It is a fact about the balls that one ball is physically continuous with the ball previously labeled as mine, while the other is not. It is a fact about our views on the balls that we therefore label that ball, which is physically continuous, as mine and the other not.
And then suppose that one of these two balls is randomly selected and placed in a bag, with another identical ball. Now, to the best of your knowledge there is 50% probability that your ball is in the bag. And if a random ball is selected from the bag, there is 25% chance that it’s yours.
So as a result of such manipulations there are three identical balls and one has 50% chance to be yours, while the other two have 25% chance to be yours. Is it a paradox? Oh course not. So why does it suddenly become a paradox when we are talking about copies of humans?
It is objectively the case here that 25% of the time this procedure would select the ball that is physically continuous with the ball originally labeled as “mine”, and that we therefore label as “mine”.
Ownership as discussed above has a relevant correlate in reality—physical continuity in this case. But a statement like “I will experience being copy B (as opposed to copy A or C)” does not. That statement corresponds to the exact same reality as the corresponding statements about experiencing being copy A or C. Unlike in the balls case, here the only difference between those statements is where we put the label of what is “me”.
In the identity thought experiment, it is still objectively the case that copies B and C are formed by splitting an intermediate copy, which was formed along with copy A by splitting the original.
You can choose to disvalue copies B and C based on that fact or not. This choice is a matter of values, and is inherently arbitrary.
By choosing not to disvalue copies B and C, I am not making an additional assumption—at least not one that you are already making by valuing B and C the same as each other. I am simply not counting the technical details of the splitting order as relevant to my values.
It is a fact about the balls that one ball is physically continuous with the ball previously labeled as mine, while the other is not. It is a fact about our views on the balls that we therefore label that ball, which is physically continuous, as mine and the other not.
It is objectively the case here that 25% of the time this procedure would select the ball that is physically continuous with the ball originally labeled as “mine”, and that we therefore label as “mine”.
Ownership as discussed above has a relevant correlate in reality—physical continuity in this case. But a statement like “I will experience being copy B (as opposed to copy A or C)” does not. That statement corresponds to the exact same reality as the corresponding statements about experiencing being copy A or C. Unlike in the balls case, here the only difference between those statements is where we put the label of what is “me”.
In the identity thought experiment, it is still objectively the case that copies B and C are formed by splitting an intermediate copy, which was formed along with copy A by splitting the original.
You can choose to disvalue copies B and C based on that fact or not. This choice is a matter of values, and is inherently arbitrary.
By choosing not to disvalue copies B and C, I am not making an additional assumption—at least not one that you are already making by valuing B and C the same as each other. I am simply not counting the technical details of the splitting order as relevant to my values.