Thought experiments in Continuity of Self

... such as ... ... ...

Well, some definitions do not even allow for the problem in the first place.

If self is something that is constant about us, this must be a delusion. If we go to Locke's definition, self requires memory. But even memories change. They fade, alter, and even disappear. Some memories we invent in our own minds. So this is not constant.

Examining self is all about context. Remember that old, wise suggestion: "Know Thyself"? That's great advice, but for what purpose? Every perspective is unique, and if we are going to try to examine that unique perspective with that unique perspective, well, it's easy to run around in circles. If we examine the self with respect to how "we" should act in this life, recognizing that a constant self is illusory might suggest that we should not act selfishly because there is nothing to act selfishly for; that selfishness is futile.

I say that we have to expand the suggestion 'know thyself' and approach the issue with respect to a particular purpose because, otherwise, I think the exercise is useless. If these questions of philosophy are all about arriving at some assertion that cannot be refuted so that we can stand on the top of some intellectual hill and laugh at all of those below us, then philosophy is useless. But if philosophy has use, if these questions can help us along in this life, then there must be more to these questions than right or wrong answers. There has to be an application to living.

If self is something that is constant about us, this must be a delusion. If we go to Locke's definition, self requires memory. But even memories change. They fade, alter, and even disappear. Some memories we invent in our own minds. So this is not constant.

But if philosophy has use, if these questions can help us along in this life, then there must be more to these questions than right or wrong answers. There has to be an application to living.

... but maybe what is constant about "self" is the process of self? ...

The self, or ego, has always been a stumbling block for Western philosophy because personhood resists accommodation within its favored framework of substance ontology.

From the angle of a process metaphysics, however, the situation has a very different look. For while we may have difficulties in apprehending experientially what we are, we clearly have no comparable difficulty in experiencing what we do. What makes my experience mine is not some peculiar qualitative character that it exhibits but simply its forming part of the overall ongoing macroprocess that defines, constitutes, and characterizes my life in those of its dimensions that are, in principle, cognitively accessible to myself and to others.

As process philosophy sees it, the unity of a person resides neither in the physical body as such nor in the psychic unity of custom and memory but in a synoptic unity of process. On a process-oriented approach, the self or ego - the particular individual that one is - is simply a megaprocess, a structured system of processes, a cohesive and (relatively) stable center of activity agency. For processists, our sense of self is a glimmering insight of part into the whole to which it sees itself as belonging. The crux of this approach is the shift in orientation from substance to process ...

Such an approach wholly rejects the thing-ontologist's view of a person as an entity existing separately from its actions, activities, and experiences. The salient advantage of such a processual view of the self as an internally complex process of "leading a life (of a certain sort)" - with its natural division into a varied manifold of constituent subprocesses - is that it does away with the need for a mysterious and experientially inaccessible unifying substantial object (on the lines of Kant's "transcendental ego") to constitute a self out of the variety of its experiences. The unity of self comes to be seen as a unity of process - of one large megaprocess that encompasses many smaller ones in its make-up. We arrive at a view of mind that dispenses with the Cartesian "ghost in the machine" ...

... but maybe what is constant about "self" is the process of self? ... after all, you are not now materially what you were when you were born - molecules are gradually replaced over time ... so, if materiality is not constant, is embodiment also a delusion? ... or is it the process of embodiment that is the constant?

... speaking for myself, I devise models of the real world for a living ... so it is not just idle curiosity that leads me to such questions (but idle curiosity still does play a huge role ) ... questions like "what is the best model of the real world to support human decision makers?" or "what is the best model of the real world to support artificial intelligence?" or "what is the best model of the real world to support artificial life?" - until science can find its way through these (which doesn't seem likely any time soon), are these not philosophical questions?

But is that process, process of embodiment, unique to this manifestation?

That sounds so sloppy.

Is "self" an adequate description of the process of embodiment?

If nothing about us is physically constant, that which is embodying (I guess) is in constant shift. There isn't anything in particular that is doing the embodying. Just parts of the environment. Right?

But I wonder, why do we look to science as the final arbiter of truth in the various questions of philosophy?

Doesn't this reduce philosophy to a field of study just outside of science, a study that could eventually dissipate into nothing?

AI questions are ultimately reducible to science, but is the first question also reducible to science? And if so, how meaningful is this simplification?

Questions about AI have become popular recently, and the science is breathtaking.

The thing about AI that gets me is that we will never truly know if the machine is actually conscious. We cant "see" consciousness so we would have to go by behavior. But how would we know if it isnt just mimicking conscious behavior than actually being conscious?

If there is or could be a programme of individuality that humans have and do exhibit ide be bleeding amazed...trying to convince me that life as we know it can be replicated is like reading alice in wonderland..

... unfortunately, I'm no Lewis Carroll

... what we create as life, for example, self-reproducing systems of peptides, proteins, or simple organic molecules, will be far simpler than current life. The self-reproducing molecular systems of proteins we have been able to create in experiments lack the familiar process of protein synthesis, via transcription of DNA to RNA and translation of RNA to proteins, the central dogma of molecular biology. In living cells, rather amazingly, among the proteins encoded by genes are those very proteins that carry out translation, including translation of themselves. So it takes DNA, RNA, and encoded proteins to carry out the very process of translating genes into proteins. In short, in contemporary cells, the molecular mechanisms by which cells reproduce form a complex self-referential system that clearly is highly evolved.

If we create much simpler life, this will show that life can have manifold physical realizations. We are back to the multiple-platforms argument: life is not reducible to any specific physics.

my opinion-

Do you know of the "ship of theseus paradox"? The ship of theseus was intrumental in winning a key battle for athens. After the battle, the athenians brought it onto land and kept it as a memorial to the great battle fought that day. Every so often, as a wooden plank on the ship begins to rot, it is replaced by a new wooden plank untill all of the wooden planks are replaced. When, if ever, is the ship no longer the same?

Well, IMO, the ship stopped remaining "the ship that won the war" the instant it became that ship. Every instant, the ship is changed in so many ways (electrons change location, atoms fall off, etc...) that to call it the same thing is non-sensical. The same is true with us.

So, no- the duplicates are not me, but I am not me either, since there is no such thing as "I". Is this what you were getting at DT?

Neat question!