That’s fine, but we should phrase the question differently. Instead of asking “Should I add my expectation that I will find myself in strange place?” we should ask “Will that future person, looking back, perceive that I (now) am its former self?”
As to the unrelated question of whether a poor or non-exact model is sufficient to indicate preservation of identity, there is much to consider about which aspects are important (physical or psychological) and how much precision is required in the model in order to deem it a preservation of identity—but none of that has to do with the copy problem. The copy problem is orthogonal to the sufficient-model-precision question.
The copy problem arises in the first place because we are posing the question literally backwards (*). By posing the question pastward instead of futureward, the copy problem just vanishes. It becomes a misnomer in fact.
The precision problem then remains an entirely valid area of unrelated inquiry, but should not be conflated with the copy problem. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
(*): As I said, I’m not sure it’s even proper to contemplate the status of nonexistent things, like future things. Does “having a status” require already existing? What we can do is consider what their status will be once they are in the present and can be considered by comparison to their own past (our present), but we can’t ask if their “current” future status has some value relative to our current present, because they have no status to begin with.
The copy problem is also irrelevant for utilitarians, since all persons should be weighted equally under most utilitarian moral theories.
It’s only an issue for self-interested actors. So, if spurs A and B both agree that A is C and B is C, that still doesn’t help. Are the converse) statements true? A selfish C will base their decisions on whether C is A.
I tend to view this as another nail in the coffin of ethical egoism. I lean toward just putting a certain value on each point in mind-space, with high value for human-like minds, and smaller or zero value on possible agents which don’t pique our moral impulses.
While I like your approach in general as it promise to provide simple test for copy problem, I have some objections
In fact the term “copy” is misleading, and we should broke it on several terms. One of the is “my future state”. Future state is not copy by definition, as it different, but it could remember my past.
As “future state” is different from me, it opens all the hell of questions about not exact copies. Future state of me is not-exact copy of me which is different from me by the fact that it remembers me now as its past. It may be also different in other things. In fact you said that “not-exact copy of me which remember me in my past—is me anyway”. So you suggested a principle how prove identity of non-exact-copyes.
I will not remember most of my life moments. So they are dead ends in my life story. If we agree with your definition of identity it would mean that I die thousand times a day. Not pleasant and not productive model.
There will be false positives too. An impostor who claims to be Napoleon and has some knowledge of Napoleon’s life and last days, will be Napoleon by this definition of identity.
It will fail if we will try to connect early childhood of a person and his old state. Being 60 years old he has no any memory of being 3 years old, and not much similar personal traits. The definition of identity as “moving average continuity” (not in the map yet) could easily overcome this non natural situation.
We could reformulate many experiment in the way that copies exist in the past. For example, each day of the weak a copy of me appear in a cell, and he doesn’t know which day it is. (Something like Sleeping beauty experiment) In this case some of his copies are in the past from his point in timeline, and some may be in the future, but he should reason as if they all exist actually and simultaneously.
But I also like your intuition about the problem of actuality, that is if only moment now is real, no copies exist at all. Only “me now” exist. It closes the copy problem, but not closes the problem of “future state”.
In fact, I have bad news for any reader who happens to be here: the “copy problems” is not about copies. It is about next state of my mind, which is by definition not my copy.
3. I will not remember most of my life moments. So they are dead ends in my life story. If we agree with your definition of identity it would mean that I die thousand times a day. Not pleasant and not productive model.
It’s possible that we are all dying every Plank time, and that our CEV’s would judge this as an existential holocaust. I think that’s unlikely, but possible.
I don’t think it is true, I just said that it follows from the definition of identity based on ability to remember past moments.
In real life we use more complex understanding of identity, where it is constantly verified by multiple independent channels (I am overstraching here). if i don’t remember what I did yesterday, there still my non changing attributes like name, and also causal continuity of experiences.
That’s fine, but we should phrase the question differently. Instead of asking “Should I add my expectation that I will find myself in strange place?” we should ask “Will that future person, looking back, perceive that I (now) am its former self?”
As to the unrelated question of whether a poor or non-exact model is sufficient to indicate preservation of identity, there is much to consider about which aspects are important (physical or psychological) and how much precision is required in the model in order to deem it a preservation of identity—but none of that has to do with the copy problem. The copy problem is orthogonal to the sufficient-model-precision question.
The copy problem arises in the first place because we are posing the question literally backwards (*). By posing the question pastward instead of futureward, the copy problem just vanishes. It becomes a misnomer in fact.
The precision problem then remains an entirely valid area of unrelated inquiry, but should not be conflated with the copy problem. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
(*): As I said, I’m not sure it’s even proper to contemplate the status of nonexistent things, like future things. Does “having a status” require already existing? What we can do is consider what their status will be once they are in the present and can be considered by comparison to their own past (our present), but we can’t ask if their “current” future status has some value relative to our current present, because they have no status to begin with.
The copy problem is also irrelevant for utilitarians, since all persons should be weighted equally under most utilitarian moral theories.
It’s only an issue for self-interested actors. So, if spurs A and B both agree that A is C and B is C, that still doesn’t help. Are the converse) statements true? A selfish C will base their decisions on whether C is A.
I tend to view this as another nail in the coffin of ethical egoism. I lean toward just putting a certain value on each point in mind-space, with high value for human-like minds, and smaller or zero value on possible agents which don’t pique our moral impulses.
While I like your approach in general as it promise to provide simple test for copy problem, I have some objections
In fact the term “copy” is misleading, and we should broke it on several terms. One of the is “my future state”. Future state is not copy by definition, as it different, but it could remember my past.
As “future state” is different from me, it opens all the hell of questions about not exact copies. Future state of me is not-exact copy of me which is different from me by the fact that it remembers me now as its past. It may be also different in other things. In fact you said that “not-exact copy of me which remember me in my past—is me anyway”. So you suggested a principle how prove identity of non-exact-copyes.
I will not remember most of my life moments. So they are dead ends in my life story. If we agree with your definition of identity it would mean that I die thousand times a day. Not pleasant and not productive model.
There will be false positives too. An impostor who claims to be Napoleon and has some knowledge of Napoleon’s life and last days, will be Napoleon by this definition of identity.
It will fail if we will try to connect early childhood of a person and his old state. Being 60 years old he has no any memory of being 3 years old, and not much similar personal traits. The definition of identity as “moving average continuity” (not in the map yet) could easily overcome this non natural situation.
We could reformulate many experiment in the way that copies exist in the past. For example, each day of the weak a copy of me appear in a cell, and he doesn’t know which day it is. (Something like Sleeping beauty experiment) In this case some of his copies are in the past from his point in timeline, and some may be in the future, but he should reason as if they all exist actually and simultaneously.
But I also like your intuition about the problem of actuality, that is if only moment now is real, no copies exist at all. Only “me now” exist. It closes the copy problem, but not closes the problem of “future state”.
In fact, I have bad news for any reader who happens to be here: the “copy problems” is not about copies. It is about next state of my mind, which is by definition not my copy.
I’m not sure if you’ve made this mistake or not, but I know I have in the past. Just because something is unimaginably horrible doesn’t mean it isn’t also true.
It’s possible that we are all dying every Plank time, and that our CEV’s would judge this as an existential holocaust. I think that’s unlikely, but possible.
I don’t think it is true, I just said that it follows from the definition of identity based on ability to remember past moments.
In real life we use more complex understanding of identity, where it is constantly verified by multiple independent channels (I am overstraching here). if i don’t remember what I did yesterday, there still my non changing attributes like name, and also causal continuity of experiences.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I interpreted it as a reductio ad absurdum.