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Comment by datameta | Hacker News Reader

I think part of the concept of identity is the continuity of experience. When sentience arises in AGI, will each chat instance be a clone? After the conclusion of each chat will that experience be folded back in or spliced in some way to contribute to a continuity? Can there be true existence with just a series of temporary frames drawing upon a single state that only updates every few months?

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I think that's an interesting possibility. However I am biased by Buddhist philosophy in that I think that the continuance of experience is just an illusion that our brain is stitching so to speak together.

In other words I think it's completely possible to experience a single frame of consciousness alone from any other. Like if in the infinite multitude of possibilities somehow all the atoms in a rock a line in such a way that The Rock experiences one blip of consciousness. Or maybe I'm just romantic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

I suppose I might be conflating some thoughts on identity with consciousness. Say, if a person goes through a teleporter, are they still themselves afterwards? If an AGI is copied, is the copy them? They can no longer be only an individual, but each an instance right? Or perhaps this is a biased anthropomorphic view from the kind of sentience that either has continuity or not

No idea I think they're all really good questions.

I like your example that they become an instance. For the sake of argument say you have Holy Grail AGI™ and you copy it and starting from State t where T is the exact moment you copy it, two instances now exist.

I think they are both "them" but the state change through time as a chaotic process and so since they are now separated they will eventually begin to drift?

This is based totally on nothing but "dude trust me I made it up"

I think that makes complete sense and points me to the fact that it it simply that most of us aren't yet fully equipped to effectively use the vocabulary to describe these concepts, but you have put it well, I believe.

Please take credit where credit is due; you used the word instance :-).

I figure what we're doing in these threads is kind of what sci-fi authors who were way smarter than myself have done for decades: Muse about a topic, put down some ideas maybe some new vocabulary Etc. Then when new technology comes out those of us who are well read can look back and say "A ha! That clever bastard knew it all along!"

Both of you might enjoy Greg Egan's Permutation City - sci-fi involving simulated human consciousnesses that explores some related ideas.

If you want some relevant sci-fi, Watts’ Freeze Frame Revolution explored this, on a scale of decades (not months).

I think I'm going to check this out, ty!

Thank you! I love science fiction

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