LostN3ko t1_j1vqhxh wrote on December 27, 2022 at 7:32 PM

Reply to comment by MayorOfSmurftown in Is it possible to Live Forever? by gg2ezpzlemonsqz

Before you ask me to solve a 2000 year old philosophical paradox please explain in what world view can I wake up in someone else's body.

For the purpose of this discussion we have to assume a self exists. If we don't then there is no point continuing the discussion as no one exists anymore and no amount of clones change that and immortality explicitly doesn't exist. If a self is only alive for one day again immortality no longer exists. The only philosophical realm where immortality exists is where every person has a self and that self has a timeline beginning with birth and ending with death. Immortality is a self with a birth but no foreseeable death.

Now if I have 10 clones they are all discrete individuals. They each have their own feelings thoughts sense of individuality. They are not a hive consciousness they are each a unique instance with unique selfs. Each of which dies when their body dies. Not one of them is immortal.

MayorOfSmurftown t1_j1vuf9w wrote on December 27, 2022 at 7:58 PM

What if your "self" isn't defined by physical matter like cells or atoms, but by the continuity of your memory and conscious experience?

Yes, those 10 clones are all distinct individuals after they are created, but before then, they were all essentially the same entity. From their perspective, it's as if all 10 of them started out inhabiting the same body, and at a certain point, they diverged.

LostN3ko t1_j1vwgvh wrote on December 27, 2022 at 8:12 PM

From the moment of divergence they begin to have unique experiences that make their self a different person than the others. 10 selfs. Each with their own end and none of which will be a shared experience meaning they are not the same self anymore.

Identical twins start out as one egg with a shared experience. After separating they become two selfs each unique. Identical twins are not a version of immortality.

There is a wishy washy version of immortality here but it's the same one we have always had, legacy through progeny. Your children were once part of your body, you split them off, they grew into new selfs and you passed on your memories, opinions and stories to them and they carry them forward. Offspring, pictures, movies, stories, histories, crafted materials, art and fame all fall into this psudo immortality of keeping your memory alive, a little bit of you as people like to say. None of these are true immortality where a self does not die.