After considering this for quite some time, I came to a conclusion (imprecise though it is) that my definition of “myself” is something along the lines of:
In short form, a “future evolution of the algorithm which produces my conscious experience, which is implemented in some manner that actually gives rise to that conscious experience”
In order for a thing to count as me, it must have conscious experience; anything which appears to act like it has conscious experience will count, unless we somehow figure out a better test.
It also must have memory, and that memory must include a stream of consciousness which leads back to the stream of consciousness I am experiencing right now, to approximately the same fidelity as I currently have memory of a continuous stream of consciousness going back to approximately adolescence.
Essentially, the idea is that in order for something to count as being me, it must be the sort of thing which I can imagine becoming in the future (future relative to my conscious experience; I feel like I am progressing through time), while still believing myself to be me the whole time. For example, imagine that, through some freak accident, there existed a human living in the year 1050 AD who passed out and experienced an extremely vivid dream which just so happens to be identical to my life up until the present moment. I can imagine waking up and discovering that to be the case; I would still feel like me, even as I incorporated whatever memories and knowledge he had so that I would also feel like I was him. That situation contains a “future evolution” of me in the present, which just means “a thing which I can become in the future without breaking my stream of consciousness, at least not any more than normal sleep does today”.
This also implies that anything which diverged from me at some point in the past does not count as “me”, unless it is close enough that it eventually converges back (this should happen within hours or days for minor divergences, like placing a pen in a drawer rather than on a desk, and will never happen for divergences with cascading effects (particularly those which significantly alter the world around me, in addition to me)).
Obviously I’m still confused too. But I’m less confused than I used to be, and hopefully after reading this you’re a little less confused too. Or at least, hopefully you will be after reflecting a bit, if anything resonated at all.
After considering this for quite some time, I came to a conclusion (imprecise though it is) that my definition of “myself” is something along the lines of:
In short form, a “future evolution of the algorithm which produces my conscious experience, which is implemented in some manner that actually gives rise to that conscious experience”
In order for a thing to count as me, it must have conscious experience; anything which appears to act like it has conscious experience will count, unless we somehow figure out a better test.
It also must have memory, and that memory must include a stream of consciousness which leads back to the stream of consciousness I am experiencing right now, to approximately the same fidelity as I currently have memory of a continuous stream of consciousness going back to approximately adolescence.
Essentially, the idea is that in order for something to count as being me, it must be the sort of thing which I can imagine becoming in the future (future relative to my conscious experience; I feel like I am progressing through time), while still believing myself to be me the whole time. For example, imagine that, through some freak accident, there existed a human living in the year 1050 AD who passed out and experienced an extremely vivid dream which just so happens to be identical to my life up until the present moment. I can imagine waking up and discovering that to be the case; I would still feel like me, even as I incorporated whatever memories and knowledge he had so that I would also feel like I was him. That situation contains a “future evolution” of me in the present, which just means “a thing which I can become in the future without breaking my stream of consciousness, at least not any more than normal sleep does today”.
This also implies that anything which diverged from me at some point in the past does not count as “me”, unless it is close enough that it eventually converges back (this should happen within hours or days for minor divergences, like placing a pen in a drawer rather than on a desk, and will never happen for divergences with cascading effects (particularly those which significantly alter the world around me, in addition to me)).
Obviously I’m still confused too. But I’m less confused than I used to be, and hopefully after reading this you’re a little less confused too. Or at least, hopefully you will be after reflecting a bit, if anything resonated at all.