Asterisks around your *italic text* like that. There should be a “Show help” button below the comment field which will pop up a table that explains this stuff.
Isn’t this why death is a fundamental problem for people?
I actually think so. I mean, I used to think of death as this horrible thing, but I realized that I will never experience being dead, so it doesn’t bother me so much anymore. Not being alive bothers me, because I like being alive, but that’s another story. However, I’m dying all the time, in a sense. For example, most of the daily thoughts of 10-year old me are thoughts I will never have again; particularly, because I live somewhere else now, I won’t even have the same patterns being burned into my visual cortex.
I think the crux of the issue is that you believe generic “Chris H consciousness” is all that matters, no matter what platform is running it.
That’s a good way of putting it. The main thing that bothers me about focusing on a “particular” person is that I (in your sense of the word) have no way of knowing whether I’m a copy (in your sense of the word) or not. But I do know that my experiences are real. So I would prefer to say not that there is a copy but that there are two originals. There is, as a matter of fact, a copy in your sense of the word, but I don’t think that attribute should factor into a person’s decision-making (or moral weighting of individuals). The copy has the same thoughts as the original for the same reason the original has his own thoughts! So I don’t see why you consider one as being privileged, because I don’t see location as being that which truly confers consciousness on someone.
I (in your sense of the word) have no way of knowing whether I’m a copy (in your sense of the word) or not. But I do >know that my experiences are real.
I see what you mean about not knowing whether you are a copy. I think this is almost part of the intuition I’m having—you in particular know that your experiences are real, and that you value them. So even if the copy doesn’t know it’s a copy, I feel that the original will still lose out. I don’t think people experience death, as you noted above, but not being alive sucks, and that’s what I think would happen to “original Chris”
By the way, thanks for having this conversation—it made me think about the consequences of my intuitions about this matter more than I have previously—even counting the time I spent as an undergrad writing a paper about the “copy machine dilemma” we’ve been toying with.
Thanks for the italics! Don’t know how I missed the huge show help button for so long.
Asterisks around your *italic text* like that. There should be a “Show help” button below the comment field which will pop up a table that explains this stuff.
I actually think so. I mean, I used to think of death as this horrible thing, but I realized that I will never experience being dead, so it doesn’t bother me so much anymore. Not being alive bothers me, because I like being alive, but that’s another story. However, I’m dying all the time, in a sense. For example, most of the daily thoughts of 10-year old me are thoughts I will never have again; particularly, because I live somewhere else now, I won’t even have the same patterns being burned into my visual cortex.
That’s a good way of putting it. The main thing that bothers me about focusing on a “particular” person is that I (in your sense of the word) have no way of knowing whether I’m a copy (in your sense of the word) or not. But I do know that my experiences are real. So I would prefer to say not that there is a copy but that there are two originals. There is, as a matter of fact, a copy in your sense of the word, but I don’t think that attribute should factor into a person’s decision-making (or moral weighting of individuals). The copy has the same thoughts as the original for the same reason the original has his own thoughts! So I don’t see why you consider one as being privileged, because I don’t see location as being that which truly confers consciousness on someone.
I see what you mean about not knowing whether you are a copy. I think this is almost part of the intuition I’m having—you in particular know that your experiences are real, and that you value them. So even if the copy doesn’t know it’s a copy, I feel that the original will still lose out. I don’t think people experience death, as you noted above, but not being alive sucks, and that’s what I think would happen to “original Chris”
By the way, thanks for having this conversation—it made me think about the consequences of my intuitions about this matter more than I have previously—even counting the time I spent as an undergrad writing a paper about the “copy machine dilemma” we’ve been toying with.
Thanks for the italics! Don’t know how I missed the huge show help button for so long.