<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jan 22, 2024 at 3:21 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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<br>
<div>On 21/01/2024 16:02, Jason Resch wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 9:31 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
On 20/01/2024 15:11, Jason Resch wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">
where does one person begin and end? If someone steps into a
transporter that destroys their body and reconstructs it
elsewhere, do we draw a terminating border at one end and say the
person died here, and a new separate person began elsewhere? Or do
we draw the borders such that there is a continuous link bridging
then, such that it is all the same person, and the experiences of
the person who emerges on the other side of the teleporter, *are*
experiences that will be had by the person who stepped into the
transporter?</blockquote>
Depends on what you need, and what point of view you adopt. There is
no single correct answer (which is not to say that there are no
answers).
</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">It matters to the person stepping into the transporter, does it not? Are
you saying there is no scientifically establishable answer to this
question? Could not an experimentalist undergo the teleportation to
(hopefully) personally confirm his theory that his consciousness
survives?</div></pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Yes, of course. And if the person stepping into the transporter
thinks that his consciousness depends on the atoms of his brain (or
an immaterial 'soul' that is lost, etc.), the person stepping out of
the other end will believe that he is not the same person. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>They might choose to label the previous copy a former self, but someone who is consciously experiencing something cannot believe that they are dead/not experiencing something. The consciousness, based on everything it knows and feels, would necessarily feel as though their consciousness survived the procedure, regardless of what they might say about their previous body.</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>There is
a character in Charlie Stross' Accelerando in exactly this position.
No-one can convince him of their view that he is the same person,
despite his continuity of memory, etc. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That is interesting.</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>Can we say he's wrong? Only
by asserting that a different way of looking at things is the
'correct' one. Can he say that they are wrong? Ditto. Yes, you can
demonstrate that a mind survives replacement of the atoms in the
brain (or does it? Maybe it's a mind that's to similar to the
original that no-one else notices), but in the end, you have to
choose a framework and follow it through.<br>
<br>
Someone else may think that they are only partially the same person.<br>
<br>
Most would probably think that they are the same person (why would
you undergo the procedure otherwise, unless it was forced on you?)<br>
<br>
So, different points of view, different answers.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>But all survivors of teleporters believe "I am alive and conscious", which is to me, the only meaningful definition of "survival." In other words, it would be inconsistent for the survivor to say "I am dead!" or "I am no longer conscious" -- unless the procedure did turn them into a zombie of some kind, but this would presumably require some form of dualism.</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>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="auto">...
<div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"> <div> 'The experiences' is just a label that we use in our
heads so we can think about these things (remembering
that the thoughts don't have to be true or accurate, or
even make any kind of sense). It would be more accurate
to say 'I experience', 'you experience'. Saying 'you <i>have</i>
experience X' tempts us to think of X as a thing that is
possessed (and could therefore also be possessed by
someone else). It's not.</div>
</blockquote></div></div> <div dir="auto">I agree they aren't swappable or tradable like playing cards. There is a tight kinky between each experience and a particular mind state.</div>
</div></blockquote>
Not sure what a 'tight kinky' is. Presumably a typo, but I'm not
sure what you meant to write. A tight link?
</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Yes "tight link".</div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
I suppose you could say that, being careful to recognise that the
experience does not exist on its own, and is then 'linked' to the
mind. The experience is produced by the mind, so talking about a
'link' is unnecessary and potentially misleading.
<blockquote type="cite"><div dir="auto"> <div dir="auto">That said, we acknowledge that for a given person (here I mean the common sense understanding of the term), has a life which spans and includes many different mind states, and many different experiences.</div>
<div dir="auto">It is this many-to-one relationship that creates the problem of assignment. </div></div></blockquote>
I don't know what that last sentence means. What do you mean by
'assignment'. Assignment of what?
</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Experiences-to-person. Or using your terminology: mind_states-to-person.</div></pre>
</blockquote>
I thought we'd agreed on the unique nature of experiences. You can't
'assign' an experience to the thing that generates it. They are
inextricably and uniquely linked, and no other person can experience
the same thing. So there is no 'problem of assignment'. That is
meaningless.<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
Again, I take issue with the language used as well. A person doesn't
really 'have' a life which includes many different mind-states. I'd
rather say a person consists of many different mind-states. If those
didn't exist, there would be no person.
This is the same difficulty caused by the common habit of referring
to 'our minds'. We don't <i>have</i> minds (which implies a duality), we <i>are</i> minds.
