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.

1) I do not understand why our experience of identical twins does not play into most discussions of my copy being "the same person as me." We know that twins do not share the same consciousness (unless Occam's razor is wrong and they are all lying.) We know from that that if we made a copy without destroying the original that the copy and the original would not share a consciousness. So why isn't at least the possibiliy (I would estimate overwhelming likelihood) that a copy is a different consciousness than the original, and that destroying the original kills one consciousness while making a copy creates a different consciousness, and that these are separate processes?

2) Does philosophy talk somewhere about what I would call "outer" and "inner" worlds? I know I'm conscious because I participate in my inner world. I figure by Occam's razor that you are conscious, but I don't have direct experience of your consciousness, because I can only see you in my outer world. We don't talk anywhere near as much about "inner" world because we don't share that with others, while our "outer" experiences are shared, and we have evolved a host of techniques including language and science for processing "outer" experiences. But "inner" experiences don't benefit from language and science because they are, so far, locked away inside us, not social phenomenon. Because I think the idea that our copy is a continuation of our own consciousness is a mistake we can make if we don't realize there is an "inner" experience quite distinct from our "outer" experiences. So sure, my copy thinks he is continuously conscious, and therefore may think my consciousness has jumped into him, but that is because to my copy, I am part of his "outer" world. But if a non-destructive copy of me was made, I think it is obvious from what we know about twins that despite my copies eloquence at explaining his continuity from me, that I, the original, would resist being killed as superflous. Yes in everybody else's outer world, where consciousness of others is indirectly inferred, they can't tell that my copy is not a continuation of my consciousness in separate matter. But in my inner world, it seems pretty clear that I, (the original) would know.

Some people believe that altruism has evolved through helping your relatives or through helping others to help you in return. I was thinking about it; on the surface the idea looks good -- if you already have this system in place, it is easy to see how it benefits those involved -- but that doesn't explain how the system could have appeared in the first place. Anyone knows the standard answer?

Imagine that you are literally the first organism who by random mutation achieved a gene for "helping those who help you". How specifically does this gene increase your fitness, if there is no one else to reciprocate?

Or imagine that you are literally the first organism who by random mutation achieved a gene for "helping your siblings". How specifically does this gene increase your fitness, or the fitness of the gene itself, if your siblings do not have a copy of this gene?

In other words, it seems simple to explain how these kinds of altruism can work when they are already an established system, but it is more difficult to explain how it could work when it is new.

And this all is a huge simplification; for example, I doubt that "helping those who help you" could be achieved by a single mutation, since it involves multiple parts like "noticing that someone helped you", "remembering the individual who helped you" and "helping the individual who helped you in the past". Plus the problem of how to start this chain of mutual cooperation.

My guess is that... nygehvfz pbhyq unir ribyirq guebhtu frkhny fryrpgvba. Yrg'f rkcynva vg ol funevat sbbq jvgu bguref. Svefg, vaqvivqhnyf abgvpr jub vf tbbq ng tngurevat sbbq, naq gurl ribyir nggenpgvba gbjneqf tbbq sbbq pbyyrpgbef. Gung znxrf vzzrqvngr frafr orpnhfr vg vapernfrf fheiviny bs gur puvyqera, vs gurl nyfb trg gur trarf tbbq sbe tngurevat sbbq. Nsgre guvf nggenpgvba rkvfgf jvguva gur fcrpvrf, gur arkg fgrc pbhyq or fvtanyyvat: vs lbh unir fbzr rkgen sbbq lbh qba'g npghnyyl arrq, oevat vg naq ivfvoyl qebc vg arne bgure vaqvivqhnyf, fb gung bguref abgvpr lbh unir zber sbbq guna lbh pna rng. Ntnva, guvf znxrf vzzrqvngr frafr, orpnhfr vg znxrf lbh zber nggenpgvir. Abgvpr ubj arvgure "urycvat lbh eryngvirf" abe "urycvat gubfr jub uryc lbh" jnf arprffnel gb ribyir urycvat vaqvfpevzvangryl. Npghnyyl, gubfr pbhyq unir ribyirq yngre, nf shegure vzcebirzragf bs be nqqvgvbaf gb gur vaqvfpevzvangr urycvat.

