I’ve been thinking about theories of identity lately. Under a strictly information theoretical theory of identity, a person’s desire to remain alive is most straightforwardly understood as a kind of sentimental attachment to their own person, such that they want the universe to contain at least one person with these cognitive patterns.
There does not however seem to be any particular reason why it would have to be an exact match. Indeed, it is hard to explain why a person should object to simply being replaced with a more idealised version of himself. Perhaps he wants to go through processes of self-improvement instead of essentially “cheating” his way through life, but that does not apply to fixing birth defects, chronic illnesses, cancer, etc., or simply becoming smarter. Most importantly, assuming an information theoretical theory of identity, there does not seem to be any particular reason why perfect continuity is important. General continuity may be desired out of essentially aesthetic reasons, but consider the following case:
A person has three copies made of himself with extended longevity and better physical health. The copies do not have quite exactly the same cognitive patterns as the original, but they are close enough to be indistinguishable in practice.
One of these takes over his present occupation, hobbies, relationships, etc. The other two dedicate their lives to alternate paths that the original person had to sacrifice because of time constraints.
The original is destroyed.
Obviously, all else equal, the person would wish for the original not to be destroyed, but supposing it were an unavoidable part of the bargain—is there any reason he should refuse? Yet my intuition, and the intuition of most people as far as I can tell, seems to be that he would not survive the bargain, even though the universe still holds one person more or less exactly like him after the fact, as well as two copies living counterfactual life histories.
There seems to be an intuition that something like a “soul” or “Heideggerian Dasein” is bound up with the original in a manner that makes continuity much more relevant than it would otherwise be. Thoughts?
I suspect, without identifying someone here who will take the other side, you won’t get much engagement on this topic. “copies of self” is a common setup in a lot of thought experiments, but it’s not currently possible, so there’s no way to resolve what it actually feels like, and what parts of past continuity or expected future continuity are important for what aspects of identity.
Sure there is. Feelings, at least in a typical materialist worldview with an information theoretical theory of identity, are simply cognitive patterns that exist independently in the several approximate copies. The copies, being similar, will ipso facto have similar feelings. That’s all there is to it.
When you stipulate uncertainty about this matter, you are unknowingly invoking some kind of soul-intuition. That’s the whole point I’m getting at. By “feelings”, you are clearly not merely referencing the cognitive patterns of each individual clone as they occur independently in the separate clones. If you were, there would be no mystery about it; nothing to resolve.
Edit: Also, even without running the experiment, it should still be possible to operationalise and to examine what conclusions could be inferred from which experimental results and which experimental results seem more likely. Right now, you seem to be basically blackboxing the whole issue.
I’ve been thinking about theories of identity lately. Under a strictly information theoretical theory of identity, a person’s desire to remain alive is most straightforwardly understood as a kind of sentimental attachment to their own person, such that they want the universe to contain at least one person with these cognitive patterns.
There does not however seem to be any particular reason why it would have to be an exact match. Indeed, it is hard to explain why a person should object to simply being replaced with a more idealised version of himself. Perhaps he wants to go through processes of self-improvement instead of essentially “cheating” his way through life, but that does not apply to fixing birth defects, chronic illnesses, cancer, etc., or simply becoming smarter. Most importantly, assuming an information theoretical theory of identity, there does not seem to be any particular reason why perfect continuity is important. General continuity may be desired out of essentially aesthetic reasons, but consider the following case:
A person has three copies made of himself with extended longevity and better physical health. The copies do not have quite exactly the same cognitive patterns as the original, but they are close enough to be indistinguishable in practice.
One of these takes over his present occupation, hobbies, relationships, etc. The other two dedicate their lives to alternate paths that the original person had to sacrifice because of time constraints.
The original is destroyed.
Obviously, all else equal, the person would wish for the original not to be destroyed, but supposing it were an unavoidable part of the bargain—is there any reason he should refuse? Yet my intuition, and the intuition of most people as far as I can tell, seems to be that he would not survive the bargain, even though the universe still holds one person more or less exactly like him after the fact, as well as two copies living counterfactual life histories.
There seems to be an intuition that something like a “soul” or “Heideggerian Dasein” is bound up with the original in a manner that makes continuity much more relevant than it would otherwise be. Thoughts?
I suspect, without identifying someone here who will take the other side, you won’t get much engagement on this topic. “copies of self” is a common setup in a lot of thought experiments, but it’s not currently possible, so there’s no way to resolve what it actually feels like, and what parts of past continuity or expected future continuity are important for what aspects of identity.
Sure there is. Feelings, at least in a typical materialist worldview with an information theoretical theory of identity, are simply cognitive patterns that exist independently in the several approximate copies. The copies, being similar, will ipso facto have similar feelings. That’s all there is to it.
When you stipulate uncertainty about this matter, you are unknowingly invoking some kind of soul-intuition. That’s the whole point I’m getting at. By “feelings”, you are clearly not merely referencing the cognitive patterns of each individual clone as they occur independently in the separate clones. If you were, there would be no mystery about it; nothing to resolve.
Edit: Also, even without running the experiment, it should still be possible to operationalise and to examine what conclusions could be inferred from which experimental results and which experimental results seem more likely. Right now, you seem to be basically blackboxing the whole issue.