It is nice to see people thinking about this stuff. Keep it up, and keep us posted!
Have you read the philosopher Derek Parfit? He is famous for arguing for pretty much exactly what you propose here, I think.
Doubt: Doesn’t this imply that anthropic probabilities depend on how big a boundary the mind draws around stuff it considers “I”?
Self: Yes.
Doubt: This seems to render probability useless.
I agree with Doubt. If can make it 100% probable that I’ll get superpowers tomorrow merely by convincing myself that only superpowered future-versions of me count as me, then sign me up for surgical brainwashing today!
If you take altruism into account, then it all adds up to normality. Or rather, it can all be made to add up to normality, if we suitably modify our utility function. But that’s true of ANY theory.
My question is, would you apply the same principle to personal-identity-right-now? Forget the future and the past, and just worry about the question “what am I right now?” Would you say that the answer to this question is also mind-dependent, such that if I decide to draw the reference class for the word “I” in such a way as to exclude brains in vats, then I have 0% probability of being a brain in a vat?
Yes, the answer to that question is mind dependent. But this isn’t really a big deal. If a person decides that there is an 80% probability that a banana will appear in front of them, their P(A banana will appear in front of me) is 0.8. If a Midwesterner decides that they are guaranteed not to be in Kansas after waking up from a coma, their P(I am in Kansas) is about 0. If I decide that I am definitely not a brain in a vat, my P(I am a vat brain) is about 0.
I suspect there is still some way to get non-stupid probabilities out of this mess from a series of observations by observer-moments, though I don’t know how to do it. Intuitively, the problem with deciding that your P(I am a vat brain) is 0 is that your pre-existing series of observations could have been made by a vat brain.
To me signing up for superpower surgery can raise “if there exists a me, it is superpowered” to arbitarily high but it would at the same time lower “after the surgery there is a me” at the same rate.
This would kinda leave a funny edgecase where a brain in a vat could correctly conclude that “I don’t exist” if it finds evidence that nothing that fits it’s self image exists in the world (ie beings with hands etc). It would still be blatantly obvious that something is having the thought and it would be really nice if “I” would refer to that thing regardless of how you picture yourself.
You could have a situation where you are a brain in a vat in your lap with all your sensory inputs being conveyed by a traditional body. It would still be pretty challenging to determine whether you are your skull or the fishbowl in your hands. Maybe the multilayered use of me in the previous sentence points at the right way? So what happens to the thing you are now (or your extended-you) is a different question on what you will become (your core-you). That way the only way for core-you to terminate would be to not to have thoughts. Breaking the extended-you would thus not terminate your toughts and core-you would still be core-you.
It is nice to see people thinking about this stuff. Keep it up, and keep us posted!
Have you read the philosopher Derek Parfit? He is famous for arguing for pretty much exactly what you propose here, I think.
I agree with Doubt. If can make it 100% probable that I’ll get superpowers tomorrow merely by convincing myself that only superpowered future-versions of me count as me, then sign me up for surgical brainwashing today!
If you take altruism into account, then it all adds up to normality. Or rather, it can all be made to add up to normality, if we suitably modify our utility function. But that’s true of ANY theory.
My question is, would you apply the same principle to personal-identity-right-now? Forget the future and the past, and just worry about the question “what am I right now?” Would you say that the answer to this question is also mind-dependent, such that if I decide to draw the reference class for the word “I” in such a way as to exclude brains in vats, then I have 0% probability of being a brain in a vat?
Yes, the answer to that question is mind dependent. But this isn’t really a big deal. If a person decides that there is an 80% probability that a banana will appear in front of them, their P(A banana will appear in front of me) is 0.8. If a Midwesterner decides that they are guaranteed not to be in Kansas after waking up from a coma, their P(I am in Kansas) is about 0. If I decide that I am definitely not a brain in a vat, my P(I am a vat brain) is about 0.
I suspect there is still some way to get non-stupid probabilities out of this mess from a series of observations by observer-moments, though I don’t know how to do it. Intuitively, the problem with deciding that your P(I am a vat brain) is 0 is that your pre-existing series of observations could have been made by a vat brain.
To me signing up for superpower surgery can raise “if there exists a me, it is superpowered” to arbitarily high but it would at the same time lower “after the surgery there is a me” at the same rate.
This would kinda leave a funny edgecase where a brain in a vat could correctly conclude that “I don’t exist” if it finds evidence that nothing that fits it’s self image exists in the world (ie beings with hands etc). It would still be blatantly obvious that something is having the thought and it would be really nice if “I” would refer to that thing regardless of how you picture yourself.
You could have a situation where you are a brain in a vat in your lap with all your sensory inputs being conveyed by a traditional body. It would still be pretty challenging to determine whether you are your skull or the fishbowl in your hands. Maybe the multilayered use of me in the previous sentence points at the right way? So what happens to the thing you are now (or your extended-you) is a different question on what you will become (your core-you). That way the only way for core-you to terminate would be to not to have thoughts. Breaking the extended-you would thus not terminate your toughts and core-you would still be core-you.