I think maybe the root of the confusion here might be a matter of language. We haven’t had copier technology, and so our language doesn’t have a common sense way of talking about different versions of ourselves. So when one asks “is this copy me?”, it’s easy to get confused. With versioning, it becomes clearer. I imagine once we have copier technology for a while, we’ll come up with linguistic conventions for talking about different versions of ourselves that aren’t clunky, but let me suggest a clunky convention to at least get the point across:
I, as I am currently, am Myron.1. If I were copied, I would remain Myron.1, and the copy would be Myron.1.1. If two copies were made of me at that same instant, they would be Myron.1.1 and Myron.1.2. If a copy was later made of Myron.1.2, he would be Myron.1.2.1. And so on.
With that convention in mind, I would answer the questions you pose up top as follows:
Rather, I assume xlr8harder cares about more substantive questions like:
If I expect to be uploaded tomorrow, should I care about the upload in the same ways (and to the same degree) that I care about my future biological self? No. Maybe similarly to a close relative,
Should I anticipate experiencing what my upload experiences? No. I should anticipate experiencing a continuation of Myron.1′s existence if the process is nondestructive, or the end of my (Myron.1)’s existence. Myron.1.1’s experiences will be separate and distinct from Myron.1′s.
If the scanning and uploading process requires destroying my biological brain, should I say yes to the procedure? Depends. Sometimes suicide is OK, and you could value the continuation of a mind like your own even if your mind goes away. Or, not. That’s a values question, not a fact question.
I’ll add a fourth, because you’ve discussed it:
4. After the scanning and copying process, will I feel like me? Yep. But, if the copying process was nondestructive, you will be able to look out and see that there is a copy of you. There will be a fact of the matter about who entered the copying machine and how the second copy was made, a point in time before which the second copy did not exist and after which it did exist, so one of you will be Rob.1, and the other will be Rob.1.1. It might not be easy to tell which version you are in the instant after the copy is made, but “the copy is the original” will be a statement that both you and the other version evaluate as logically false, same with “both of you are the same person”. “Both of you are you”, once we have linguistic conventions around versioning, will be a confusing and ambiguous statement and people will ask you what you mean by that.
And another interesting one:
5. After the scanning process, if it’s destructive, if I’m the surviving copy, should I consider the destruction of the original to be bad? I mean, yeah, a person was killed. It might not be you.currentversion, exactly, but it’s where you came from, so probably you feel some kinship with that person. In the same way I would feel a loss if a brother I grew up with was killed, I’d feel a loss if a past version of me was killed. We could have gone through life together with lots of shared history in a way very few people can, and now we can’t.
I think maybe the root of the confusion here might be a matter of language. We haven’t had copier technology, and so our language doesn’t have a common sense way of talking about different versions of ourselves. So when one asks “is this copy me?”, it’s easy to get confused. With versioning, it becomes clearer. I imagine once we have copier technology for a while, we’ll come up with linguistic conventions for talking about different versions of ourselves that aren’t clunky, but let me suggest a clunky convention to at least get the point across:
I, as I am currently, am Myron.1. If I were copied, I would remain Myron.1, and the copy would be Myron.1.1. If two copies were made of me at that same instant, they would be Myron.1.1 and Myron.1.2. If a copy was later made of Myron.1.2, he would be Myron.1.2.1. And so on.
With that convention in mind, I would answer the questions you pose up top as follows:
Rather, I assume xlr8harder cares about more substantive questions like:
If I expect to be uploaded tomorrow, should I care about the upload in the same ways (and to the same degree) that I care about my future biological self? No. Maybe similarly to a close relative,
Should I anticipate experiencing what my upload experiences? No. I should anticipate experiencing a continuation of Myron.1′s existence if the process is nondestructive, or the end of my (Myron.1)’s existence. Myron.1.1’s experiences will be separate and distinct from Myron.1′s.
If the scanning and uploading process requires destroying my biological brain, should I say yes to the procedure? Depends. Sometimes suicide is OK, and you could value the continuation of a mind like your own even if your mind goes away. Or, not. That’s a values question, not a fact question.
I’ll add a fourth, because you’ve discussed it:
4. After the scanning and copying process, will I feel like me? Yep. But, if the copying process was nondestructive, you will be able to look out and see that there is a copy of you. There will be a fact of the matter about who entered the copying machine and how the second copy was made, a point in time before which the second copy did not exist and after which it did exist, so one of you will be Rob.1, and the other will be Rob.1.1. It might not be easy to tell which version you are in the instant after the copy is made, but “the copy is the original” will be a statement that both you and the other version evaluate as logically false, same with “both of you are the same person”. “Both of you are you”, once we have linguistic conventions around versioning, will be a confusing and ambiguous statement and people will ask you what you mean by that.
And another interesting one:
5. After the scanning process, if it’s destructive, if I’m the surviving copy, should I consider the destruction of the original to be bad? I mean, yeah, a person was killed. It might not be you.currentversion, exactly, but it’s where you came from, so probably you feel some kinship with that person. In the same way I would feel a loss if a brother I grew up with was killed, I’d feel a loss if a past version of me was killed. We could have gone through life together with lots of shared history in a way very few people can, and now we can’t.