Because, the only thing we can know for sure about PC, from the transporter problem as it is usually phrased, is that an identical copy is a continuation of the self.
— Mijin

I don't think this is the case. The problem as it's usually phrase is designed to test your intuitions about what constitutes identity. — AmadeusD

I think this is the critical misunderstanding on your part, and is my response to all of your points in that post.
I was laying out what the personal continuity position is. The "you are transported" position.

No, it is not asking you to question whether an identical copy is you: that's the point of Parfit's transporter problem in the first place. PC is explicitly a response about such problems; it's making an explicit claim about what would happen.

I do not thikn this is right(substantive after formal) The experiment has two prongs, so to speak:

1. You hear the story, and have an intuition about it: Survive, or not. If you choose 'survive'; then
2. You need to justify how it is that you survive, identically, in person2; or
3. Explain why identity fails.

If what you're saying is that the 'response' you're laying all this at the foot of is just 2 and 3 above, I'm unsure that you're being all that serious. That has been what I've been saying all along and is not in any way a misunderstanding.

The substantive objection I'd make is that your position in your self-quote above is (as best I can tell/as far as I know) entirely wrong. Psychological continuity is one way for 2 and 3 to go coupled with the person's explications. The way the story is usually phrased doesn't give us anything to go on, without our own intuitions. We don't 'know' anything. You're free to reject that PC continues any kind of self (which I do, personally). This has now gone in the same circle three times.

I would appreciate if you could actually clarify how any of this is being misunderstood (so far, you have not done so).

I have no idea where you got any of that from.
What I am saying is that you are confusing the problem itself from the responses to the problem. We can super clarify it by putting it into three sections:

1. The original problem (Parfit's transporter)
A person steps into a transporter.
Their body is scanned and a perfect duplicate is made at some remote location, while, at the same time, the original body/person is killed.
What happens to the consciousness, the self, after this set of events?

2. Philosophical positions on personal identity
Bodily continuity -- continuity of the self depends on continuity of the physical substrate
Psychological continuity -- continuity of the self depends on continuity of the content of the mind -- the memories, the personality etc
No continuity -- there is never continuity of the self. It just feels as if there is because we inherit memories of previous entities

3. Therefore, what should a rational person do in the situation (1)?
BC says stay away; the transporter kills you -- the person at the destination is not you
PC says go ahead; you will arrive at the destination
NC says it doesn't matter what you do; you have 1 second to live either way

Now, there's a fourth section we can go into: counter-arguments; of which the "imperfect transporter" is just one. But I want to check you're on board with 1-3 first.

I think PC and NC are actually the same position.

PC says there is no deep fact of continuity or discontinuity. What matters is the subject's perception of continuity, nothing more. The believing is the reality. I see no divergence here with NC.

And so the imperfect transporter is not an objection to PC. It is not the universe which is supposed to be deciding whether or not continuity happened. It is ultimately up to the subject whether they are a continuation or not. If there is a dividing line, that line is a preference of the subject, nothing more.

Yessir.

If i was less clear than this, as it seems I was, i apologise. But this, it seems, is the case.


PC explicitly states that Identity does not obtain, and it doesn't matter: what matters is PC. That's what the PC position is. I think perhaps there are plenty of misunderstandings floating about this explication...But to be intensely clear, this is why I go with PC: There is no way to get identity to work, so something has to matter and perceptions seems the only option. Person2 thinking they are you is good enough.

No I don't think PC and NC are the same, and I just explained with a concrete example e.g. a proponent of NC does not believe there are rational grounds for either teleporting or not teleporting; either way they are about to die. That's not the same as the PC position.

They both agree on the same underlying fact: there is no continuity beyond the perception of it. NC adds the additional idea: therefore, we are always dying.


But is this idea coherent? If there is no continuous consciousness, then what is it that is doing the dying? It seems there must be a continuous consciousness in the first place, for it to die. NC can only answer: it is the instance of consciousness that dies.

Consider an analogy with the Ship of Theseus. PC: there is no underlying reality of the identity of the ship, whether it is the same ship or not is up to the observer. NC: there is no underlying reality of the identity of the ship. Therefore, the ship is being destroyed again and again, every instant. What is being destroyed? The exact state of the ship, at the molecular level.

Why is the exact state of the Ship reified into a thing that can be destroyed? If identity is ultimately conceptual, then this exact state is simply the wrong concept, meaning, a useless concept no one uses in practice. The right concept is more like, the functional unity of the ship's parts over time.

It is like NC is saying, identity is conceptual, not actual. And, I am now completely redefining the concept in such a way that everyone is dying millions of times a second.

Moreover, no human behavior is coherent under NC. Even hedonism is irrational. Why reach for that ice cream? Me + 10 seconds will enjoy it, not me. A theory that makes nonsense of the entirely of human action just might be the wrong theory.

They both agree on the same underlying fact: there is no continuity beyond the perception of it. NC adds the additional idea: therefore, we are always dying. — hypericin

Call it "adding on", or call it different. Maybe it's just semantics?

But personally I would maintain it's actually a different position. PC says I am the same person as the Mijin of 10 years ago (numerically the same of course, not qualitatively). NC says I am not, in either sense.

When it comes to the imperfect transporter, PC has the difficult problem of establishing where the line is of numerical identity. It's like "heap" problems where there is the problem of which hair you remove that transitions a person from "full head of hair" to "balding". Except that the classical heap problem is fairly trivial IMHO, being largely a matter of a third person making an arbitrary choice. But the imperfect transporter actually matters, to the first person, because it's whether you are alive or dead.

NC doesn't care about the imperfect transporter; it has no applicability or relevance.

If there is no continuous consciousness, then what is it that is doing the dying? — hypericin

Conscious experience. In a sense NC is saying that consciousness does have a lifespan; it's as long as a unified conscious experience, so probably something around 1/10th of a second. Not more than a few seconds anyway. After that, you can call it dying, or ending, it doesn't matter. The point is, it isn't the "three score and ten" of a human body's lifespan.

In a sense NC is saying that consciousness does have a lifespan; it's as long as a unified conscious experience, so probably something around 1/10th of a second. Not more than a few seconds anyway. After that, you can call it dying, or ending, it doesn't matter. The point is, it isn't the "three score and ten" of a human body's lifespan. — Mijin

What would be the point of planning if you only ever live for a heartbeat? I don't think you believe NC yourself, so why would you respond in this thread when you won't even get to see the reaction yourself?

What would be the point of planning if you only ever live for a heartbeat? I don't think you believe NC yourself, so why would you respond in this thread when you won't even get to see the reaction yourself? — SolarWind

Firstly your point obviously has nothing to do with whether it is true or not.
Lots of things in the universe are either unpleasant or unintuitve, it doesn't make them false.

But secondly, I haven't claimed to know the NC position is correct, I have only said that it is the position that stands up best to the counter-arguments right now. It is not rational based only on that tentative judgement, to give up on life immediately.
But in fact, even if I knew that NC is correct it, doesn't give me any basis to not do anything either, so I may as well continue to play along, for this millisecond that I'm alive.