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Logos01 comments on How to deal with non-realism? - Less Wrong Discussion
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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.