I apologize for not getting back to you sooner, I didn’t notice your reply until yesterday. And I apologize for the length of my response, too—I bolded the most important parts.
Re: Whether there is empirical difference between worlds where OI is true and where OI is false. The difference between all experiences being mine and only some being mine is that if all experiences are mine, then they all exist in the same way this experience now exists, i.e. for me (where me = just this immediacy/this-here-now character, i.e. the way it exists, NOT Edralis’s memories, personality etc.). There is no empirical difference in the usual sense, since the way experiences exist cannot be objectively assessed. I can’t be sure that you even have any experiences – this is not something that is available for empirical investigation in the way I can assess e.g. the number of someone’s fingers. And I can’t know that, given there are experiences from that point of view, that they exist in the same way as this experience, does, i.e. for me. That is only clear in those experiences. If I am there, I do ultimately know that I am there (obviously) – but I have no way to know that when experiencing this person, Edralis. So the empirical difference in the usual sense between OI being true and not being true is none. However, there are other than empirical facts. The existential difference between those two worlds is vast. If OI is true, then I (i.e. the thisness, the here-now-this that at least Edralis’s experiences have) am Rob Bensinger, and everybody else – if it’s not true, then I am not. The difference is in the being of those experiences, in how they exist. But since experiences (consciousness) don’t exist empirically (or better: objectively), there is no empirical (objective) difference. There is existential, subjective difference, though.
“Some of those brain-moments resemble other brain-moments, either by coincidence or because of some (direct or indirect) causal link between the brain-moments. When we talk about Brain-1 “anticipating” or “becoming” a future brain-state Brain-2, we normally mean things like:
That is not what I mean when I think about anticipating a future brain state. What I am interested in is not the content of experience, but how those experiences are – i.e. whether they are mine. And by ‘mine’ I don’t mean Edralis’s, I mean that they exist in the same way, i.e. they have the same immediate character, the same this-here-now as this experience that I currently am, of Edralis writing this. Not just that they are immediate (all experiences are, by definition), but that they are immediate in the same way. If there are no souls or ghosts, that means there is just one way in which they can be immediate, i.e. they are all immediate like this experience is.
Do you think we understand each other? Do you see what I’m referring to when I point to that which THIS1 experience-moment, of Edralis writing “THIS1”, and THIS2 experience-moment, of Edralis writing “THIS2” have in common – that is shared totally between those two experiences – but it has nothing to do with the content of those experiences, including their continuity? I mean the underlying “canvas” where the experiences “take place” that however is nothing outside of those experiences. It’s not a Ghost – I mean, you could call it that, but if that is what the Cartesian Ghost is supposed to be, then it’s self-evidently real. But I am not postulating an entity that is somehow additional to experiences. Does it make sense? When you watch your experience, do you see what I mean? The THISNESS which carries in your experience from moment to moment?
From what you say, it seems to me we’re talking past each other; however, I don’t know how to elicit an alignment/understanding in our conceptual frameworks. It seems to me your worldview is very empirical, very physicalist – whereas mine is phenomenology-first. What I see when I “look at the world” is ME, i.e. consciousness assuming different forms, different experiential qualities existing. (There might be something “outside” that I am a picture of.) What you see when you “look at the world” is probably THE WORLD that is NOT yourself. I don’t think you’re wrong—this is a way to conceive of yourself (i.e. identifying yourself with a particular human), but I think you might be missing something—that essential me. However, maybe it’s me whose understanding is lacking – and I really want to understand.
Maybe the update that’s happening is something like: “Previously it felt to me like other people’s experiences weren’t fully real. I was unduly selfish and self-centered, because my experiences seemed to me like they were the center of the universe; I abstractly and theoretically knew that other people have their own point of view, but that fact didn’t really hit home for me. Then something happened, and I had a sudden realization that no, it’s all real.”
It’s more than that – it’s not just that they are real, but that they are real for me, where “me” is the this-here-now of this experience. That is, the claim is that the this-here-now/presence/immediacy/thisness is the same in all experiences, not just that they all have such a character (which is true by definition). And since the one that is self-evident is indisputably mine, then, if all are the same, all are mine.
One more questionː Can you imagine never having been born as Rob Bensinger, but instead being born as a different person? Does it make sense to imagine a person (or animal, or other conscious being) that would be you that wouldn’t however share any memories or brain-matter with the person that you are, i.e. Rob Bensinger? Because to me, it makes perfect sense – that which I imagine this non-Edralis that is me to have, or rather, the non-Edralis-centered experiences that are me to have, is the same THISNESS, i.e. that which is essentially me. I am Edralis contingently – I didn’t have to be her, I could be someone else – what I am essentially is that THISNESS that her experiences have. If OI is true, then all experiences simply have this same thisness. And since I am the thisness, all experiences are mine, i.e. I am everyone. This is very shocking. It’s outright world-shattering! If it doesn’t sound shocking, it’s either because a person knows it for a long time and they’ve gotten used to it, or they don’t grasp what it means. So—even if you don’t agree with OI, can you imagine what it would mean? Do you see in what sense you could be e.g. Albert Einstein or Eliezer Yudkowsky or Queen Victoria?
Thank you!
Recommendation for a cheaper clinic:
I got my eggs retrieved and frozen at Reprofit clinic in Brno, Czech Republic, for very cheap. The whole process, including the meds, cost less than 2000 euros. Looking at their price list, IVF with one’s own eggs costs about 3300 euros. Not sure about what screening services they offer, or whether it’s possible to transport the embryos to have the tests and the transfer done elsewhere.
My experience with them is very good. Nice staff and doctors, the place looks nice (no Eastern European nightmare). They are pretty hands-off, compared to what I’ve read is routine in the US. I only had 1-2 ultrasounds for my social freezing, and they didn’t do any blood tests I didn’t explicitly ask for (I specifically asked for estradiol during my first cycle; I didn’t bother during the second). I assume if there were complications, they would do more. The retrievals were successful. In two cycles I got 27 good eggs.