self
“America values freedom”
This statement doesn’t sound odd. Some people may complain about whether America is actually free etc, but no one would say that the statement is grammatically or semantically incorrect.
The thing is though… America doesn’t exist, it’s an idea built up of a variety of parts (citizens, organizations, interest groups). Because of a vague agreement amongst the parts and a cultivated image, we can talk about what “America” likes and dislikes, “America’s” views towards certain policies and ideas, but the fact of the matter is that “America” cannot have likes and dislikes because it’s just a shell around a concept. Heck, many of the parts within America vehemently disagree with the things “America” believes in.
In the same way America doesn’t really “exist”, I’m of the opinion that the idea of a “personal self” doesn’t really exist. I’m a constantly shifting thing that is roughly correlated, but not really one cohesive whole. Most of the things we consider parts of ourselves don't really exist.
Most people would say that me from a decade ago is the same me that exists right now, but honestly there are so many differences that we may as well be different people
This is why a lot of questions around mind uploading and the experience machine confuse us, because the self doesn’t really exist as much as we want it to.
what does it mean if we offload the self?
