[extropy-chat] Probability of identity, or "Am I missing

david ish shalom davidishalom1 at gmail.com
Thu Oct 19 20:27:54 UTC 2006


>It seems like you're imagining some kind of Self that can be spread
>out  over multiple instances.  To me it seems almost a problem of
>semantics, but > reflecting a misconception of reality:  A point of
>view is a result of the > processes producing it, not something that
>observes the show from some > privileged position.  Or am I missing
your point entirely? ;-)

the components of self: According to the psychological reductionist
theories, the self  can be understood as reducible to certain other
facts; these are facts about psychological connectedness, continuity
and the right kind of cause leading from A to B.  Psychological
connectedness is the holding of particular content, direct
psychological connections such as memory links, the connection between
intention and action, enduring dispositions, personality traits,
values, goals.  Connectedness in other words means having some
similarity of mental content between the original and the duplicate,
it should be stressed that there is never total connectedness between
different stages of an individual even during normal course of life.
Psychological continuity is  defined as the holding of overlapping
chains of strong connectedness.  For continuity to appear in B, B has
to remember himself as having much the same mental content as A.  we
will see below how much continuity we practically need for survival to
take place.
the term "self" is used here to refer to the continuant, lasting,
changing individual along his altering phases of life from childhood,
adolescence to maturity and old age, and to later phases of existence.

according to psychological reductionism, "a person just is
psychological connectedness, continuity and  the right kind of cause".
  "there is psychological continuity if and only if there are
overlapping chains of strong connectedness between consecutive phases.
A today is one and the same person as B at some future time if and
only if A is psychologically continuous with B
the right kind of cause: for survival, "The Diachronic Self" (TDS) and
most other reductionist theories, require to keep the right kind of
cause.  The "right cause" is any reliable cause and not necessarily
the normal one. personal identity can even survive the absence of
normal, reliable, or direct causal connections between one stage of a
person and a continuer "So long as the later continuer is caused to
occur in some way, and the earlier stage of the person plays a crucial
role, even if indirect and unreliable, then the continuer counts as
the same person as the earlier person."  "Any relevant and sufficient
cause connecting the earlier entity with the later qualitatively
identical entity." If the memories, intentions, and dispositions that
together comprise the self identity were to be sustained by some
reliable process other than the normal activity of the brain, that
identity had  been preserved. For example, memory could be preserved
on this view by substituting a mechanical replacement for a collection
of neurons so long as no change in function occurred."    "it is the
effect rather than the kind of cause that matters in these cases. In
that line of thought brought by TDS, it can clearly shown that the
fact that A is recording his personality now for his later
Info-Immortality is easily holding that condition of relevant and
sufficient cause and moreover is keeping a direct and reliable cause
leading from A to B.
the identity components:  the theoretical line here is brought in
order to clarify the complexity and the substance of the self, and by
thus enabling to value more deeply the "identity capture" method which
is in the core of the IRE  project.
 memories are sustained in B if B remember from within the same
memories about his life experience and life facts as A. Yet as is
argued in the TDS,  retaining memories, even in much higher resolution
than in normal life, is far from enough to achieve enough
connectedness and continuity required. Truly, "personal identity over
time is secured by memory connections. I am the same person as an
earlier person if I can remember "from the inside" doing the actions
done by the earlier person. But memory alone is not sufficient to
cover all the psychological connections of importance. "I might
remember someone's past experiences, but I will not count as the same
person if my character is entirely different from that of the person
whose experiences I remember. "Suppose I have memories of being Prime
Minister of England during the Second World War. I remember giving
dramatic speeches and taking decisive actions and having the name
"Winston Churchill." If I now am a very timid and indecisive person
and have no interest in politics, I should think that I am not Winston
Churchill. Some of Churchill's psychological characteristics have
survived in me, but too few for me to feel intimately connected
psychologically with Churchill. The degree of connectedness is too
minor to sustain a judgment of psychological continuity between
Churchill and myself. We  would say that a small aspect of Churchill's
person had continued on in me but so small a part that it would not …
lead me to think that my own personality had been displaced"
"Compared with Churchill, I may respond to the q-memories with quite
different emotions, draw different conclusions and lessons, and
evaluate remembered situations differently".  "If all a person's
specific memories were lost in an accident, but all of his values,
projects, and basic dispositions were intact, we would far more easily
recognize him as the same person".  TDS holds that the other
personality traits, are more important for survival then mere
memories.

