I am pretty new to LW, and have been looking for something and have been unable to find it.
What I am looking for is a discussion on when two entities are identical, and if they are identical, are they one entity or two?
The context for this is continuity of identity over time. Obviously an entity that has extra memories added is not identical to an entity without those memories, but if there is a transform that can be applied to the first entity (the transform of experience over time), then in one sense the second entity can be considered to be an older (and wiser) version of the earlier entity.
But the selection of the transform that changes the first entity into the second one is arbitrary. In principle there is a transform that will change any Turing equivalent into any other Turing equivalent. Is every entity that can be instantiated as a TM equivalent to every other TM entity?
I appreciate this does not apply to entities instantiated in a biological format because such substrates are not stable over time (even a few seconds). However that does raise another problem, how can a human be “the same” entity over their lifetime?
I am pretty new to LW, and have been looking for something and have been unable to find it.
What I am looking for is a discussion on when two entities are identical, and if they are identical, are they one entity or two?
The context for this is continuity of identity over time. Obviously an entity that has extra memories added is not identical to an entity without those memories, but if there is a transform that can be applied to the first entity (the transform of experience over time), then in one sense the second entity can be considered to be an older (and wiser) version of the earlier entity.
But the selection of the transform that changes the first entity into the second one is arbitrary. In principle there is a transform that will change any Turing equivalent into any other Turing equivalent. Is every entity that can be instantiated as a TM equivalent to every other TM entity?
I appreciate this does not apply to entities instantiated in a biological format because such substrates are not stable over time (even a few seconds). However that does raise another problem, how can a human be “the same” entity over their lifetime?