</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">If each of us are minds, and each mind can have many states, which set of possible mind states can one be or become?</div></pre>
</blockquote>
The set of mind-states that are available to that mind. It will
vary, depending on things like personal history, the details of
neural structure, chemistry, all kinds of things. I'd say that it's
impossible to predict, in practice.<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto">Is there any theoretical or fundamental limit?</div></pre>
</blockquote>
I have no idea how you'd determine that. There must be limits,
though. No human will ever know what it's like to be a Bat, to take
one famous example.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I don't see why we could not gradually morph someone's brain into that of a bat, using advanced nanotechnology, for example.</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> But I also think that nobody except Jonh Smith
will experience the same things as him upon eating the same sandwich
on the same day in the same place. So I'd say that one limit is that
you can only experience your own unique experiences, not anyone
else's.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>If there are no fundamental limits on how John Smith's brain can be perturbed over time, there's no limit to what experiences John Smith is capable of.</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>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="auto">...</div></blockquote></div></blockquote></div></div></pre>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="auto">How much perturbation can be tolerated before we say, "that's no longer the same, or that person is dead" ?
</div>
</blockquote> This is a philosophical question, with different answers depending
on your assumptions.
</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">You can leave them as a philosophical questions, or as I prefer to do, you
can turn them into a hard empirical questions, with definite yes/no
answers, by asking and testing things like:</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Does my conscious survive radical brain surgery?</div><div dir="auto">Does my conscious survive gradual replacement of material?</div><div dir="auto">Does my conscious survive instantaneous replacement of material (e.g. in a teleporter)?</div><div dir="auto">Does my conscious survive the accumulation of memories over a lifetime?</div><div dir="auto">Does my conscious survive loss of memories in the decline of senility?</div><div dir="auto">Does my conscious survive about changes in memory content (e.g. partial amnesia, implantation of false memories (as in Total Recall))?</div></pre>
</blockquote>
No you can't, as I keep saying. Those questions can have different
answers, depending on who's asking them and what their point of view
is.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>As I've said repeatedly, such questions are always asked/interpreted from the perspective/POV of the person undergoing the procedure, who receives empirical confirmation afterwards.</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 thing you don't seem to acknowledge is that these are subjective
matters, not objective ones. They have to be, as we are dealing with
the very phenomenon at the heart of subjectivity.
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div> To me, the mind is the important thing, and the mind is an embodied
dynamic pattern of information. How much can that pattern change,
and still claim to be 'the same person'? I don't have any single
fixed answer. But you could take the attitude that I'm the same
person that I was since I was born (because of a common genome,
continuity of physical body, etc. My mind didn't even exist then,
really, so I don't subscribe to that view. I'd say that I didn't
exist yet), or you could say that I'm a different person each day,
or even from moment to moment. I don't really care.</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">You can say you don't care, but then ask yourself: why save for retirement
all your life if you are only to give all that money away to some old
rich guy in the future who isn't you? -- (at least it won't be you if
you really believed you're a different person each day).</div></pre>
</blockquote>
Precisely. If that's what I believe, that's perfectly correct.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Find me the person who believes that, and decides not to save for retirement because of that belief (that is, anyone who truly believes, and lives their life according to the belief, that they are only a single-thought moment). I doubt such people exist. Neither decision theory, nor science itself, can operate if you remove the concept of future expectation.</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>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div> If I feel that I'm the same person, then I am.</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Yes, this is how I defined survival, by the subjective feeling that ones consciousness has continued into another moment.</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div> There's a sense in which I am the same person that I was a few decades ago, and a sense in which I'm a different person to who I was when I started writing this email.</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Note that here you are using two different definitions of person.</div></pre>
</blockquote>
Exactly! And two different people can hold two different definitions
to be true. They are both correct.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Assuming neither one leads to inconsistencies, or makes untestable/unfounded assumptions.</div><div><br></div><div>I'll reiterate, the inconsistencies do not appear in the definitions themselves. The definitions can be written down and they all seem perfectly fine. The issues arise when we attempt to use these different definitions to answer questions with objective answers (e.g. do I survive this or not)?</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>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"> What philosophers of personal identity attempt is to clearly define each and
then test whether those definitions are consistent/valid in all
situations.</div></pre>
</blockquote>
You're basically proposing to 'test' people's points of view. This
is like trying to decide which is right, the guy who says "that car
is blue" or the one who says "that car is turquoise".<br>
Which is the 'correct' interpretation of the story of Bambi, is it
about cruelty or sadness?<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>These aren't testing points of view. They are tests of the logical consistency of theories. As well as evaluating them on probabilistic grounds, and for unfounded metaphysical assumptions (e.g. Occam's razor). The only time subjectivity enters the picture is in the experiments to test whether one's consciousness subjectively survives (e.g. a teleporter, a surgery, a mind upload, or any other procedure).</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>
Of course, this is why we call it 'philosophy'. If there were any
objectively testable and definite answers, we'd call it 'science'.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>If you believe there are no objective tests favoring one theory vs. another, am I correct that you believe open individualism is a possibility you can neither prove nor disprove?</div><div>If not, then you must think it makes some different predictions from the others which we could objectively test. What would those tests be?</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>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div> Again, no single 'correct' answer. There are as many answers as you
can think up different ways of looking at it.
