I am deeply convinced that the survival of the individual is ensured in each of the scenarios. Michael Cerullo presented the theory of branched psychological identity to support survival in cases of copying, merging, and duplication. And Mike Perry presented a compelling theory on memory and the survival of personal identity that is entirely relevant.
So you're saying someone survives both in New Case #3, when they entirely lose their memories and personality, but also in Classic Cases #1 & #3 as well as New Case #2, when they have entirely new brains/bodies?
If so, what's your criteria for someone surviving versus dying? Can people branch?
I believe that identity can branch. However, I don’t know how to decide in the scenario where a person has lost all their memory. Brian Wowk believes that a person who has lost all their memory can still be considered the same person, but Mike Perry and Ken Hayworth require narrative continuity—especially memory—for survival, attributing too massive a memory loss to informational death. I think the most cautious approach is to preserve as much as possible to maintain the causal structures in the brain, memory, and the personality that emerges from memory. On the other hand, I agree that not all revival scenarios preserve personal identity. I also believe that gradual uploading is not a desirable method, because WBE through scanning and destructive copying based on a preserved brain allows for gathering more information and is easier to perform than replacing each neuron protein by protein...
I think the essence of the problem is how to classify or define something as a transformation/evolution or as a substitution/copy.
Consciousness is not the real problem here.
Take for example companies. People leave and join companies all the time. In old companies, like The Coca-Cola Company, nobody working there now was in the company a century ago. Is The Coca-Cola Company still The Coca-Cola Company? Probably everybody would say yes. Is it identical to a century ago? Obviously not. Probably everybody would say it experienced an evolution, not a substitution.
Companies, unlike people, don't have consciousness, but they do have history and continuity, like people do.
New 3: You've changed who that person is. Maybe better than forgetting everything and dying, but something to be avoided, as it's a kind of death.
New 4: It's a form of partial suicide: getting rid of all of the connections and memories formed since a certain point. Someone who had met and gotten to know and trust them in that time period would feel that way as well.
Maybe the continuity requirement is hard-coded into our brains somehow. Because I think that if you teleport bit by bit over time, the individual remains the same. But if you do it all at once, the individual dies and is replaced. There is no reason for me to believe that, yet I can't help it. I'd stay away from a teleporter no matter what people say :)). But I'd do that cell by cell replacement of the brain, from meat to positronic the second it becomes available.
On a related matter: ablation of neuronal dendritic spines etc is one thing. But in addition their precision recreation exactly isomorphic / isofunctional (or close enough) with the originals is a key part of various notional 'bioconnectomic' like revival schemes for cryo patients. But how could we do that? (eschewing 'medical nanotechnology' fantasies ofcourse ;-) )
Looks useful thanks. BTW that would be an extraordinarily blunt tool for that purpose...because not only would it erase the traumatic memories but everything else that was learned in the intervening period too
I am deeply convinced that the survival of the individual is ensured in each of the scenarios. Michael Cerullo presented the theory of branched psychological identity to support survival in cases of copying, merging, and duplication. And Mike Perry presented a compelling theory on memory and the survival of personal identity that is entirely relevant.
So you're saying someone survives both in New Case #3, when they entirely lose their memories and personality, but also in Classic Cases #1 & #3 as well as New Case #2, when they have entirely new brains/bodies?
If so, what's your criteria for someone surviving versus dying? Can people branch?
I believe that identity can branch. However, I don’t know how to decide in the scenario where a person has lost all their memory. Brian Wowk believes that a person who has lost all their memory can still be considered the same person, but Mike Perry and Ken Hayworth require narrative continuity—especially memory—for survival, attributing too massive a memory loss to informational death. I think the most cautious approach is to preserve as much as possible to maintain the causal structures in the brain, memory, and the personality that emerges from memory. On the other hand, I agree that not all revival scenarios preserve personal identity. I also believe that gradual uploading is not a desirable method, because WBE through scanning and destructive copying based on a preserved brain allows for gathering more information and is easier to perform than replacing each neuron protein by protein...
Ship of Theseus
I think the essence of the problem is how to classify or define something as a transformation/evolution or as a substitution/copy.
Consciousness is not the real problem here.
Take for example companies. People leave and join companies all the time. In old companies, like The Coca-Cola Company, nobody working there now was in the company a century ago. Is The Coca-Cola Company still The Coca-Cola Company? Probably everybody would say yes. Is it identical to a century ago? Obviously not. Probably everybody would say it experienced an evolution, not a substitution.
Companies, unlike people, don't have consciousness, but they do have history and continuity, like people do.
Classic 1: Traveled
Classic 2: Same person
Classic 3: They are all real
New 1 and 2: Same person, no problem.
New 3: You've changed who that person is. Maybe better than forgetting everything and dying, but something to be avoided, as it's a kind of death.
New 4: It's a form of partial suicide: getting rid of all of the connections and memories formed since a certain point. Someone who had met and gotten to know and trust them in that time period would feel that way as well.
Maybe the continuity requirement is hard-coded into our brains somehow. Because I think that if you teleport bit by bit over time, the individual remains the same. But if you do it all at once, the individual dies and is replaced. There is no reason for me to believe that, yet I can't help it. I'd stay away from a teleporter no matter what people say :)). But I'd do that cell by cell replacement of the brain, from meat to positronic the second it becomes available.
"Now, using sophisticated optogenetic and chemogenetic techniques, doctors offer to reset his neural connections"
That's interesting. Anyone got any ideas on the possible technical details?
I meant it kind of in the spirit of papers like this, where the formation of specific memories is recorded and then selectively erased.
e.g. 'Labelling and optical erasure of synaptic memory traces in the motor cortex' by Hayashi-Takagi et al., 2015
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15257
ahh..I see now that you said "where the formation of specific memories is recorded" ...
On a related matter: ablation of neuronal dendritic spines etc is one thing. But in addition their precision recreation exactly isomorphic / isofunctional (or close enough) with the originals is a key part of various notional 'bioconnectomic' like revival schemes for cryo patients. But how could we do that? (eschewing 'medical nanotechnology' fantasies ofcourse ;-) )
Looks useful thanks. BTW that would be an extraordinarily blunt tool for that purpose...because not only would it erase the traumatic memories but everything else that was learned in the intervening period too