An exact copy of me may be “me” from an identity perspective, but it is a separate entity from a utilitarian perspective. The death of one is still a tragedy, even if the other survives.
You should know this intuitively. If a rogue trolley is careening toward an unsuspecting birthday cake, you’ll snatch it out of the way. You won’t just say, “eh, in another time that cake will survive,” and then watch it squish. Unless you’re some sort of monster.
Suppose some wizard casts a spell to make your neurons twice as thick, with everything still functioning normally. Suppose furthermore that for some reason the counterspell involves being hit by a trolley. Did the trolley kill someone?
Now ask the same question where the neurons are duplicated and each neuron is replaced by a pair of two running in parallel.
Now ask the same question where the parallel sets are running in physically separated brains....
An exact copy of me may be “me” from an identity perspective, but it is a separate entity from a utilitarian perspective. The death of one is still a tragedy, even if the other survives.
You should know this intuitively. If a rogue trolley is careening toward an unsuspecting birthday cake, you’ll snatch it out of the way. You won’t just say, “eh, in another time that cake will survive,” and then watch it squish. Unless you’re some sort of monster.
Suppose some wizard casts a spell to make your neurons twice as thick, with everything still functioning normally. Suppose furthermore that for some reason the counterspell involves being hit by a trolley. Did the trolley kill someone?
Now ask the same question where the neurons are duplicated and each neuron is replaced by a pair of two running in parallel.
Now ask the same question where the parallel sets are running in physically separated brains....