multiverse are just as real, and so on. Until we can break the greatest illusion of all: that your experiences are only those of one particular organism.</div><div><br></div><div>Jason</div></div></div>