More than once, I've had a conversation roughly similar to the following:
Me: "I want to live forever, of course; but even if I don't, I'd still like for some sort of sapience to keep on living."
Someone else: "Yeah, so? You'll be dead, so how/why should you care?"
I've tried describing how it's the me-of-the-present who's caring about which sort of future comes to pass, but I haven't been able to do so in a way that doesn't fall flat. Might you have any thoughts on how to better frame this idea?
At least one of the people I've had this conversation with has passed basically all my 'intelligence indicator' tests, short of 'being a LessWrongian'.