[ExI] Open Individualism

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 06/01/2024 17:32, Jason Resch wrote:
> I don't think you have yet understood the idea. It's not about 
> grouping things.
> 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?

I don't understand the idea at all. It seems like complete nonsense.

To answer the (two, not one) questions above:

1) Innumerable things, that nobody can possibly completely answer (the 
question is a bit broad, really)

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.

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.

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?


Ben
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