Of course, I agree that our personality is constantly changing. In my post, I wanted to reflect on the fact that even with perfect cloning, R1 would retain its sense of self, while R2 would develop its own separate sense of self. Both would have two separate “first-person perspectives,” even if we imagine that time has frozen and they remain two completely perfect copies. I mean, they would not become a single consciousness connected by invisible threads.
I don’t agree (or I misunderstand something about the scenario).
With a perfect copy of all identity-relevant state, BOTH R1 and R2 retain their sense of self—they’re identical at the point of copy. They EACH continue to develop their selves independently. They diverge from each other and from their shared past, but there’s no distinction or privilege of the “original”.
Unless the copy process is flawed, but that’s not part of this thought experiment. To a great extent, this is a definition question: if there is an internally-detectable difference (a way to tell which is the original), that means the copy was imperfect.
Of course, I agree that our personality is constantly changing. In my post, I wanted to reflect on the fact that even with perfect cloning, R1 would retain its sense of self, while R2 would develop its own separate sense of self. Both would have two separate “first-person perspectives,” even if we imagine that time has frozen and they remain two completely perfect copies. I mean, they would not become a single consciousness connected by invisible threads.
I don’t agree (or I misunderstand something about the scenario).
With a perfect copy of all identity-relevant state, BOTH R1 and R2 retain their sense of self—they’re identical at the point of copy. They EACH continue to develop their selves independently. They diverge from each other and from their shared past, but there’s no distinction or privilege of the “original”.
Unless the copy process is flawed, but that’s not part of this thought experiment. To a great extent, this is a definition question: if there is an internally-detectable difference (a way to tell which is the original), that means the copy was imperfect.