Me possibly dying in fourty years is no big deal if I don’t even think I’m the same person tomorrow, or five minutes from now.
You’re confusing two meaning of the word “the same.” When we refer to a person as “the same” that doesn’t mean they haven’t changed, it means that they’ve changed in some ways, but not in others.
If you define “same” as “totally unchanging” then I don’t want to be the same person five minutes from now. Being frozen in time forever so I’d never change would be tantamount to death. There are some ways I want to change, like acquiring new skills and memories.
But there are other ways I don’t want to change. I want my values to stay the same, and I want to remember my life. If I change in that way this is bad. It doesn’t matter if this is done in an abrupt way, like dying, or a slow way, like an FAI gradually turning me into a different person.
If people change in undesirable ways, then it is a good thing to restore them through resurrection. I want to be resurrected if I need to be. And I want you to be resurrected to. Because the parts of you that shouldn’t change are valuable, even if you’ve convinced yourself they’re not.
You’re confusing two meaning of the word “the same.” When we refer to a person as “the same” that doesn’t mean they haven’t changed, it means that they’ve changed in some ways, but not in others.
Sure, I’m aware of that. But the bit that you quoted didn’t make claims about what “the same” means in any objective sense—it only said that if you choose your definition of “the same” appropriately, then you can stop worrying about your long-term survival and thus feel better. (At least that’s how it worked for me: I used to worry about my long-term survival a lot more when I still found personal identity to be a meaningful concept.)
You’re confusing two meaning of the word “the same.” When we refer to a person as “the same” that doesn’t mean they haven’t changed, it means that they’ve changed in some ways, but not in others.
If you define “same” as “totally unchanging” then I don’t want to be the same person five minutes from now. Being frozen in time forever so I’d never change would be tantamount to death. There are some ways I want to change, like acquiring new skills and memories.
But there are other ways I don’t want to change. I want my values to stay the same, and I want to remember my life. If I change in that way this is bad. It doesn’t matter if this is done in an abrupt way, like dying, or a slow way, like an FAI gradually turning me into a different person.
If people change in undesirable ways, then it is a good thing to restore them through resurrection. I want to be resurrected if I need to be. And I want you to be resurrected to. Because the parts of you that shouldn’t change are valuable, even if you’ve convinced yourself they’re not.
Sure, I’m aware of that. But the bit that you quoted didn’t make claims about what “the same” means in any objective sense—it only said that if you choose your definition of “the same” appropriately, then you can stop worrying about your long-term survival and thus feel better. (At least that’s how it worked for me: I used to worry about my long-term survival a lot more when I still found personal identity to be a meaningful concept.)