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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 06/01/2024 17:32, Jason Resch wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.117.1704562328.606.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<pre><div dir="auto">I don't think you have yet understood the idea. It's not about grouping things.</div><div
dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">It
all comes down to one question: what did it take for you to be born?
For you you to be alive now in this moment? What principle in science
says the experience this one life you are in is somehow different or
special compared to all the trillions of other creatures who have lived
on this planet?</div></pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
I don't understand the idea at all. It seems like complete nonsense.<br>
<br>
To answer the (two, not one) questions above:<br>
<br>
1) Innumerable things, that nobody can possibly completely answer
(the question is a bit broad, really)<br>
<br>
2) I am unique among the trillions of other creatures because
genetics and the many variables involved in my development ensure
this, but I'm not in any objective way 'special'. Subjectively, on
the other hand... Well, I'm the only 'Me' (so far), and that counts
as special, at least to me.<br>
<br>
But I don't see what this has to do with 'Open Individualism'. In
fact, these questions seem to be completely at odds with the idea
that 'I am everybody'. Everybody's different, so they can't be the
same. I'm not everybody, I'm just me. And the same is true for
everyone else. We are all alone, no matter how much we communicate
with each other, or how well we know someone else, we can never be
in their heads.<br>
<br>
Perhaps this concept of Open Individualism is a result of reluctance
to accept that? Similar to some religious ideas (particularly the
oxymoronic 'afterlife') being a result of reluctance to accept that
when you're dead, you're dead?<br>
<br>
<br>
Ben<br>
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