Assuming everything I said in my previous comment is true and that I have no incentive to lie to you (but no incentive to tell you the truth, either), would you believe me if I then said you were the copy?
Based on your status as some-guy-on-the-internet and my estimate of the probability that this exact situation could come to be, no I do not believe you.
To clarify: I do not privilege the original self. I privilege the current self.
Sorry, I missed that you were the copier. Sure, I’m the copy. I do not care one bit. My life goes on totally unaffected (assuming the original and I live in unconnected universes). Do I get transhuman immortality? Because that would be awesome for me. If so, I git the long end of the stick. It would have no value to poor old original, nor does anything which happens to him have intrinsic value for me. If you had asked his permission he would have said no.
In other words, I could make you believe that you were either the original or the copy simply by telling you you were the original/the copy. This means that before I told you which one you were, you would have been equally comfortable with the prospect of being either one (here I’m using “comfortable” in an epistemic sense—you don’t feel as though one possibility is “privileged” over the other). I could have even made you waffle back and forth by repeatedly telling you that I lied. What a strange situation to find yourself in—every possible piece of information about your internal experience is available to you, yet you seem unable to make up your mind about a very simple fact!
The pattern theorists answer this by denying this so-called “simple” fact’s existence: the one says, “There is no fact of the matter as to which one I am, because until our experiences diverge, I am both.” You, on the other hand, have no such recourse, because you claim there is a fact of the matter. Why, then, is the information necessary to determine this fact seemingly unavailable to you and available to me, even though it’s a fact about your consciousness, not mine?
The genesis of my brain is of no concern as to whether or not I am the consciousness within it. I am, ipso facto. When I say it doesn’t matter if I am an original or a copy or a copy of a copy I mean to say just exactly that. To whom are you speaking when you ask the question who are you? if it is to me the answer is “Me” I’m sorry that I don’t know whether or not I am a copy but I was UNconscious at the time.
If copy is B and original is A. The question of whether I am A or B is irrelevant to the question of am I ME, which I am. Ask HIM the same question and HE will say the same and it will be true coming from his mouth.
If I drug you and place you in a room with two doors, only I would know which of those doors you entered though. This means that before I told you which one you entered, you would have been equally comfortable with the prospect of being either one. I could have even made you waffle back and forth by repeatedly telling you that I lied. What a strange situation to find yourself in—every possible piece of information about your internal experience is available to you, yet you seem unable to make up your mind about a very simple fact!
I appear to hold a lot of the same views as Usul, so I’ll chime in here.
I could have even made you waffle back and forth by repeatedly telling you that I lied.
You could, but since I don’t privilege the original or the copy, it wouldn’t matter. You can swap the labels all day long and it still wouldn’t affect the fact that the ‘copy’ and the ‘original’ are both still me. No matter how many times Pluto gains or loses its “planet” status, it’s still the same ball of ice and rock.
I’ll go one step further than the pattern theorists and say that I am both, even after our experiences diverge, as long as we don’t diverge too far (where ‘too far’ is up to my/our personal preference.)
Follow-up question:
Assuming everything I said in my previous comment is true and that I have no incentive to lie to you (but no incentive to tell you the truth, either), would you believe me if I then said you were the copy?
Based on your status as some-guy-on-the-internet and my estimate of the probability that this exact situation could come to be, no I do not believe you.
To clarify: I do not privilege the original self. I privilege the current self.
Sorry, I missed that you were the copier. Sure, I’m the copy. I do not care one bit. My life goes on totally unaffected (assuming the original and I live in unconnected universes). Do I get transhuman immortality? Because that would be awesome for me. If so, I git the long end of the stick. It would have no value to poor old original, nor does anything which happens to him have intrinsic value for me. If you had asked his permission he would have said no.
In other words, I could make you believe that you were either the original or the copy simply by telling you you were the original/the copy. This means that before I told you which one you were, you would have been equally comfortable with the prospect of being either one (here I’m using “comfortable” in an epistemic sense—you don’t feel as though one possibility is “privileged” over the other). I could have even made you waffle back and forth by repeatedly telling you that I lied. What a strange situation to find yourself in—every possible piece of information about your internal experience is available to you, yet you seem unable to make up your mind about a very simple fact!
The pattern theorists answer this by denying this so-called “simple” fact’s existence: the one says, “There is no fact of the matter as to which one I am, because until our experiences diverge, I am both.” You, on the other hand, have no such recourse, because you claim there is a fact of the matter. Why, then, is the information necessary to determine this fact seemingly unavailable to you and available to me, even though it’s a fact about your consciousness, not mine?
The genesis of my brain is of no concern as to whether or not I am the consciousness within it. I am, ipso facto. When I say it doesn’t matter if I am an original or a copy or a copy of a copy I mean to say just exactly that. To whom are you speaking when you ask the question who are you? if it is to me the answer is “Me” I’m sorry that I don’t know whether or not I am a copy but I was UNconscious at the time.
If copy is B and original is A. The question of whether I am A or B is irrelevant to the question of am I ME, which I am. Ask HIM the same question and HE will say the same and it will be true coming from his mouth.
If I drug you and place you in a room with two doors, only I would know which of those doors you entered though. This means that before I told you which one you entered, you would have been equally comfortable with the prospect of being either one. I could have even made you waffle back and forth by repeatedly telling you that I lied. What a strange situation to find yourself in—every possible piece of information about your internal experience is available to you, yet you seem unable to make up your mind about a very simple fact!
I appear to hold a lot of the same views as Usul, so I’ll chime in here.
You could, but since I don’t privilege the original or the copy, it wouldn’t matter. You can swap the labels all day long and it still wouldn’t affect the fact that the ‘copy’ and the ‘original’ are both still me. No matter how many times Pluto gains or loses its “planet” status, it’s still the same ball of ice and rock.
I’ll go one step further than the pattern theorists and say that I am both, even after our experiences diverge, as long as we don’t diverge too far (where ‘too far’ is up to my/our personal preference.)