[ExI] Open Individualism

Sun Jan 7 16:58:25 UTC 2024

On Sun, Jan 7, 2024, 10:00 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> On 07/01/2024 00:21, Jason Resch wrote:
> > Perhaps this question will sharpen the issue at hand:
> >
> > If you step into a star trek style transporter, but some error causes
> > 5 identical copies of yourself to beam down, which one do you become?
> >
> > A) none of them
> > B) one of them
> > C) all of them
>
> "Which one do you become?" is not a sensible or meaningful question.

Let's say someone comes to your door with the following proposition:

He will pay you $1,000,000 to scan you, destroy you (kill you, painlessly),
then create a perfect replica of you to take over your life from that point
forward. Do you take him up on his offer?

Here, you need a theory of personal identity to decide whether or not you
are killed, or whether or not you are paid a million dollars to be a test
subject in using the first teletransporter.

Faced with this proposition, you can't avoid the issue by saying it's a
meaningless question.

I
> think it's better to consider the situation from the viewpoint of the
> five resultant people, and ask if they are different or not, from each
> other and from the person who stepped into the transporter. These are
> two different questions, and they have two different answers.
>
> If I travel to Burma, am I the same person as when I left? It depends on
> what you're focusing on. The Ben that gets off the plane in Burma is the
> same person that got on it in England, if you're focusing on my
> continuity of identity, but at the same time, I've accumulated different
> experiences, perhaps have a different viewpoint on some things, and will
> continue to have different experiences than if I stayed at home, so from
> the viewpoint of my internal experience, I have become a different
> person, at least in part.
>

Do you consider any questions that asks: "What do you expect to experience
in the next moment?" to be meaningless?

If so, why save money for a trip, if it is someone else (not you) who will
enjoy the fruits of your labor?

> The same thing applies to someone who is duplicated multiple times. Each
> resultant person is the same in the sense that they can correctly claim
> to have been the original in the past, and they are all different from
> each other because they are now separate minds that have different
> experiences since the duplication. They will probably retain the same
> basic personality traits, and will probably express them in different
> ways, depending on their individual circumstances. They will each be an
> independent person, with the same past as all the others, up to the
> point of divergence.
>

But does your consciousness survive? That's what people are concerned with.

> If you insist on the wording "which one do you become?", I'd have to
> answer A and C. Which kind of illustrates that it's a silly question.
>

I think your answer shows the silliness of the conventional view of
personal identity. Your answer indicates a preference for either empty
individualism or open individualism, which are both logically more tenable,
but empty individualism is non workable as a decision theory since it
allows no expectations and makes behaviors like saving for retirement (or
any future planning) pointless.

>
>  > The "2024-you" is also different in many ways (different place,
> different atoms, different experience), from the "2023-you".
>
>  > But we also, as a matter of general practice, believe/assume that
> despite these difference, they are experienced by the same person.
>
> I'd agree with both these things: Different, and also the same,
> depending on which factors you're considering.
>

That's good. I would then add that person identity theories attempt to
specify which factors ought to be considered.

>  > Personal identity theories attempt to answer the question of what,
> and how much, can change while retaining the identity of a person.
>
> The answer to that depends on what your definition of 'identity' is, so
> it's a circular question. You could create a philosophical field called,
> say, Fish Identity Theory, that attempts to answer whether Sardines are
> animals or fish. There is no definitive answer to a question like this,
> without any other context (the most realistic answer, of course, is
> "both"). Insisting on one or the other is really more of an invitation
> to have a pointless argument than a genuine question.
>

What differentiates concerns of personal identity from taxonomy is that in
there are definite hard answers to the questions or concerns: i.e. will
you, or will you not experience this particular conscious experience?

It makes no difference to the fish what we call it, but it surely makes a
difference to you, whether the transporter kills you (ends your
consciousness permanently), or takes you to Paris.

>  > Empty individualism says any change at all, no matter how small,
> constitutes a new person. Closed individualism, says you can only change
> so much while being the same person. Open  individualism says there's no
> limit to how much can change and yet still remain the same person --
> that all variations of material composition of the body or psychological
> content of the experience, are mere contingencies.
>
> Ok, so there you have three different views on the matter. That's all
> you can say. You certainly can't say if one is 'righter' than the
> others, without further qualifying context.

Only one of these theories can be correct. Which one is correct has
important implications that relate directly to your survival. And ine of
the theories has strong probabilistic arguments for its truth that the
others lack. They're not all on equal footing.

They are simply opinions.
> Open Fish Identity Theory says that Sardines are Animals. Closed Fish
> Identity Theory says they are Fish. Both are correct.
>

I addressed this point above.

>
>  >>    I'm not everybody, I'm just me.
>
>  > Are you the same person as when you step out of a teleporter or is
> that someone else?
>
> Both. It's not "or" it's "and".
>

Do you take the million dollars or not? There's no and in that situation.

>  > Are you all your clones in the many worlds or are those other people?
>
> I'd say they (if such things exist) are other people, but that's just my
> opinion. You may validly disagree.
>

This is progress then. :-)

How is this different from the five clones example from earlier where you
said you would be either none of them or all of them, but here you seem to
be committed to B, that you are one of them.

>  > Are you the same you when you reappear in a similar form in another
> future big bang of eternal inflation, or is that someone else?
>
> Depends on if there are any differences. If everything is identical, so
> there's no possibility of telling which is which (something that nobody
> could ever tell, of course), then the question answers itself. If not,
> then See Above.
>

Thank you.

This answer raises the question of faulty teleporters. We need not get to
it yet, we can save it for later.

>
>  > Are you the same person in other mirror images of earth that appear
> in infinite locations across the infinite space of our universe, what
> about the ones that have one less hair on their head, or a different
> color of eyes? How much can change across all the infinite instances in
> reality while still being you?
>
> Same answer.
>

Your last two answers are consistent, in that they recognize time/space
interchangeability. That is, there's no fundamental difference between the
same person existing in two times, vs. the same person existing in two
places.

> And I'm still no closer to understanding what 'Open Individualism'
> actually means. "One numerically identical subject, who is everyone at
> all times, in the past, present and future" is a sentence that makes no
> sense. What does 'One numerically identical...' mean? 'Identical' is a
> comparison, so you have to have at least two things, for them to be
> identical to one another in any respect. 'One identical thing' is
> meaningless. Can we replace that with "one person", for clarity, or
> doesn't that work?. The rest just reads as gobbledigook. Can it be
> boiled down to "one person, who is all people"? At least that sentence
> is coherent. As for what it means...
>

Boiled down to one sentence, it is the idea that: "There is only one
person."

> Your definition above is different, though. You refer to how much
> someone can change and still be thought of as the same. The Wiki
> definition talks about everyone already being the same.
>

When I was talking about change, I was referring to changing the material
composition of the body and the content of experience, while remaining the
same person. If anything about the body or experience is free to be changed
while not destroying the person, then there is only one person.

I appreciate your great questions and thoughtful answers.

Jason
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