Every time you've heard Beethoven’s ninth symphony it's been because someone stuffed the score in a computer and it played.
Even if you heard it in a real life orchestra or something. The fact that the score is not the same parchment paper (deaf) Beethoven wrote it in changes nothing about the piece.
My personality and my memories and so on change subtly every day I wake up. Over the years the changes accumulate and I'm a different person.
Of course, even if the brain scan and simulation technology was perfect so that there's no distinguishable difference in my thoughts immediately before being scanned and once being simulated, over time the material conditions, the fact that I'm a computer and I now require electricity and microprocessors instead of food and shelter, would over time shape my thoughts and my ideology and turn me into a different person.
It'd still be me.
When the technology isn't perfect there's a discrete change, but again saying that a discrete difference changes the person is saying that one dies when they have a stroke.
Every time you've heard Beethoven’s ninth symphony it's been because someone stuffed the score in a computer and it played.
Even if you heard it in a real life orchestra or something. The fact that the score is not the same parchment paper (deaf) Beethoven wrote it in changes nothing about the piece.
I don't think you're getting what I'm saying. An upload of your brain wouldn't be you, it'd be a clone, and almost definitely a subtly changed one.
My personality and my memories and so on change subtly every day I wake up. Over the years the changes accumulate and I'm a different person.
Of course, even if the brain scan and simulation technology was perfect so that there's no distinguishable difference in my thoughts immediately before being scanned and once being simulated, over time the material conditions, the fact that I'm a computer and I now require electricity and microprocessors instead of food and shelter, would over time shape my thoughts and my ideology and turn me into a different person.
It'd still be me.
When the technology isn't perfect there's a discrete change, but again saying that a discrete difference changes the person is saying that one dies when they have a stroke.
To be clear I am a proponent of "'You"' is a meaningless concept" but that's not really what I'm talking about right now.
I'm sorry. What do you mean then with the "unique identity"?