</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">If you examine deeply what certain answers imply, I believe you will find
the number of possibly correct answers, is a very small set.</div></pre>
</blockquote>
Again with the 'correct'. There is no 'correct'!<br>
Consider this: What is happening on planet X of star Y in the
Andromeda galaxy, RIGHT NOW? (i.e. at the exact moment that you are
reading this).<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>For the Andromeda case, I would say we exist in an infinite number of subjectively indistinguishable possibilities, each consistent with everything we know.</div><div><br></div><div>"It is impossible for any observer to deduce with certainty on the basis of her observations and memory which world she is a part of. That is, there are always many different worlds for which being contained in them is compatible with everything she knows, but which imply different predictions for future observations."<br>-- Markus Müller in “<a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01826v1.pdf">Could the physical world be emergent instead of fundamental, and why should we ask?</a>” (2017)<br></div><div><br></div><div>But the indeterminacy of the far away and unmeasurable, is different from your supposition that different theories of personal identity could all be right. As I showed below, different theories of personal identity provide different answers to the same questions regarding the same situation. Therefore they cannot all be objectively correct. If there is such a thing as objective truth and an objective reality, then at least some of these theories must be wrong (at least in such cases where they give different answers).</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>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
I can't say for sure, but I suspect that the experience of [anything
you like] is different as my mind changes over time. That each
experience is unique not only to a mind, but to a mind at a specific
time. It could be that someone's experience of eating a cheese
sandwich on a rainy afternoon in March 2019 is different to the same
person's experience of the same thing in the same place, on a rainy
afternoon in March 2029. Actually, thinking about it, I'd be
surprised if this wasn't true.
</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">An uploaded mind cannot access the true time outside the simulation. If
you run the mind simulation twice at two different times, there's no
room for the mind to know anything was different between the two runs,
unless you introduce something metaphysical.</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">But if your point is that brains are messy things and always changing, I see and agree with that point.</div></pre>
</blockquote>
My point is that experiences are unique. Not only to the minds
generating them, but quite probably to each instance of 'the same'
experience (meaning that they aren't in fact the same at all. The
uniqueness is absolute). This means there is no such thing as two
people having the same experience, or a common pool of experiences
that can be 'had' by a number of different people.<br>
<br>
Which brings me back to:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="auto"><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
So the way I see it, this whole concept of 'theories of
personal identity' is built on a misconception of the
nature of 'experiences'.
</div></blockquote></div></div> <div dir="auto">To this I would say, and I hope it clarifies, that personal identity isn't so much trying to answer "should
put this frog in that bucket or this one?", but rather, it is
about trying to define the borders of the buckets themselves.</div></div></blockquote>
My point was that the frogs in buckets analogy doesn't apply.
</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Earlier, you said: "a person consists of many different mind-states"</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">So then, why cannot we label the collection of mind-states which a particular person consists of?</div></pre>
</blockquote>
We can, and do. We label it "a person".<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="auto"> <div dir="auto">What circumstances are necessary for a person to arise, survive, or die, etc.</div>
<div dir="auto">There are easy, conventional answers to such questions, based on the presence or maintenance of some attribute.</div>
<div dir="auto">But I think if you seriously consider the
problems that arise in those cases you will understand the
difficulties of the conventional view and it's inability to
handle a host of situations.</div>
<div dir="auto">In the end, belief in the necessity of some
attribute that is needed for "you to be you" is both unfounded
and uneccessary. It's a purely metaphysical assumption which
Occam would remind us to dispense with.</div> </div></blockquote>
You're assuming that being able to use different attributes,
according to what you find important, is equivalent to not using
any. The fact that there may be 10 different paths to get from where
you are to where you want to go, doesn't mean that you don't need
any path at all. Some attribute <i>is</i> necessary, </div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">The only attribute that is necessary is the "immediacy of experience" --
the feeling that it is *I* who is having the experience". You can remove
everything else and people will believe they have survived to live in
that moment.</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Note that this attribute is equally present in all experiences. All experiences feel like it is I who is having them.</div></pre>
</blockquote>
All of <i>your</i> experiences. And all of mine feel like mine.