now there will still be differences, a person, even with advanced
identity capture methods, still will not be able to record exactly
similar mental content.  Firstly  all his unconscious mental content
which for most people is largely unconscious anyway, and also a person
unconscious intentions to  distort his personal image, according to
internal psychological defense mechanisms. So changes are unavoidable.
Yet, as is argued below, some changes, as our transformative
intentions, are contributing to our self identity and self expansion,
and our true and genuine survival into our Info-Immortality phase.  We
can see that  there are far reaching changes during the normal course
of life but as long as there is enough continuity and the right kind
of cause (in biological life the right kind of cause is the
continuation of the same body and brain) the self is preserved  and
survival is maintained without any doubt. The same condition applies
to the transition, as long as the main psychological facts are
maintained and enough continuity and the right kind of cause are
maintained, survival is achieved.
The Diachronic Self stresses other components besides declarative
memories which are important in determining the self, these are:
Dispositions,  Beliefs,    Abilities,   Desires,    Values,
Principles,   Projects, Transformative life goals.   Among these the
more important elements, especially for more reflective and dynamic
persons [these day we can simply state transhumanists and
singularitarians] are those concerned with life projects, enduring
principles and transformative life goals.
Dispositions: according to TDS This term can plausibly cover a wide
range of psychological traits and so assumes much importance as a
component of connectedness. Dispositions constitute a large proportion
of psychological traits that lead to action [behavior].
"Apart from a disposition's generating new traits as a result of other
people's responses, it will also directly lead a person to develop
particular kinds of beliefs, habits, and desires.  Dispositions, being
more enduring that most beliefs and simple desires, will play a more
significant role in maintaining connectedness over long periods of
time. Yet, dispositions are far from the most important component of
changing identity".
Beliefs: TDS suggests that ordinary beliefs are a relatively
insignificant component of psychological connectedness. Yet  Beliefs
can, of course, be very significant.  Central  beliefs or
belief-systems labeled as ideology, religion ,faith, philosophy of
life, personal principles, and morality  are important components of
self, and are deeply entangled in our transformative project which
holds the uttermost" imprint" in our self identity.
Abilities: "Oddly, abilities have been ignored by most philosophers
writing on identity . Physical, cognitive, and emotional abilities and
skills play an undeniably sizable role in personality"  "dispositions
and abilities are usually integrated. If I am disposed to do or think
X, we would naturally expect me to have the ability to do or think X:
I will rarely be disposed to do something that I am unable to do".
"Knowing that he is especially able at something, such as
understanding and composing music, a person will tend to develop
habits of awareness of opportunities for displaying and exercising his
ability. This heightened awareness of relevant opportunities may be
combined with social reinforcement and reward, turning the ability
into a central personality trait, a trait that organizes and explains
much of a person's activities.
Abilities will appear to be a tremendously important psychological
component, forcefully contributing to connectedness, if we focus on
the short-term of a self-phase. Switching to a focus on the components
of connectedness in changing persons over long stretches of time, this
importance will diminish somewhat, at least relative to other
components yet to be discussed (i.e., values and projects)
Yet, The Diachronic explore some current and future technological
means that could allow changes even in basic capacities as we
currently conceive of them. Under such circumstances basic capacities
can be treated more like easily alterable abilities.)
Values: TDS consider desires and values together since holding
"values to be a particular type of desire (with important relations to
