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Brillyant comments on Consciousness and Sleep - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (35)
Sleep or the destructive teleporter (in your example) don't do away with a brain's memories. In my view, this is a key component to what makes up "identity" for people.
If retention of memory is a key component of identity, then what are the implications for identity:
When decades of new memories have been made (if loss of memory=loss of identity does gain of memory also=change of identity)? When old memories have changed beyond all recognition (unaware to the current rememberer he doesn't recall Suzy Smith from 1995 in 2015 the same way he recalled her in 2000)? When senile dementia causes gradual loss of memory? When mild brain injury causes sudden loss of large areas of memory while personality remains unchanged post injury? When said memory returns?
Tricky stuff, identity. Without a clear continuity to hang it on why should I care about what happens to me in five minutes, much less five years? Why do I work to benefit me tomorrow more than I do to benefit you next week? That's why I like hanging it on passive conscious awareness (assuming that thing exists), but damned if I know.
You care because your brain was created by evolution, which relies on physical continuity of your body. Whether you "should" care depends on your meaning of "should".
Identity is tricky, but only if you want to devise questions to be tricked by it. I'd suggest it can be deconstructed to a point where these sorts of questions disappear.
And I guess that there are animals that retain memories across periods of being frozen or without measurable brain activity. Not conscious animals probably but that means little in this context.