Which I think is a pretty heavy blow for patternism.
I was with you right up until this conclusion. Seems like a non-sequitur.
Perhaps you are assuming that there has to be a single, objective, context-independent way to say whether two people are the same. Or exactly how different they are. And since patternism doesn’t obviously admit that, you conclude it can’t be right.
But to me, it seems like the common pattern for just about everything in life is that categories are blurry. We start with a naive, folk view that assumes things are crisp and clear, and as we learn more we realize that categories are not platonic, but represent clusters in thingspace.
If a view fits this common pattern, that seems to me like a point in its favor, not a point against. In other words, I’m a bit skeptical of any philosophical account that seems too platonic. Unless you’re dealing with very simple mathematical structures, there are almost always rough edges. And philosophical views should be realistic about this.
If all you mean to be saying is that it’s incomplete, then I don’t disagree. But you described throwing it away, which seems to me like not what you’d want to do with our best theory so far. Rather you’d want to build on, refine, or expand it.
Unless you think there’s a better foundation to build on?
I’m at a loss to how you could build on it honestly. This is gonna sound pathetic but I’m willing to give up on trying to find some impartial way of measuring this. I will still be reading arguments that claim it can be done, and maybe one of those will change my mind, but for now is the superiority of subjective measuring the viewpoint I’ll accept. (Am I going to LW-hell for this ;)
but for now is the superiority of subjective measuring the viewpoint I’ll accept
I didn’t follow this. You’re saying for now you’re leaning towards a subjective measuring viewpoint? Which one?
I’m willing to give up on trying to find some impartial way of measuring this
Depending on what you mean by “impartial”, I might agree that that’s the right move. But I think a good theory might end up looking more like special relativity, where time, speed, and simultaneity are observer-dependent (rather than universal), but in a well-defined way that we can speak precisely about.
I assume personal identity will be a little more complicated than that, since minds are more complicated than beams of light. But just wanted to highlight that as an example where we went from believing in a universal to one that was relative, but didn’t have to totally throw up our hands and declare it all meaningless.
I’m at a loss to how you could build on it honestly.
FWIW, if I were to spend some time on it, I’d maybe start by thinking through all the different ways that we use personal identity. Like, how the concept interacts with things. For example, partly it’s about what I anticipate experiencing next. Partly it’s about which beings’ future experiences I value. Partly it’s about how similar that entity is to me. Partly it’s about how much I can control what happens to that future entity. Partly it’s about what that entities memories will be. Etc, etc.
Just keep making the list, and then analyze various scenarios and thought experiments and think through how each of the different forms of personal identity applies. Which are relevant, and which are most important?
Then maybe you have a big long list of attributes of identity, and a big long list of how decision-relevant they are for various scenarios. And then maybe you can do dimensionality reduction and cluster them into a few meaningful categories that are individual amenable to quantification (similar to how the Big 5 personality system was developed).
“Which are relevant, and which are most important?”
That’s precisely the subjective part.
They could be objective, given a context. Now the choice of context may be a matter of taste or preference. But given a context that we want to ask questions about, we might be able to get objective answers. (E.g. will this hypothetical future person think like me?)
But agree that some subjectivity is involved somewhere in the process.
I assumed that patternism was intended as an answer to the question: how does one person retain their identity despite changes in material composition. (or: how do we get a materialistic theory of personal identity?).
I was with you right up until this conclusion. Seems like a non-sequitur.
Perhaps you are assuming that there has to be a single, objective, context-independent way to say whether two people are the same. Or exactly how different they are. And since patternism doesn’t obviously admit that, you conclude it can’t be right.
But to me, it seems like the common pattern for just about everything in life is that categories are blurry. We start with a naive, folk view that assumes things are crisp and clear, and as we learn more we realize that categories are not platonic, but represent clusters in thingspace.
If a view fits this common pattern, that seems to me like a point in its favor, not a point against. In other words, I’m a bit skeptical of any philosophical account that seems too platonic. Unless you’re dealing with very simple mathematical structures, there are almost always rough edges. And philosophical views should be realistic about this.
As I already said in another comment; theories don’t have to be false to be bad. It can a bad theory because it doesn’t generate new insights/gives us new predictions without having to be false: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/q5beZEfdoNsjL6TWm/a-problem-with-patternism?commentId=PAZnG6ZFFxGks99eZ
If all you mean to be saying is that it’s incomplete, then I don’t disagree. But you described throwing it away, which seems to me like not what you’d want to do with our best theory so far. Rather you’d want to build on, refine, or expand it.
Unless you think there’s a better foundation to build on?
I’m at a loss to how you could build on it honestly. This is gonna sound pathetic but I’m willing to give up on trying to find some impartial way of measuring this. I will still be reading arguments that claim it can be done, and maybe one of those will change my mind, but for now is the superiority of subjective measuring the viewpoint I’ll accept. (Am I going to LW-hell for this ;)
I didn’t follow this. You’re saying for now you’re leaning towards a subjective measuring viewpoint? Which one?
Depending on what you mean by “impartial”, I might agree that that’s the right move. But I think a good theory might end up looking more like special relativity, where time, speed, and simultaneity are observer-dependent (rather than universal), but in a well-defined way that we can speak precisely about.
I assume personal identity will be a little more complicated than that, since minds are more complicated than beams of light. But just wanted to highlight that as an example where we went from believing in a universal to one that was relative, but didn’t have to totally throw up our hands and declare it all meaningless.
FWIW, if I were to spend some time on it, I’d maybe start by thinking through all the different ways that we use personal identity. Like, how the concept interacts with things. For example, partly it’s about what I anticipate experiencing next. Partly it’s about which beings’ future experiences I value. Partly it’s about how similar that entity is to me. Partly it’s about how much I can control what happens to that future entity. Partly it’s about what that entities memories will be. Etc, etc.
Just keep making the list, and then analyze various scenarios and thought experiments and think through how each of the different forms of personal identity applies. Which are relevant, and which are most important?
Then maybe you have a big long list of attributes of identity, and a big long list of how decision-relevant they are for various scenarios. And then maybe you can do dimensionality reduction and cluster them into a few meaningful categories that are individual amenable to quantification (similar to how the Big 5 personality system was developed).
That doesn’t sound so hard, does it? ;-)
“What subjective system?”
Some combination of an ethical system and a set of measurable attributes that I care about. I have nothing concrete in mind.
“Which are relevant, and which are most important?”
That’s precisely the subjective part.
They could be objective, given a context. Now the choice of context may be a matter of taste or preference. But given a context that we want to ask questions about, we might be able to get objective answers. (E.g. will this hypothetical future person think like me?)
But agree that some subjectivity is involved somewhere in the process.
I assumed that patternism was intended as an answer to the question: how does one person retain their identity despite changes in material composition. (or: how do we get a materialistic theory of personal identity?).
I would answer: imperfectly, partially, and non-platonicly. :-)
EDIT: I think I may have missed your point though. Because I’m not sure which part of my comment you’re responding to.