I’m updating in your direction. When I wrote the grandparent, I was anchoring on my own experience as someone whose life has been profoundly shaped by picking up strange new ideas from the internet and taking them seriously. But now that you mention it, if “I” (scare quotes because personal identity doesn’t work that way) had been born earlier, how do I know that “I” wouldn’t be the sort or person who whose life was shaped by picking up strange new ideas from xeroxed pamphlets and taking them seriously?
I’m updating in your direction. When I wrote the grandparent, I was anchoring on my own experience as someone whose life has been profoundly shaped by picking up strange new ideas from the internet and taking them seriously. But now that you mention it, if “I” (scare quotes because personal identity doesn’t work that way) had been born earlier, how do I know that “I” wouldn’t be the sort or person who whose life was shaped by picking up strange new ideas from xeroxed pamphlets and taking them seriously?