In our world, classical mechanics (Newton + Maxwell and their logical implications) holds for most everyday experiences at slow speeds (relative to the speed of light) and at scales larger than the atomic realm.*

Question: Is this necessarily true for every possible world that matches our macroscopic physical observations? Is it possible to construct an alternative set of physical laws such that the world would function exactly as our world does on a macroscopic, everyday level, but that would violate Newton's laws or Maxwell's laws or thermodynamics or the like? Again, I'm not talking about violating those laws in extreme cases (close to the speed of light, tiny scales) where these laws don't really apply even in our world. I'm talking about a world where even the everyday approximate equations of physics, as expressed in classical mechanics, do not apply.

Said another way: If you messed with Newton's equations or Maxwell's equations or thermodynamics even a little bit, would the world necessarily function differently in such a way that we could tell that you'd messed with the laws? Would it function so differently as to be unrecognizable?

Or said yet another way: Do our macroscopic experiences entail that the equations of classical mechanics are at least a very good approximation of the underlying physics?

I'd especially appreciate sources / references / links to further reading.

[*Leaving aside the types of modern technology which bring quantum mechanical effects into the everyday observable world.]

That Artificial Intelligence is going to do a lot of the same things that Natural Intelligence does.

Taboo "faith", what do you mean specifically by that term?

This comment is in reply to some ideas in the comments below.

In my opinion, my rationality is as faith-based as is a religious person's religious belief.

Among my highest values is "being right" in the sense of being able to instrumentally effect or predict the world. I want to be able to communicate across long distances, to turn combustible fuel into safe transportation, to correctly predict what an interstellar probe will find and to be able to build an interstellar probe that will work. Looking at the world, I see much more success in endeavors like these from science and rationality than from religiosity or appeals to god. And so I adopt rationality as it supports my values.

I also want to raise healthy, happy, "good" children. My one child who dabbles in alcohol, drugs, and petty theft, I am pretty sure I could "help" him by going to church with him. I've known many people who are effective at doing things I see as good because, it seems, of their religious beliefs and participation in churches and religious communities. I liked being a Lutheran for a few years. One night I told our pastor that I just didn't believe in god. He told me he thought half the church had that happening. Even so I couldn't stay engaged.

I feel the loss of religious faith as a sorrow, or a pain, or a burr under my saddle, or something. But I can't justify it, or more importantly, I can only pretend to believe, actual belief does not seem to me to be a real option anymore.

And it turns out I have enough "faith" in scientific rationalism that I won't even pretend I believe in god. I choose to believe that staying consistent with rational principles will payoff more for me and those I care about than will falling back to the more accessible morality of religious faith. It is a leap of faith, especially in light of "rationalists win." If my son were to become an heroin addict and devote his life to petty theft, jail, and shooting up, AND I could have prevented that by bringing him to church, I will have paid a price for my faith, as much as any Christian Martyr who was harmed or whos family was harmed because he did not deny his Christian belief.

People who think their rationality does not come from a faith they possess remind me of religious people who think their belief in god is just right, that it does not come from a faith that they possess or have chosen.

I've always thought of negative utility as "cost exceeds benefits"; but it seems to be getting used here as if "opportunity cost exceeds benefits", which is not the same thing.

I'm not sure which is correct. Not that familiar with utilitarianist nuts and bolts.

The title of the article on charity seems clickbait-y to me. I think that if a charity had negative utility, that would imply that burning a sum of money would be preferable to donating that money to that charity. However, this is not the thesis of the article; instead, the article's thesis is:

when non-profit organizations conduct a successful marketing campaign they do not collect more money for charity. Instead they take it away from other charitable causes.

When animals are created and destroyed solely for a purpose attributed to them by their human overlords

Does this argument apply to humans created or destroyed solely for purposes of evolutionary pressure or environmental accident? I'd argue that nothing happens solely for any purpose.

reduces their utilisable preferences to zero or near zero.

Measured how?

'no pig' > 'happy pig + surprise axe' > 'sad pig + surprise axe'

This seems to be the crux of your position. I don't buy it. Let's leave aside (unless you want to try to define terms) the difference between happy, sad, and more common mixed cases.

Let's focus on the main inequality of nonexistence vs some temporary happiness. Would you say 'no human' > 'happy human + surprise cancer'? I assert that neither human nor pig really frames things in terms of the farmer's or universe's motivations.