X-Message-Number: 11104
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 20:20:57 -0500
From: Brook Norton <>
Subject: the lack of identity and survival

I'd like to comment on the possibility that we have no identity that
survives into the future.  First, in a related message (#11095), Ettinger


says:  

>>  

Second, if they agree with Mr. Strout that duplicates are me, but
nevertheless feel I need not ever make any sacrifices for those other
instantiations of me, they should explain why. I am constantly making at
least small sacrifices for my future self--why not even major sacrifices,


if necessary, for a possible host of other selves?  

Third, we can go back to the most obvious problem--an instant show-stopper
for most people, as someone on this list recently remarked . "I am HERE;
that person over THERE, no matter how similar, must be someone else. If a
bee stings him, I will not feel it, even though I may empathize. If he
dies, I still live and do not feel diminished. If I am about to die, the
prospect 

of him living on will not console me."  

Mr. Strout apparently would answer that this reaction is born of
ignorance, cultural inertia, lack of experience with duplicates. But we
have plenty of experience with partial duplicates. Every other
person--indeed, every dog 

and cat--is pretty similar to me in many ways, so aren't they all "partly"
me, despite the  sometimes very low fidelity?  (Some Oriental philosophers
say yes, you share identity with every living being.)  

>>  

In other messages Ettinger has referred to the possibity that we don't
survive from one moment to the next, but tends to consider this unlikely.
 

However, I keep coming back to the realization that this may in fact be
the case.  The simplest description of our existence is that we are a
collection of memories and traits actualized through a self-circuit. At
each successive moment that group of characteristics changes a little...
like we walk to a new location, form new memories, etc.  And that's it.  

Thats what we are.  It adds complexity to say we have some kind of
"identity" or "immutable-self" that continues through time.  It adds
complexity to try to formulate a philosophy that links what we are to that
which we will become and to postulate that there must be some common
denominator that "survives".  Why not just adopt the philosophy that we
exist at the moment only and that we will shortly give way to another
conscious actualization with slightly different traits.  The word
"survive" then becomes antiquated in that it describes a concept that we
no longer believe in, or it takes on a slightly different meaning in which
survival 

is a measure of how much we change over time... like, my 1-yr old survived
70% last year because she's changing rapidly at this stage in her life.  

It may make sense to say you do really survive over the course of a second
or so if it turns out that consciousness must "time bind" several moments


to realize consciousness, but this doesn't change the above philosophy in


the big picture.  

I believe this approach also makes mute the discussion of whether we are
our clone or whether we share our identity with a dog because our genes
are 90% the same.  The simplest description is to say, I have certain
characteristics and other entities like other people, animals, even rocks,
share some of these characteristics.  Since "survival" is an obsolete
concept, I don't share a soul-like identity with any of these other
entities.  I don't share a soul-like identity with them but I do share
common characteristics.  To use a beam-me-up machine, then, is no more
harmful than simply sitting still and passing into the next moment.  In
both cases your present characteristics give way to a future person with
slightly different characteristics.  

I think that we instictively pursue happiness for our future selves
because evolution has eliminated all approaches that concentrate on the
present moment only.  Even if we tried to maximize happiness NOW, there's
not enough time in the moment to act on it.  We have to at least plan for
our 

happiness a few seconds into the future.  I won't pursue now the further
implications of non-survival and happiness maximization although I believe
it is important.  

If it's true that we don't survive past the moment, that leaves me feeling
uncomfortable.  Its the same kind of uncomfort I feel when I find that I
have no free will in a deterministic multiverse.  I am interested in
learning more to see how to bring these ideas together and how to come to


grips with them.  

Brook Norton  

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