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loup-vaillant comments on How to deal with non-realism? - Less Wrong
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Good point. This is precisely the source of my doubt, and the reason why I'm not sure that changing substrate preserves identity.
The thing is, quantum mechanics makes me confident that if I go from configuration X to configuration Y, through a path that preserves identity, then any path from X to Y preserves my identity. But I am less confident about intermediate states (like the temporary emulation in the simulated green room).
Given your understanding of quantum mechanics, is your identity in this sense preserved from year to year today?
If it weren't, would you care?
I'm not sure that's a meaningful question. I undoubtedly change from year to year, so… But there is some kind of continuity, which I'm afraid could be broken by a change of substrate. (But then again, we could change my substrate bit by bit…
If it weren't, I would not care, because it wouldn't break anything I value. If preservation of identity doesn't even happen currently in our mundane world, I would be stupid to value it. And I'll happily upload, then (modulo the mundane risk of being badly emulated of course).
But first, I must be convinced that either identity wasn't preserved in the first place, or that uploading preserves identity, or that I was just confused because the world actually works like… who knows.
A change of substrate occurs daily for you. It's just of a similar class. What beyond simple "yuck factor" gives you cause to believe that a transition from cells to silicon would impact your identity? That it would look different?
No, it doesn't. You could argue that there's a renewal of atoms (most notably water), but swapping water atoms doesn't have physical meaning, so… No. Heck, even cut&paste transportation doesn't change substrate.
The "yuck factor" I feel cause me to doubt this: If an EM of me would be created during my sleep, what probability would I assign to wake up as silicon, or as wetware? I'm totally not sure I can say 1/2.
Actually it's more complicated than that. Not just water atoms; over time your genetic pattern changes -- the composition of cancerous to non-cancerous cells; the composition of senescent to non-senescent cells; the physical structures of the brain itself change.
Neurogenesis does occur in adults -- so not even on a cellular level is your brain the same today as it was yesterday.
Furthermore -- what makes you confident you are not already in a Matrix? I have no such belief, myself. Too implausible to believe we are in the parent of all universes given physics simulations work.
Note that neither of these developments are generally considered good.
Indeed. But they do demonstrate the principle in question.
The principal you're trying to demonstrate is that one shouldn't fear changing one's substrate since it's already happening. So, no they don't.