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Identity map
kebwi00

That's fine, but we should phrase the question differently. Instead of asking "Should I add my expectation that I will find myself in strange place?" we should ask "Will that future person, looking back, perceive that I (now) am its former self?"

As to the unrelated question of whether a poor or non-exact model is sufficient to indicate preservation of identity, there is much to consider about which aspects are important (physical or psychological) and how much precision is required in the model in order to deem it a preservation of ide... (read more)

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0WhySpace_duplicate0.9261692129075527
The copy problem is also irrelevant for utilitarians, since all persons should be weighted equally under most utilitarian moral theories. It's only an issue for self-interested actors. So, if spurs A and B both agree that A is C and B is C, that still doesn't help. Are the converse) statements true? A selfish C will base their decisions on whether C is A. I tend to view this as another nail in the coffin of ethical egoism. I lean toward just putting a certain value on each point in mind-space, with high value for human-like minds, and smaller or zero value on possible agents which don't pique our moral impulses.
0turchin
While I like your approach in general as it promise to provide simple test for copy problem, I have some objections 1. In fact the term "copy" is misleading, and we should broke it on several terms. One of the is "my future state". Future state is not copy by definition, as it different, but it could remember my past. 2. As "future state" is different from me, it opens all the hell of questions about not exact copies. Future state of me is not-exact copy of me which is different from me by the fact that it remembers me now as its past. It may be also different in other things. In fact you said that "not-exact copy of me which remember me in my past - is me anyway". So you suggested a principle how prove identity of non-exact-copyes. 3. I will not remember most of my life moments. So they are dead ends in my life story. If we agree with your definition of identity it would mean that I die thousand times a day. Not pleasant and not productive model. 4. There will be false positives too. An impostor who claims to be Napoleon and has some knowledge of Napoleon's life and last days, will be Napoleon by this definition of identity. 5. It will fail if we will try to connect early childhood of a person and his old state. Being 60 years old he has no any memory of being 3 years old, and not much similar personal traits. The definition of identity as "moving average continuity" (not in the map yet) could easily overcome this non natural situation. 6. We could reformulate many experiment in the way that copies exist in the past. For example, each day of the weak a copy of me appear in a cell, and he doesn't know which day it is. (Something like Sleeping beauty experiment) In this case some of his copies are in the past from his point in timeline, and some may be in the future, but he should reason as if they all exist actually and simultaneously. But I also like your intuition about the problem of actuality, that is if only moment now is real, no copies exist at a
Identity map
kebwi30

I don't mean to sound harsh below Alexey. On the whole, I think you've done a wonderful job, but that said, here's my take...

I personally think the question is poorly phrased. Throughout the document, Turchin asks the question "will some future entity be me?" The copy problem, which he takes as one of the central issues at task, demonstrates why this question is so poorly formulated, for it leads us into such troublesome quandaries and paradoxes. I think the future-oriented question (will a future entity be me?) is simply a nonsense question, per... (read more)

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0FeepingCreature
The past doesn't exist either.
0turchin
The reason why I look into the future identity is that most problems with copies arise in decision theory and in expectations of next experience. For example, I live my live, but someone collect information about me, and using AI create my poor non-exact model of me one day in strange place. Should I add my expectation that I will find myself in strange place?