beliefs). Standard explanations of human behavior proceed in terms of
an agent's beliefs and desires, so we should expect desires to be a
crucial central component of anyone's psychology."   Personally  I
tend to differentiate between desires and values since the first
implies more towards bodily instincts while the second implies more to
socially  acquired  traits.
Knowing what should count as values will be important in measuring
connectedness, both because of the central importance of our values in
our psychology and because of their role in the formation of personal
projects.
Principles:   TDS states "Adherence to principles constitutes another
way of structuring oneself over time. Principles provide a means of
defining ourselves, of being able to answer the question: "Who are
you?" We can answer: "I am a person who embodies forthrightness,
reasonableness, inventiveness, justice". "Principles, by marking
boundaries, serve an invaluable function if we want to be a certain
kind of person. Situations often admit of many possible responses, a
range of which we may find acceptable. Without principles we can
easily slide, bit by bit, from acceptable actions to unacceptable
actions because there is no obvious stopping point"
"It may appear that principles only restrict our options, acting as a
burden and adding barriers to the achievement of our goals. However,
by shaping our personality principles also enable us to do things and
enter relationships otherwise difficult or unavailable to us."
"Principles, especially moral principles, sometimes are presented as
distinct, higher, purer restraints on our base personalities. In
contrast to that view, I suggest the following account: Principles
partially constitute our identity or personality just as much as do
our desires and goals.        Although goals, especially when grouped
into projects, can powerfully shape our lives, principles guide more
generally than goals: Principles help us select goals and subgoals and
shape the manner in which we pursue them. Goals and principles
interact, mutually influencing one another. While principles shape and
select goals, our goals can motivate us to accept or reject
principles".
"When principles are securely integrated into our personalities, they
imbue us with confidence as we approach novel situations and
relationships. Whereas desires can be frustrated, projects can fall
apart, and relationships can wither, principles form a solid core of
the self, always being there to guide and sustain us." "Living by
principles, then, increases our long-term personality coherence,
enabling us to care more about our future self-stages".
But principles themselves can be modified. Suppose, in my present
stage one have a principle of some "moral flexibility", which is the
outcome of having week will power, but it in fact does not  reflects
his ideal self. But since in the future one of his enhancements goals
is having stronger will power, than he can now modify his principles
of morality to better coexist with higher will power.
Projects: Projects play a leading role in TDS account of psychological
connectedness and continuity.   "Some ends are not once-and-for-all
acknowledged and then realized through the successful completion of
one particular action. Rather, they persist throughout large stretches
of an individual's life and continue to elicit actions that establish
a pattern coherent in views of the ends". "Those which reach
indefinitely into the future, play a central role within the ongoing
endeavors of the individual, and provide a significant degree of
structural stability to an individual's life, I call projects."
.."For one who has formed projects, it will be impossible to explain
much of her behavior without first understanding her projects".
"Projects are explanatorily prior to individual actions. We may be
unable to fathom the significance of a particular action to the agent
until we discern the project that motivated it. We can explain
specific actions by referring to projects, but we cannot understand
someone's projects simply by pointing to her actions one at a time."
"the connection between values and projects is an intimate one"  " The
economy of values, essential to the formation of projects, contributes
substantial purpose and direction to a life, shaping behavior over
time in ways that could not be explained by the individual values
alone"

