X-Message-Number: 14153
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 07:48:10 -0700
From: Lee Corbin <>
Subject: Re: Survival through Future Selves

Mike Perry, #14141 writes

>As a rough approximation, I will say that my present self survives
>in a future self if that self has memories of having been the
>present self and feels a sense of identification with the present
>self.

I almost entirely agree with Mike.  But suppose that I ingested
midazolam half an hour ago, and therefore will remember nothing
of what I am doing at the present moment.  I think it's a mistake
for me to suppose that I'm about to perish, because objectively
there will arise tomorrow a physical object as identical to me as
are the physical objects that arise every morning in my house.  So
we who hold to the information theory of identity, as Mike Perry
has always called it, must consider ourselves other than just

memory supersets.

As for my feelings about whether "I'm myself", those are very nice
to have, but I want to become so well integrated that I can ignore
(for the most part) such feelings.  I will live on in our solar
system (or elsewhere) precisely if there exist functioning physical
objects sufficiently similar in structure to the person that I've
been the last 20 years or so.  Huzzah for the information theory of
identity.

I know it's strange to think that any such close resembler (like my
duplicate in the next room) is really and truly and totally me, but
that's what our best theories of how the universe works are telling
us.

Lee Corbin

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