This might sound like a nitpick and a pet peeve, but in this case I think it’s important and essential: Your decisions do not split you. At least, not in the way one would naively expect.
I think I see it the opposite way: The splits forge your decisions.
When Shen said:
“I suppose, that personal identity cannot be contained within the history of choices that have been made, because for every choice that has been made, if it was truly a ‘choice’ at all, it was also made the other way in some other tributary of the Great Tao.”
his Teacher did not correct him, although the Teacher might have said it quite differently:
“Personal identity cannot be contained within the nature of choices that might be made, because for every you that grew to choose one way, another you was grown to choose differently in some other tributary of the Great Tao.”
Certainly, we can make deterministic choices—and the sorts of choices that are predetermined for us to make define who we are. But events conspired to combine particular bits of meat in particular ways, and those events could have conspired differently—and in each universe that they did so, there is another possible ‘you’.
But “measure” is actually at the heart of this: when we talk about resurrecting someone, we’re talking about pulling from something like their notional measure a distinct instantiation, and I would like to understand what makes one particular instantiation more ‘them’ than another. Or even better—what makes a particular instantiation of 60 kg or so of matter part of my ‘measure’, while another instantiation of 60ish kg of matter NOT part of my measure, but part of some other notional thing’s measure?
But events conspired to combine particular bits of meat in particular ways, and those events could have conspired differently—and in each universe that they did so, there is another possible ‘you’.
And I would identify less with them to the extent that their memories/histories differ.
I think I see it the opposite way: The splits forge your decisions.
When Shen said:
his Teacher did not correct him, although the Teacher might have said it quite differently:
“Personal identity cannot be contained within the nature of choices that might be made, because for every you that grew to choose one way, another you was grown to choose differently in some other tributary of the Great Tao.”
Certainly, we can make deterministic choices—and the sorts of choices that are predetermined for us to make define who we are. But events conspired to combine particular bits of meat in particular ways, and those events could have conspired differently—and in each universe that they did so, there is another possible ‘you’.
But “measure” is actually at the heart of this: when we talk about resurrecting someone, we’re talking about pulling from something like their notional measure a distinct instantiation, and I would like to understand what makes one particular instantiation more ‘them’ than another. Or even better—what makes a particular instantiation of 60 kg or so of matter part of my ‘measure’, while another instantiation of 60ish kg of matter NOT part of my measure, but part of some other notional thing’s measure?
And I would identify less with them to the extent that their memories/histories differ.
Nevertheless, the “superstimulus” version of #2 might tempt me if it didn’t seem like a guaranteed failure in practice.