our "transformation project":
personally I see that the origin of our transformation project is in
our intention and will to transform ourselves and evolve into our next
evolutionary stage. Up until now we transhumanists and
singularitarians have raised high vision, concerning the coming
future, but   Info-Resurrection method (IRE) is calling us to
explicitly introspect ourselves, clarify and mold our personal
transformation project. To report and  digitally store what we want to
preserve in ourselves, but not less important what we want to change,
add, immensely enhance, and according to what moral principles that
change will take place.
At our second waking up point we will remember our transformation
project as clearly as possible, since it is this information, which
directly lead to our non biological transformation ,evolutionary leap,
soon after waking up. The IRE method suggests that at the "waking up
point", much similarity and continuity between the phases will be
retained, but only hours or days later, the great transformation
project will automatically be launched, fast approaching infinity of
intelligence, creativity, freedom, gradients of bliss and love in
action.
TDS stating: "Should our concern for our future self-phases be
proportionate to the degree of psychological connectedness between our
current and future phases? Are some connections more important to us
than others? Should we give weight to the fact of psychological
continuity even when we have few or no direct psychological
connections to a distant future self?" " A's concern for (later phase)
B defensibly may be greater than the degree of  psychological
connectedness between them so long as A and B are continuous, i.e.,
connected by a chain of self-stages, adjacent pairs of which are
strongly connected."
, "some reductions in connectedness might be welcome, or be
improvements. But we cannot plausibly claim that it would not matter
if there was no psychological connectedness." [301] Most of us would
regret losing all our current memories, even if continuity were
maintained (two days from now I will remember only the experiences I
will have tomorrow). We would regret losing some of our desires,
intentions, and characteristics. So connectedness does matter apart
from continuity".     "
"your degree of concern for your future self-phase need not be tied to
the degree of overall connectedness between phases and may greatly
exceed it. Going a little further: Depending on our values, many of us
will have positive reasons to have future-concern more than
proportional to degree of connectedness. I will call my account of the
normative consequences of Reductionism Transformationism. To define
this view more clearly, I will say I want Transformationism to
express:
Earlier stage A may reasonably care about later stage B more than
proportionally to the degree of connectedness between them because (i)
the person may value their life as a whole (or long stretches of their
life), that is, they may value continuity as much as or more than
connectedness. (They value being a person and not just being a
person-phase.)  (ii) B may be closer to A's conception of an ideal
self.  (iii) the person may hold self-transformation as a central
goal".   " In fact, the longer I want to live, and the more I want to
grow, the smaller I will want the proportion of my later phase
constituted by my current self. My later self-phase will continue to
contain the characteristics of the earlier phase but will add more and
more new characteristics and abilities.                "On the other
hand, if continuity were all that mattered (or all that need matter),
I would not care if connectedness moved towards zero, so long as this
reduction happened gradually and was not because my later phase was
degenerating or fading away"   While continuity alone may suffice for
our persistence of an individual, it will matter to us that at least
some of our current personality be exhibited by any later phase
(assuming we do not totally loathe ourselves!).   … "yet my current
characteristics constitute a small part of my later phase, because my
later phase is magnificently grander than me-now: My future phase has
more memories, additional experiences, greater wisdom, a wider range
of abilities, stronger virtues, and so on. Since there are aspects of
myself I'd like to trim away, I'd actually prefer connectedness to
drop below 100%,... So only continuity is necessary for me to continue
existing, but connectedness is desirable too.  TDS claims are:
Connectedness often is higher than at first apparent because:  (i)
some psychological connections are more important than others. (ii)
some connections are instrumental to others, and behavior, being
instrumental to the satisfaction of intrinsic desires, beliefs, and
projects, can change enormously without much impact on connectedness".
"We can rationally be concerned to grow and change. That implies that
connectedness will fall. We can rationally want to grow into a stage
weakly connected with our current stage."
"… we may reasonably care about our later phases more than
proportionately to connectedness when our later phase is closer to our
conception of an ideal self. The concept of an ideal self or ideal
identity is itself an idealization. Most of us have at least a few
wishes about the kind of person we wish we were or want to become. …..
Actualizing our ideal self may be one of our projects. The project of
becoming our ideal self will encompass more specific projects and
other personal characteristics."
 "Our sense of ourselves can still be strongly influenced by our
continual striving toward our ideal. An ideal of great wisdom, for
example, can show itself in efforts taken to learn from experience, to
broaden experience, to develop listening skills, and so on. To
whatever extent we have formed an ideal self-conception, we will have
another reason for apportioning our future-concern disproportionally
to the expected degree of psychological connectedness".
'The  project of self-transformation itself is an element of
connectedness, so its own existence will compensate for the reduction
in other connections it causes".
" It is worth noting that the more strongly we value self-improvement
and the more broadly that value ramifies through our behavior, the
greater the transformation we can undergo before we feel that we will
lose what matters in survival. We might be willing to give up  not
only memories, desires, and abilities in the process of transforming
into our ideal but even some of our other values. When we value
self-transformation, we are really holding a complex of values rather
than one simple value. The drive to self-improvement (if positively
rather than negatively motivated) involves optimism (you must believe
that improvement is achievable), enjoyment of experimentation,
appreciation of novelty, tolerance of uncertainty, a willingness to
take responsibility for your destiny, enjoyment of challenge, and
desires for autonomy and self-direction. Self-transformation will also
link to a disposition to think critically and imaginatively"


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