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Cosmology, with fairly low confidence, predicts that the universe (or multiverse) is infinite in both time and space. While this does not directly follow, it is also predicted that every possible configuration of matter exists somewhere in this universe/multiverse (source 1, source 2, source 3).

If this is the case, then infinitely many people qualitatively identical to us exist. In some views of personal identity, such as psychological continuity, it seems that these people are equally "us." In a way, this is a sort of practical teletransportation. However, we seem to be quite separate from all these other "us's."

Are arguments like these used at all in discussions on personal identity? It seems to be a useful way to empirically determine if a given theory of personal identity makes sense.

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    This is a common trope of your questions, so may I ask ? Why on earth do you think people with the same genetical makeup as you, or event same to you at the atomic level, if they exist, would be in anyway linked to you ?
    – armand
    Commented Jul 30, 2019 at 20:46
  • @armand I've fascinated by the fact that you can (maybe) empirically validate problems of personal identity through modern physics. I'm certainty not saying that I am linked to any of these people, but I'm rather saying that that fact could (maybe) be used against various ideas of personal identity (for example, closest-continuer theories). Although, for example, teletransportation could possibly take place in an infinite universe, maybe without us even knowing (this definitely sounds like a crackpot theory, but some beings "scanning" us from afar, which may be possible with such a universe)
    – APCoding
    Commented Jul 30, 2019 at 20:58
  • Besides the disputable idea of an universe with infinite galaxies and planets, these sources are not sources at all; the first and second are news portals, possibly the last place to inform yourself in scientific matters only losing to hearsay, and the third is apparently a personal blog of an MIT professor.
    – user31740
    Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 4:11
  • @William - The inflationary multiverse is a pretty standard theoretical idea, see arxiv.org/pdf/1512.01203.pdf for example
    – Hypnosifl
    Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 4:41

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