(loving that the sleep-clone-swap thought experiment I described in my comment to Rob Bensinger’s post inspired you!)
The level of discontinuity at which each people will consider a future entity/person/mind/self to still be the rightful continuation of a present entity/person/mind/self will vary according to their own present subjective feelings/opinions/points-of-view/experiences/intutions/thoughts/theories/interpretations/preferences/resolutions about it.
For example, the theory/resolution that I would personally (currently) widely subscribe to is:
“Temporal parts theory”, quoting Wikipedia: “Another common theory put forth by David Lewis is to divide up all objects into three-dimensional time-slices which are temporally distinct, which avoids the issue that the two different ships exist in the same space at one time and a different space at another time by considering the objects to be distinct from each other at all points in time.”
Some other people in the comments I think would be closer to this other theory/resolution:
“Continued identity theory”:
“This solution (proposed by Kate, Ernest et al.) sees an object as staying the same as long as it continuously exists under the same identity without being fully transformed at one time. For instance, a house that has its front wall destroyed and replaced at year 1, the ceiling replaced at year 2, and so on, until every part of the house has been replaced will still be understood as the same house. However, if every wall, the floor, and the roof are destroyed and replaced at the same time, it will be known as a new house.”
There are many other possible theories/resolutions.
Including OP “relativity theory”, which if applied to the Ship of Theseus I guess would be something like: “Assuming you care a lot about the original Ship of Theseus, when all its components will have been progressively completely replaced, how much will you still care about it?”.
Basically different people have different subjective feelings/opinions/points-of-view/experiences/intutions/thoughts/theories/interpretations/preferences/resolutions about entity/person/mind/self continuity and that’s ok.
I personally find (at least for now) the “temporal parts theory” interpretation/resolution quite satisfying but I also like very much OP “relativity theory” and some other theories too!
And like the OP I would say: each to their own (and you are free to change your preference of theory whenever you feel like)
Thanks! In particular also for your more-kind-than-warranted hint at your original w/o accusing me of theft!! Especially as I now realize (or maybe realize again) your sleep-clone-swap example, which indeed I love as an perfectly concise illustration, had also come along with at least an “I guess”-caveated “it is subjective”, i.e. which some sense is really already included a core part of the conclusion/claim here.
I should have also picked up your ‘stream-of-consciousness continuity’ vs. ‘substrate/matter continuity’ terminology. Finally, the Ship of Theseus question thus, with “Temporal parts” vs. “Continued identity” would also be good links, although I guess I’d be spontaneously inclined to dismiss part of the discussion of these as questions ‘merely of definition’ - just until we get to the question of the mind/consciousness, where it seems to me indeed to become more fundamentally relevant (although, maybe, and ironically, after relegating the idea of a magical persistent self, maybe one could say, also here in the end it becomes slightly closer to that ‘merely question of definition/preference’ domain).
Btw, I’ll now take your own link-to-comment and add it to my post—thanks if you can let me know where I can create such links; I remembered looking and not finding it ANYWHERE even on your own LW profile page.
Aaw no problem at all Florian, I genuinely simply enjoyed you mentioning that sleep-clone-swap thought experiment and truly wasn’t bothered at all by anything about it, thank you so much for your very interesting and kind words and your citation and link in your article, wow I am blushing now!
And thank you so much for that great post of yours and taking the time to thoroughly answer so many comments (incuding mine!) that is so kind of you and makes for such an interesting thread about this topic of entity/person/mind/consciousness/self continuity/discontinuity which is quite fascinating!
And in my humble opinion indeed it has a lot to do with question of definitions/preferences but in any case it is always interesting to read/hear about eloquently/well-spoken words about this topic, thank you so much again for that!
About creating link-to-comment, I think one way to do it is to click on the time indicator next to the author name at the top of the comment then copy that link/URL.
Widely subscribe to OP point of view.
(loving that the sleep-clone-swap thought experiment I described in my comment to Rob Bensinger’s post inspired you!)
The level of discontinuity at which each people will consider a future entity/person/mind/self to still be the rightful continuation of a present entity/person/mind/self will vary according to their own present subjective feelings/opinions/points-of-view/experiences/intutions/thoughts/theories/interpretations/preferences/resolutions about it.
This is really Ship of Theseus paradox territory.
For example, the theory/resolution that I would personally (currently) widely subscribe to is:
“Temporal parts theory”, quoting Wikipedia: “Another common theory put forth by David Lewis is to divide up all objects into three-dimensional time-slices which are temporally distinct, which avoids the issue that the two different ships exist in the same space at one time and a different space at another time by considering the objects to be distinct from each other at all points in time.”
Some other people in the comments I think would be closer to this other theory/resolution:
“Continued identity theory”:
“This solution (proposed by Kate, Ernest et al.) sees an object as staying the same as long as it continuously exists under the same identity without being fully transformed at one time. For instance, a house that has its front wall destroyed and replaced at year 1, the ceiling replaced at year 2, and so on, until every part of the house has been replaced will still be understood as the same house. However, if every wall, the floor, and the roof are destroyed and replaced at the same time, it will be known as a new house.”
There are many other possible theories/resolutions.
Including OP “relativity theory”, which if applied to the Ship of Theseus I guess would be something like: “Assuming you care a lot about the original Ship of Theseus, when all its components will have been progressively completely replaced, how much will you still care about it?”.
Basically different people have different subjective feelings/opinions/points-of-view/experiences/intutions/thoughts/theories/interpretations/preferences/resolutions about entity/person/mind/self continuity and that’s ok.
I personally find (at least for now) the “temporal parts theory” interpretation/resolution quite satisfying but I also like very much OP “relativity theory” and some other theories too!
And like the OP I would say: each to their own (and you are free to change your preference of theory whenever you feel like)
Thanks! In particular also for your more-kind-than-warranted hint at your original w/o accusing me of theft!! Especially as I now realize (or maybe realize again) your sleep-clone-swap example, which indeed I love as an perfectly concise illustration, had also come along with at least an “I guess”-caveated “it is subjective”, i.e. which some sense is really already included a core part of the conclusion/claim here.
I should have also picked up your ‘stream-of-consciousness continuity’ vs. ‘substrate/matter continuity’ terminology. Finally, the Ship of Theseus question thus, with “Temporal parts” vs. “Continued identity” would also be good links, although I guess I’d be spontaneously inclined to dismiss part of the discussion of these as questions ‘merely of definition’ - just until we get to the question of the mind/consciousness, where it seems to me indeed to become more fundamentally relevant (although, maybe, and ironically, after relegating the idea of a magical persistent self, maybe one could say, also here in the end it becomes slightly closer to that ‘merely question of definition/preference’ domain).
Btw, I’ll now take your own link-to-comment and add it to my post—thanks if you can let me know where I can create such links; I remembered looking and not finding it ANYWHERE even on your own LW profile page.
Aaw no problem at all Florian, I genuinely simply enjoyed you mentioning that sleep-clone-swap thought experiment and truly wasn’t bothered at all by anything about it, thank you so much for your very interesting and kind words and your citation and link in your article, wow I am blushing now!
And thank you so much for that great post of yours and taking the time to thoroughly answer so many comments (incuding mine!) that is so kind of you and makes for such an interesting thread about this topic of entity/person/mind/consciousness/self continuity/discontinuity which is quite fascinating!
And in my humble opinion indeed it has a lot to do with question of definitions/preferences but in any case it is always interesting to read/hear about eloquently/well-spoken words about this topic, thank you so much again for that!
About creating link-to-comment, I think one way to do it is to click on the time indicator next to the author name at the top of the comment then copy that link/URL.