[extropy-chat] Indexical Uncertainty

[Lee Corbin]

Robin writes

>>But indeed, if you have enough amnesia, then absolutely you are *not* the
>>same person.  Even in popular culture, one says that to lose one's memories
>>is to lose one's identity.  ...  But Lee and Robin never have such dreams,
>>unless they're out of their minds.
> 
> We are the sort of creatures who usually are not very uncertain about who we
> are.   Nevertheless, we are not completely certain either, and so we often have
> at least small degrees of indexical uncertainty.

But I protest that the word "we" or "I" is slippery here.  Yes, we may
say that a given human organism may be unsure about who he is. But
if it's sufficiently unsure---i.e. has enough aberrant behavioral tendencies
and different memories, then it's no longer the person that was formerly
associated with that body. 

Lee

> Surely we have talked about many things on this list that are not in 
> our immediate experience, but are plausible projections of our [sic]
> immediate experience into larger changes.