On 15 May 2014 07:12, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > On 15 May 2014 06:03, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Wednesday, May 14, 2014, Dennis Ochei <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Under Daniel Kolak's open >>> individualism<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_individualism> there >>> exists one numerically distinct person who is everyone at all times. What I >>> want to explore is the implications of this theory for a self interested >>> individual. For those unfamiliar with Open Individualism, you might instead >>> imagine a demon appears to you, and informs you that after you die you will >>> experience what it is like to be every person that ever lived. >>> >>> The only rational course of action seems to be to maximize utility >>> across lives. Meaning if $1 will buy you in your current life 1 unit of >>> utility, but would afford another person 10 units, it would be rationally >>> self interested to donate the money, if you expect to experience what they >>> shall experience. This is essentially Singer's Effective Altruism at work. >>> Are there any other rational courses of action if Open Individualism is >>> true (or if the hypothetical demon appeared) and one is self interested? >>> >> >> If I tell you that this morning I woke up as you and you as me, but >> otherwise everything was exactly the same, how is this different to each of >> is waking up as ourselves? In other words, what possible evidence, either >> subjective or objective, could count either for or against this >> transformation having happened? >> >> Objective evidence could do it, but we'd need a whole well-evidenced > theory of Cartesian dualism to back it up. But of course if the > "transmigration of souls" required for this scenario to work is real, it > could happen every night, or indeed every second. It's equivalent to the > flashlight in Fred Hoyle's "pigeon holes" from "October the first is too > late" (which isn't imho relevant to the theory of identity he proposes, > which is essentially the "capsule theory"). >
In other words, if the "transmigration of souls" occurs it is no different than if it didn't occur. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
