“I think that’s a cognitive illusion...” No one has yet shown that personal identity consists in anything other than self-identification, i.e. that I happen to consider myself the same person as 10 years ago and expect in 10 years to be someone who believes himself to have had my past. If that is the case, there is no reason for a person not to self-identify with anyone he wants, as for example his own descendants (cf. Scott Alexander’s post). In this way there is no more and no less cognitive illusion in wanting to live on through one’s descendants than in wanting to be physically immortal.
No one has yet shown that personal identity consists in anything other than self-identification, i.e. that I happen to consider myself the same person as 10 years ago and expect in 10 years to be someone who believes himself to have had my past.
I just tried to consider myself as being the coffee cup in front of me, but I can’t seem to manage it. Then I tried considering myself to be the chap who lives next door, but that doesn’t work either. There seems to be a certain ineluctability about my identification with this body and this mind which is left unaccounted for by sticking onto it XML tags saying .
Yes, there are reasons why you consider yourself the same as some particular person and not another. That doesn’t prevent other people from having other reasons for considering themselves identified with other bodies, as for example people who believe in reincarnation. Their belief may be less natural than yours, but it is neither more nor less objective (i.e. neither belief has anything objective about it, at least as far as we can tell.)
That doesn’t prevent other people from having other reasons for considering themselves identified with other bodies, as for example people who believe in reincarnation.
Some people justify claims of reincarnation by claiming to remember past lives, not merely to “identify with” them. The belief does have something objective about it: it can be tested. Such claims have generally failed of substantiation.
In short, my reasons are objectively good; theirs are objectively bad. What do you mean by “less natural”, if not this?
I said their belief was “less natural” because human nature is more inclined to your kind of belief (thus it is universal) than to their kind of belief (which is much less universal.) However, whether the reasons in question are good or bad, they are subjective in both cases.
You seem to be supportive of cryonics (e.g. in this comment). Are you in favor of cryonics in the case that you are revived as an upload? If so, what makes you think the upload would be you, rather than “this body”, which would be dead?
“I think that’s a cognitive illusion...” No one has yet shown that personal identity consists in anything other than self-identification, i.e. that I happen to consider myself the same person as 10 years ago and expect in 10 years to be someone who believes himself to have had my past. If that is the case, there is no reason for a person not to self-identify with anyone he wants, as for example his own descendants (cf. Scott Alexander’s post). In this way there is no more and no less cognitive illusion in wanting to live on through one’s descendants than in wanting to be physically immortal.
I just tried to consider myself as being the coffee cup in front of me, but I can’t seem to manage it. Then I tried considering myself to be the chap who lives next door, but that doesn’t work either. There seems to be a certain ineluctability about my identification with this body and this mind which is left unaccounted for by sticking onto it XML tags saying .
Yes, there are reasons why you consider yourself the same as some particular person and not another. That doesn’t prevent other people from having other reasons for considering themselves identified with other bodies, as for example people who believe in reincarnation. Their belief may be less natural than yours, but it is neither more nor less objective (i.e. neither belief has anything objective about it, at least as far as we can tell.)
Some people justify claims of reincarnation by claiming to remember past lives, not merely to “identify with” them. The belief does have something objective about it: it can be tested. Such claims have generally failed of substantiation.
In short, my reasons are objectively good; theirs are objectively bad. What do you mean by “less natural”, if not this?
I said their belief was “less natural” because human nature is more inclined to your kind of belief (thus it is universal) than to their kind of belief (which is much less universal.) However, whether the reasons in question are good or bad, they are subjective in both cases.
You seem to be supportive of cryonics (e.g. in this comment). Are you in favor of cryonics in the case that you are revived as an upload? If so, what makes you think the upload would be you, rather than “this body”, which would be dead?
Of course a belief is a state of mind. That does not mean it is not objectively true or false.
Enough to not pooh-pooh the idea, but not so much as to have signed up for it myself. I don’t have a settled opinion on the nature of uploads.