So, if you decide that your brain after being shot is still you and then shoot yourself, you will not die?
Yes. In fact, this isn’t hypothetical; lots of people on this site in fact do believe that their brains after they’ve been shot, if adequately cryopreserved, are still them and that they haven’t necessarily died.
Can I decide I’m Bill Gates? Like, for a couple of days?
I don’t know, can you? Have you tried? (Of course, that won’t alter what the legal system does.)
Then: no, apparently you can’t. Your notion of personal identity seems to be tied to a particular body and location, if I’m reading you right. Which also implies that your notion of personal identity can’t survive death, and can’t be simultaneously present on Earth and Mars.
Which of course does not preclude the possibility of someone on Mars, or existing after your death, who would pass all conceivable tests of being you as well as you would.
TheOtherDave, you seem to be implying that Locaha is unusual in not being able to experience Bill Gates’s reality, and that in principle it should be possible to “identify with” Bill Gates and then suddenly “wake up” in Bill Gates’s body with all of his memories and whatnot, thinking that you had always been Bill Gates and being none the wiser that you had just been experiencing a different body’s reality a moment ago.
If that is possible, then how do we know that we aren’t doing this all the time? Also, if this were possible, then we would not really have to worry about death necessarily entailing non-existence. We would just “wake up” as someone else that next second with all of that person’s memories, thinking that we had always been that person. (Of course, then that begs the question: who would we wake up as? Perhaps the person with the most similar brain as our former one, since that seems to be how we stick with our existing brain as it changes incrementally from moment to moment?)
I don’t think Locaha’s inability to experience themselves as Bill Gates is unusual in the slightest. I suspect most of us are unable to do so.
Also, I haven’t said a word about Bill Gates’ memory and whatnot. If having all Bill Gates’ memories and whatnot is necessary for someone to be Bill Gates, then very few people indeed are capable of it. (Indeed, there are plausible circumstances under which Bill Gates himself would no longer be capable of being Bill Gates.)
Yes. In fact, this isn’t hypothetical; lots of people on this site in fact do believe that their brains after they’ve been shot, if adequately cryopreserved, are still them and that they haven’t necessarily died.
I don’t know, can you? Have you tried? (Of course, that won’t alter what the legal system does.)
Yeah, it’s not working, If I was Bill Gates, I’d be in a different body and location.
Then: no, apparently you can’t. Your notion of personal identity seems to be tied to a particular body and location, if I’m reading you right. Which also implies that your notion of personal identity can’t survive death, and can’t be simultaneously present on Earth and Mars.
Which of course does not preclude the possibility of someone on Mars, or existing after your death, who would pass all conceivable tests of being you as well as you would.
TheOtherDave, you seem to be implying that Locaha is unusual in not being able to experience Bill Gates’s reality, and that in principle it should be possible to “identify with” Bill Gates and then suddenly “wake up” in Bill Gates’s body with all of his memories and whatnot, thinking that you had always been Bill Gates and being none the wiser that you had just been experiencing a different body’s reality a moment ago.
If that is possible, then how do we know that we aren’t doing this all the time? Also, if this were possible, then we would not really have to worry about death necessarily entailing non-existence. We would just “wake up” as someone else that next second with all of that person’s memories, thinking that we had always been that person. (Of course, then that begs the question: who would we wake up as? Perhaps the person with the most similar brain as our former one, since that seems to be how we stick with our existing brain as it changes incrementally from moment to moment?)
I don’t think Locaha’s inability to experience themselves as Bill Gates is unusual in the slightest. I suspect most of us are unable to do so.
Also, I haven’t said a word about Bill Gates’ memory and whatnot. If having all Bill Gates’ memories and whatnot is necessary for someone to be Bill Gates, then very few people indeed are capable of it. (Indeed, there are plausible circumstances under which Bill Gates himself would no longer be capable of being Bill Gates.)