Well, I should have been more clear that I meant real-life agents like humans. There the change is continuous. It would be possible to model this as a continuous transition to new agents but then the question is still: What does stay the same?
Humans don’t seem to have identifiable near-mode utility functions—they sometimes espouse words which might map to a far-mode value function, but it’s hard to take them seriously.
What does stay the same
THAT is the primary question for a model of individuality, and I have yet to hear a compelling set of answers. How different is a 5-year old from the “same” person 20 and 80 years later, and is that more or less different than from their twin at the same age? Extend to any population—why does identity-over-time matter in ethical terms?
Well, I should have been more clear that I meant real-life agents like humans. There the change is continuous. It would be possible to model this as a continuous transition to new agents but then the question is still: What does stay the same?
Humans don’t seem to have identifiable near-mode utility functions—they sometimes espouse words which might map to a far-mode value function, but it’s hard to take them seriously.
THAT is the primary question for a model of individuality, and I have yet to hear a compelling set of answers. How different is a 5-year old from the “same” person 20 and 80 years later, and is that more or less different than from their twin at the same age? Extend to any population—why does identity-over-time matter in ethical terms?
Yup.