mwengler comments on The map of p-zombies - Less Wrong
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I am going soon to publish Identity map which will sum up my research of the identity problem.
1) If twins are really similar, there will be indexical question for them. Each of them will not know if he is twin 1 or twin 2. So in practical situations they should think that any event which affect one of twins has 50 per cent situation to happen with them. So consciousness will not jump from one twin to another. It is already shared in this example.
2) Philosophers are well aware of the problem and it is called "other minds problem" and "hard problem" of consciousness. the main problem here is that if we adopt idea that consciousness could be different without any physical difference between the copies, we adopt the idea of p-zombies and reject physicalism that is modern version of materialism. It almost the same as to say that immaterial soul exist. It is very strong statement.
Not relevant to the problem. If you create a copy of me, the copy is not identical, if for no other reason than it occupies a different location than I do. I agree that if it occupied the same location that I do, atom for atom and quark for quark, that could lead to the concern you express. But copies cannot occupy the same location, and so there is no problem having the copy to the left be one consciousness while the original to the right is a different consciousness.
The strongest claim I might accept would be that both the original and the copy have "valid" claims to be the continuation of the pre-copying single consciousness that was me back then. But no matter how you slice it, killing the original when you make the copy is still destroying a separate consciousness, even if the remaining consciousness thinks it is the only continuation of the pre-copy consciousness.
If we adopt criteria of identity based of same location, next-moment-of-me will be not me, as I move, Earth move etc. It results in situation where I will die every millisecond.
We could also imagine situation where Omega put my copy in my location, but instantly moves me to the next room.