It depends on the nature of our assumption about the role of continuity in human identity. If we assume that continuity is based only on remembering the past moment, then we can start new chains from any moment we chose.
Alternative view is that continuity of identity is based on causal connection or qualia connection. This view comes with ontological costs, close to the idea of the existence of immaterial soul. Such soul could be “saved” from the past using some technological tricks, and we again have some instruments to cure past sufferings.
If I instantly cloned you right now, your clone would experience the continuity of your identity, but so would you. You can double the continuity (create new minds, which become independent from each other after doubling), but not translocate it.
If I clone myself and then kill myself, I would have created a new person with a copy of my identity, but the original copy, the original consciousness, still ceases to exist. Likewise, if you create 1000 paradises for each second of agony, you will create 1000 new minds which will feel themselves “saved”, but you won’t save the original copy. The original copy is still in hell.
Our best option is to do everything possible not to bring uncontrollable new technologies into existence until they are provably safe, and meanwhile we can eliminate all future suffering by eliminating all conscious beings’ ability to suffer, á la David Pearce (abolitionist project).
It depends on the nature of our assumption about the role of continuity in human identity. If we assume that continuity is based only on remembering the past moment, then we can start new chains from any moment we chose.
Alternative view is that continuity of identity is based on causal connection or qualia connection. This view comes with ontological costs, close to the idea of the existence of immaterial soul. Such soul could be “saved” from the past using some technological tricks, and we again have some instruments to cure past sufferings.
If I instantly cloned you right now, your clone would experience the continuity of your identity, but so would you. You can double the continuity (create new minds, which become independent from each other after doubling), but not translocate it.
If I clone myself and then kill myself, I would have created a new person with a copy of my identity, but the original copy, the original consciousness, still ceases to exist. Likewise, if you create 1000 paradises for each second of agony, you will create 1000 new minds which will feel themselves “saved”, but you won’t save the original copy. The original copy is still in hell.
Our best option is to do everything possible not to bring uncontrollable new technologies into existence until they are provably safe, and meanwhile we can eliminate all future suffering by eliminating all conscious beings’ ability to suffer, á la David Pearce (abolitionist project).