TheOtherDave comments on Timeless Identity - Less Wrong

23 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 03 June 2008 08:16AM

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Comment author: TheOtherDave 01 October 2013 11:34:31PM 0 points [-]

It seems to follow that he might actually have a sense of subjective experience, which is separate from memories or shared history, which gives him the belief, real or illusory (in this case illusory), that he is the same person from moment to moment, day to day, and the same person who walked into the teleporter, and which separates him from his clones.
Yes. My question is: is that belief justified?

OK, understood.

Here's my confusion: a while back, you said:

That sense of subjective experience separate from memories or shared history is what I have been calling “personal identity.” It is what gives me the belief, real or illusory, that I am the same person from moment to moment, day to day, and what separates me from my clones.

And yet, here's Dave!Mars, who has a sense of subjective experience separate from memories or shared history which gives him the belief, real or illusory (in this case illusory), that he is the same person from moment to moment, day to day, and the same person who walked into the teleporter, and which separates him from his clones.

But on your account, he might not have Dave's personal identity.

So, where is this sense of subjective experience coming from, on your account? Is it causally connected to personal identity, or not?

Once he learns what actually happened during his transport, his decision about whether he remains the same person that entered the machine on Earth depends greatly on his model of consciousness and personal identity/continuity.

Yes, that's certainly true. By the same token, if I convince you that I placed you in stasis last night for... um... long enough to disrupt your personal identity (a minute? an hour? a millisecond? a nanosecond? how long a period of "computational discontinuity" does it take for personal identity to evaporate on your account, anyway?), you would presumably conclude that you aren't the same person who went to bed last night. OTOH, if I placed you in stasis last night and didn't tell you, you'd conclude that you're the same person, and live out the rest of your life none the wiser.