How "reincarnation" might work?

[Ben Davis]

Ben, is that you or a clone of you talking? Prove it?

Both. I suffer from a multiple personality disorder and both personalities are me.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's very confusing.  But I think we have an intuition that continuity is a necessary feature of self.  I think this is because in some sense we 'own' our past actions.  They belong to us.  If they weren't the product of our current brain and body, we wouldn't feel they belong to us.  And a large part of what determines who we are is our past actions.  If I hadn't lived the life I had lived, I wouldn't be the same 'me'.

Continuity of self seems to be a proposition with utility that's entirely divorced from it's veracity.  If we discovered, tomorrow, unequivocally, that there was no self (let alone continuity)...I doubt that people's behavior would change a single iota armed with that knowledge.  In some models it's seem as a system rule, necessary to function.  Not that continuity of self exists, or that it's actually a necessary feature of -self- ofc, but that the proposition is taken to be true by the system. It wouldn't operate as it does otherwise, has no control over that propositional value, and so it cannot conceive otherwise, mechanically.

[chasbanner]

Ignoramus: why?

Ben Davis: Actually both people can be you at the same time. Saying that “two people can’t be the same person at the same time” is a proof of the importance of continuity is circular reasoning.

People are defined by Continuity because…

one people can’t be in two bodies at the same time because…

People are defined by Continuity
 
  The fact that they are in two separate bodies just isn’t as important as people think. Consider copies of books. All of the copies of the “catcher in the rye” are one book.
Clones would of course become more different as time passes and less the same person.

Rhythm: Thanks...  I think.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Ben, is that you or a clone of you talking? Prove it?

Both. I suffer from a multiple personality disorder and both personalities are me.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I have multiple personality disorder,
And so do I.

Boru

[ignoramus]

Why? Because ultimately only one person can be in one spacetime at a time.
Our experiences (thoughts/consciousness) is moulded depending on when/where "we" go and do in our lifetime.

No two clones can experience anything/everything identically for that reason.

So basically, the fact that we own our physical space since conception, makes us entirely unique.
I'm not saying life is precious for a second, just universally spatially unique. Obviously.

We are (our mass) our very own spacetime signature.
This fact is completely independent of any religious/philosophical connotations.

[robvalue]

What about identical parallel realities... one is just a copy of the other, with all the same parameters in place and the same thing happens in both forever.

Would each pair of people be the same person?

[ignoramus]

Fuck man, if we're gonna go that hypothetical, we may as well discuss the possibility of God! Lol.

[robvalue]

What the hell did I write last night

[Ben Davis]

Ben Davis: Actually both people can be you at the same time. Saying that “two people can’t be the same person at the same time” is a proof of the importance of continuity is circular reasoning.

People are defined by Continuity because…

one people can’t be in two bodies at the same time because…

People are defined by Continuity
 
  The fact that they are in two separate bodies just isn’t as important as people think. Consider copies of books. All of the copies of the “catcher in the rye” are one book.
Clones would of course become more different as time passes and less the same person.

Hi Chas, I think you've missed my point. All the evidence tells us that your subjective experience, your awareness, your 'consciousness' ceases to exist when your specific brain dies. 'You' can never be reincarnated, no matter what the method is. I caveated that point with the understanding that a 'good enough' clone would be considered by others to be 'you' but it would not actually be 'you', instead a copy.

[robvalue]

That sounds like a good distinction.

The thing that puzzles me is... how consciousness "makes" the experience. I know it's probably a poorly formed question. But the experience... Where is it? How? Why?

An illusion, of sorts. But I've come to the conclusion that things are as real to any particular observer as they appear to be. So it's real to me, in some sense. It's all that I know is real! Even if it's not what it seems to be, which I know already it isn't.

Do others experience? It seems obvious that they must do... but again, how... where...? Like me? My brain just can't comprehend it. I know consciousness is the experience... it just doesn't quite feel satisfying.

I can be pretty good at being scientific and detached on most subjects. This one tests me the most.