This is hardly a revelation.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>If you think about this a little more deeply, you may discover that all experiences, as felt by all beings, feel like "mine".</div><div><br></div><div>This is really saying nothing more than all beings consider them to exist in the time "now", or the place "here." There is a relativity involved, that generates the illusion of a selection (that some time is privileged to be now), or that some organisim's neurology is privileged to be "you".<br></div><div><br></div><div>This passage, from Nagel in "<a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/NAGP-2">Physicalism</a>" (1965) may help to dispel this illusion by shedding some more light on the issue:</div><div><br></div><div>"Consider everything that can be said about the world without employing any token reflexive<br>expressions. This will include the description of all its physical contents and their states, activities<br>and attributes. It will also include a description of all the persons in the world and their histories,<br>memories, thoughts, sensations, perceptions, intentions, and so forth. I can thus describe without<br>token-reflexives the entire world and everything that is happening in it–and this will include a<br>description of Thomas Nagel and what he is thinking and feeling. But there seems to remain one<br>thing which I cannot say in this fashion–namely, which of the various persons in the world I am.<br>Even when everything that can be said in the specified manner has been said, and the world has in a<br>sense been completely described, there seems to remain one fact which has not been expressed, and<br>that is the fact that I am Thomas Nagel. This is not, of course, the fact ordinarily conveyed by those<br>words, when they are used to inform someone else who the speaker is–for that could easily be<br>expressed otherwise. It is rather the fact that I am the subject of these experiences; this body is my<br>body; the subject or center of my world is this person."<br></div><div><br></div><div>This passage shows that when we examine it, we find no physical fact or reason to account for the idea that consciousness is limited to a single perspective of a single biological creature which is you.</div><div>You could equally be present in all the conscious beings, and each instance would suffer the illusion that it is only one biological creature (as that is the only thing each can remember).</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>but there are
many choices, depending on your point of view and what you want to
achieve. The conventional view (that there is one correct answer)
just needs to be widened to acknowledge that there are many correct
answers, all valid, that do cover a host of situations.
</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">They only seem valid, until you investigate them more deeply. If you say
memory is important, why don't we have funerals form people when they
get concussed and forget the past 15 minutes? If you say material is
important, why don't we have funerals for people every 7 years when all
their atoms are replaced? If you say continuity of a mind process is
necessary, why don't we have funerals when someone gets general
anesthesia and we shut down that process?</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">The answer is, because all generally acknowledge and feel that our
consciousness survives all these things. Our consciousness can survive
material replacement of our body and brain, it survives gain and loss of
memories, and it survives discontinuities like general anesthesia and
comas. None of these can therefore be the critical attribute for a
person's survival.</div></pre>
</blockquote>
Because we don't all agree on the same criteria for survival?<br>
I expect that if everyone agreed that 15 minutes of amnesia
qualifies as death, then we would hold funerals (and probably
celebrate the birth of a new person on the 16th minute).<br>
The definition of death changes as time goes by, and we learn more
and our technology advances, which just widens our choices. Some
people regard those who are cryogenically suspended to be
irrevocably dead, and some don't, for example.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I agree it changes. It changes as new technology expands the scope of recoverable situations. If we can build an ultimate healing technology, which can heal someone of any wound, even an explosion that blasted them into a 1,000 pieces, then we would understand death to only be the result of irrecoverable data loss. So long as we had the information necessary to restore a person using this healing technology, then any injury would be survivable. We could then ask: what if we had the information, but not all the original parts. Could we use any old spare atoms to heal the person, and restore them to life? Would it be the same person? Technological improvements will necessarily lead us to expand and revise the notion of personhood, just as it has and will continue to expand the scope of survivability, and the border between life and death.</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>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
Consider planetary motion. What gives the correct answer, Kepler's
laws or Relativity?
</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Here you compare two theories which provide the same predictions.</div></pre>
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For many things, but not all.<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Different theories of personal identity offer different answers to the same question. For example:</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Teleporter survival:</div><div dir="auto">Bodily continuity - no</div><div dir="auto">Psychological continuity - yes</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Memory loss survival:</div><div dir="auto">Bodily continuity - yes</div><div dir="auto">Psychological continuity - no</div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">Faulty transporter survival:</div><div dir="auto">Bodily continuity - no</div><div dir="auto">Psychological continuity - no</div><div dir="auto">Open individualism - yes</div></pre>
</blockquote>
So if the transporter is faulty and no body materialises, so of
course no brain, and therefore no mind, you're saying that the
individual nevertheless 'survives'??<br>
So basically, nobody has ever died?<br>
Pictures, please.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The faulty transporter is an example where there is a new body, but some memories are lost or inserted (changed). So it combines the aspects of teleporter survival, and memory loss survival. Each continuity theory would find something necessary was lost, and therefore conclude that the person did not survive.</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>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
I still don't see any reason to assume that there's some kind of
mental connection between myself and that Maori dude 200 years ago.
Or anybody else.
</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">
</div><div dir="auto">It's not a mental connection. It's an identity of personhood.</div></pre>
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There's no such thing (between two individuals). You are the only
thing that is identical to you.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I think this may be inconsistent with your agreement above that a person is a collection of mind-states. Each mind state is different. How then do we decide to put them into a particular collection which we call "one person?"</div><div>What is it about the mind states that makes them belong to one person and not another?</div><div><br></div><div>Jason</div></div></div>