You are traveling anonymously (no one knows you are there) in a foreign country when you suddenly acquire an incredibly convenient form of amnesia that wipes out all specific memories other than those forming your beliefs and abilities. Are you still you?
For me, the answer is much more "yes" than "no". When confronted with the same basic high level situations I will tend to react in the same manner which is what matters to me. Put another way, I can envision large changes in my personal details that wouldn't effect my core responses all that much (I can also identify trivial ones that would utterly alter them, but that's besides the point).
This leads me to the conclusion that a clone of myself raised with a rationalist world view and a technical background (clearly there is some genetic propensity given the number of engineers in my family) would effectively be me in all the ways I truly value. The idiosyncratic personal details just don't matter to me very much in the grand scheme of things.
This attitude factors in directly to my decision not to reproduce. I did not expect a miniature version of myself by any means, but I was not prepared to take the chance that my progeny would not be highly intelligent. That being an utterly unfair and irresponsible opinion for a parent (in our society at least) I chose not to become one.
This attitude factors in directly to my decision not to reproduce. I did not expect a miniature version of myself by any means, but I was not prepared to take the chance that my progeny would not be highly intelligent. That being an utterly unfair and irresponsible opinion for a parent (in our society at least) I chose not to become one.
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