Timeline for Almost Sure Mind Transfer via Parfit's Identity Theory (interesting thought experiment)
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
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| Oct 31, 2013 at 15:01 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | ||
| Oct 31, 2013 at 14:59 | comment | added | user4634 | philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/8549/… | |
| Oct 31, 2013 at 14:44 | comment | added | Ryder | That's bit more clear, and interesting. Would you be interested in editing or re-stating the question? I believe the next comment will hit the "please continue discussion in chat" flag, so it may be best to leave this as-is and try a different or revised line of inquiry. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 13:10 | comment | added | user4634 | (cont'd, final) I have confirmed this understanding with Parfit himself though personal communication. He confirmed that there is no difference, in terms of survival, between, for example, traveling to mars via spaceship (lets say while sleeping/unconscious) and having your brain and body digitally copied, destroyed, and reassembled on mars. So, in both cases, you would be justified in saying "your" next experience will be to awake on mars. Now, if you are copied after you lose consciouness, with one staying on earth, then in a subjective sense, you have halved your chances of getting to mars. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 13:05 | comment | added | user4634 | (cont'd) They will not experience two different viewpoints, but exist as two viewpoints. If one viewpoint is more desirable than the other, and if the less desireable viewpoint is not eliminated, then one of the two possible "next" experiences will potentially be negative for one of the two viewpoints (both will, of course, happen). It's a subtle distinction that even though both are you, only one will feel failure and ,subjectively, the patient can expect a 50% chance of having the subjective experience of failure. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 12:57 | comment | added | user4634 | Thanks for the link Ryder. I was thinking about that "muddyness" after I wrote my comment to you. I guess what I am trying, perhaps not too well, to articulate is that, even in our current life, we have a subjective sense of continuity, and per Parfit, psychlogical connectness is just as good as ordinary survival, hence we can see ourselves as surviving in each of the two copies. If a person is about to undergo this procedure, I think it is subjectively most accurate to describe what will happen "next" when they awake by giving a probabilistic description. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 9:06 | comment | added | Ryder | @Eupraxis1981, it's still a bit muddy when you say "but you want to be one of the two 'subjective components' of the split identity" -- but then, if you're more interested in something like a game-theoretic evaluation of value to place on "which you" you want to be, there's a view from Nozick that's been called the closest continuer theory [ iep.utm.edu/nozick/#H4 ] which your experiment seems (to me, at least) to resemble a bit, though you're defining the probabilities more rigorously, which is always helpful. | |
| Oct 27, 2013 at 16:15 | comment | added | user4634 | To clarify my thought experiment: Each of the two subjectivities has equal claim as the successor of the original. However, each does not experience the other's viewpoint. Therefore, what I am getting at is not "tracking the path of a soul" but examining how you would end up being the subjectivity that has the desired outcome, and not the other, when both are continuations of you and you have no soul that can pick. Both are you, but you want to be one of the two "subjective components" of the split identity (preferred half). I'm not trying to metaphysically establish "identity by degree" | |
| Oct 27, 2013 at 16:12 | comment | added | user4634 | Thanks Ryder for your thoughtful response :) I agree, and I hope I wasn't implying otherwise, that under Parfit's theory of identity all the mind-copies in my experiment would be part of the same "identical person". I also agree that no specific mental content is needed for psychological connectedness. My discussion was concerning subjectivity of the experiment, not who was the "real" you. If a person now (T=0) wanted to have a subjective experience in a new body at some point T>0 via this method, then they would need to perform this multiple times, as they could subjecvtively wake as either | |
| Oct 26, 2013 at 23:15 | history | answered | Ryder | CC BY-SA 3.0 |