Brent Meeker writes:> > > I think Bruno already remarked that it may well be more probable that > > a continuation of your consciousness arises in some other branch of the > > multiverse "by chance", rather than as a state of "your" erstwhile body. > > This would seem particularly more probable as your consciousness > > simplifies due to deterioration of your brain - how hard can it be to > > find a continuation of a near coma. Perhaps this continuation is the > > consciousness of a fish - and it's the Hindus rather than the Bhuddists > > who are right.> > > > Then we come up against the question of what we can expect to experience > > in the case of duplication with partial memory loss. For example, if you > > are duplicated 101 times such that one copy has 100% of your memories > > while the other 100 copies each have 1% of your memories, does this mean > > that you have an even chance of ending up as either the 100% or the 1% > > version of yourself? We need not invoke duplication experiments or the > > MWI to ask this question either. Suppose there are a billion people in > > the world each with 1/billion of my memories: does this mean I will find > > myself becoming one of these people either now or after I have died?> > As I understand it, Bruno's theory is that you are all the "consistent continuations" of your consciousness. I'm not exactly sure what constitutes a consistent continuation, but it must be something other than just sharing memories. At any given time my consciousness is accessing only a tiny fraction of my memories. Further I'm continually forming and forgetting short-term memories as well as forgetting some long-term memories. > > Basing identity on memory seems inconsistent with supposing that identity is some property of consciousness alone. A digital computation doesn't depend on memory/data that isn't accessed. Identity from moment to moment is not just memory, it is the entire content of conscious experience, perhaps accessing at any one time only a small portion of memory. It may be just a sense that I am the same person continuing the same thought as I was a moment ago, or even less than this when I am waking up from sleep, for example. At such sufficiently vague moments, my consciousness may even be indistinguishable with that of many other people in the world, such that if I ceased to exist momentarily I would still experience continuity of consciousness as if nothing had happened, piggy-backing on someone else's thoughts: all equivalent observer moments are internally indistinguishable, by definition. However, such a thing could only happen momentarily, because very quickly I might reflect on my situation, and it is here that having a store of memories, motivations, personality style etc. instantly accessible (even if not continuously accessed) makes me, me.Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Fri Jan 26 2007 - 22:41:17 PST