But yeah, personally, I think this is all a result of a kind of precious view about experiential continuity that I don’t share
Yeah, I don’t know that this glyphisation process would give us what we actually want.
“Consciousness” is a confused term. Taking on a more executable angle, we presumably value some specific kinds of systems/algorithms corresponding to conscious human minds. We especially value various additional features of these algorithms, such as specific personality traits, memories, et cetera. A system that has the features of a specific human being would presumably be valued extremely highly by that same human being. A system that has fewer of those features would be valued increasingly less (in lockstep with how unlike “you” it becomes), until it’s only as valuable as e. g. a randomly chosen human/sentient being.
So if you need to mold yourself into a shape where some or all of the features which you use to define yourself are absent, each loss is still a loss, even if it happens continuously/gradually.
So from a global perspective, it’s not much different than acausal aliens resurrecting Schelling-point Glyph Beings without you having warped yourself into a Glyph Being over time. If you value systems that are like Glyph Beings, their creation somewhere in another universe is still positive by your values. If you don’t, if you only value human-like systems, then someone creating Glyph Being bring no joy. Whether you or your friends warped yourself into a Glyph Being in the process doesn’t matter.
In my disambiguations of the really mysterious aspect of consciousness (indexical prior), I haven’t found any support for a concept of continuity. (you could say that continuity over time is likely given that causal entanglement seems to have something to do with the domain of the indexical prior, but I’m not sure we really have a reason to think we can ever observe anything about the indexical prior)
It’s just part of the human survival drive, it has very little to do with the metaphysics of consciousness. To understand the extent to which humans really care about it, you need to know human desires in a direct and holistic way that we don’t really practice here. Human desire is a big messy state machine that changes shape as a person grows. Some of the changes that the desires permit and encourage include situationally appropriate gradual reductions in complexity.
A continuity minder doesn’t need to define their self in terms of any particular quality, they define themselves as continuity with a history of small alterations. They are completely unbothered by the paradox of the ship of theseus.
It’s rare that I meet a continuity minder and cataclysmic identity change accepter who is also a patternist. But they do exist.
But I’ve met plenty of people who do not fear cataclysmic change. I sometimes wonder if we’re all that way, really. Most of us just never have the opportunity to gradually transition into a hedonium blob, so I think we don’t really know whether we’d do it or not. The road to the blob nature may turn out to be paved with acceptable changes.
Yeah, I don’t know that this glyphisation process would give us what we actually want.
“Consciousness” is a confused term. Taking on a more executable angle, we presumably value some specific kinds of systems/algorithms corresponding to conscious human minds. We especially value various additional features of these algorithms, such as specific personality traits, memories, et cetera. A system that has the features of a specific human being would presumably be valued extremely highly by that same human being. A system that has fewer of those features would be valued increasingly less (in lockstep with how unlike “you” it becomes), until it’s only as valuable as e. g. a randomly chosen human/sentient being.
So if you need to mold yourself into a shape where some or all of the features which you use to define yourself are absent, each loss is still a loss, even if it happens continuously/gradually.
So from a global perspective, it’s not much different than acausal aliens resurrecting Schelling-point Glyph Beings without you having warped yourself into a Glyph Being over time. If you value systems that are like Glyph Beings, their creation somewhere in another universe is still positive by your values. If you don’t, if you only value human-like systems, then someone creating Glyph Being bring no joy. Whether you or your friends warped yourself into a Glyph Being in the process doesn’t matter.
In my disambiguations of the really mysterious aspect of consciousness (indexical prior), I haven’t found any support for a concept of continuity. (you could say that continuity over time is likely given that causal entanglement seems to have something to do with the domain of the indexical prior, but I’m not sure we really have a reason to think we can ever observe anything about the indexical prior)
It’s just part of the human survival drive, it has very little to do with the metaphysics of consciousness. To understand the extent to which humans really care about it, you need to know human desires in a direct and holistic way that we don’t really practice here. Human desire is a big messy state machine that changes shape as a person grows. Some of the changes that the desires permit and encourage include situationally appropriate gradual reductions in complexity.
A continuity minder doesn’t need to define their self in terms of any particular quality, they define themselves as continuity with a history of small alterations. They are completely unbothered by the paradox of the ship of theseus.
It’s rare that I meet a continuity minder and cataclysmic identity change accepter who is also a patternist. But they do exist.
But I’ve met plenty of people who do not fear cataclysmic change. I sometimes wonder if we’re all that way, really. Most of us just never have the opportunity to gradually transition into a hedonium blob, so I think we don’t really know whether we’d do it or not. The road to the blob nature may turn out to be paved with acceptable changes.