If you don't think it makes a difference whether you barely remember yourself from before amnesia or if you don't remember yourself at all then it seems to me we should be agreeing more.
In your response, a lot of the things that you mention, it's the other way round, the thing you say I believe - I don't, and the arguments you use against me, actually work the opposite way. Apparently it's only the final interpretation that's different.
For example this
There's a pragmatic, common sense limit. The way you talk about being someone betrays that you can't quite let go of something that's similar to a soul or an essence.
Nope.
You basically describe the same kind of universe as I do, yet you're still so attached to there being selves that have to be clearly delineated, soul-like objects, instead of just convenient labels for specific patterns of being.
Nope.
People are afraid of death because they think there exists some metaphysical, clearly defined self and that once their physical body dies (or in your case, when they lose their memories) that self is erased from the existence and can never be brought back. That's the only way I can think of in which death may be something worth worrying about (assuming that we'd rather keep existing), if we all have a unique ID of sort that a supreme being or fate or whatever irreversibly erases from the database of the Universe, once it decided that we'd died according to a hypothetical objective definition. It's either that or the entire Universe losing the ability to support conscious life forever.
If you don't believe that's the case, then I don't understand how you can disagree with me. You're not your memories or your personality or your biological body. If I kept erasing your memories one by one, there wouldn't be any magical point at which you "die". You'd merely be dead in a sense of not remembering who you were before but that's not the type of death most people are afraid of. In fact, if you told someone who is depressed and suicidal, that you could rewrite their personality so they're no longer prone to depression, make them forget their painful past and give them a new body on top of that, they'd probably be very happy to accept your offer.
If soul-like self exists then maybe there is death, otherwise the concept doesn't really make sense to me or to be more precise, death is temporary.
You say that
If there was a single connecting memory, I guess I'd say it would be "me" in some very limited sense. But the extent would be so limited that it wouldn't make any sense to equate us.
It doesn't matter how much you think it would be you. The thing is, you're conscious, you can see, hear, taste, you can use your intellect etc. To think that the presence or lack of one memory (btw, I know that memories aren't like computer files, disconnected from everything else, but I suppose you know what I mean) could be a deciding factor in any fundamental way in determining whether someone is dead or alive sounds bizarre. Philosophers may debate it just as they debate whether someone waking up from a coma after amnesia (even if there are some connecting memories) is still the same individual but none of that has any influence on the fact there is a conscious observer experiencing being alive. In the first paragraph you say you don't think a single memory could play such a deciding role but if it doesn't then where is the disagreement?
I don't care if me now and me that existed a minute or 10 years ago are the same. I don't care if I lose all my memories or if someone changes my personality (well, I do care right now, I don't care if that's the result of death). I don't care if someone replaces my body parts either. As far as I'm concerned being alive is what matters and I can't imagine not being alive as long as consciousness exists anywhere in the Universe.
But there's no enduring essence beyond that. I think it all makes obvious and intuitive sense if you just throw the concept of an enduring essence out completely.
The thing is, from my point of view, you're the one believing in some form of essence. You believe that you're an essence with a very specific ID and when you "die" this essence is erased from the existence forever. If by any chance someone with the same set of memories appeared somewhere else in the Universe it wouldn't be you anymore because their essence would have a different ID. And if you think it would be you, then you also have to admit that even if memories were not perfectly replicated it would still be you (because your memories change every passing second and yet you don't feel like you die every second) and then, you'd have to accept that it actually doesn't matter how much the memory is altered because there aren't any magically established limits, that if crossed, cause one person to turn into someone else.
This discussion of whether it's going to be me or someone else reminds me of the Sorites paradox. Is one grain of sand a heap? Do heaps exists? Whatever the answer is, one thing is certain, namely, matter exists in one way or another and it doesn't care how it's called.
You say
Exactly the opposite of a symbolical sense from my point of view. In any sense worth caring about, you'd be dead. In some symbolical sense you'd be alive. The only thing we're ultimately worried about is our experience as it's tied to what we feel like we are now.
Again, why are you saying it like it's the opposite of what I'm thinking even though it's the other way round? That's my point basically, it doesn't matter if you remember anything or not, what counts is the experience of being alive and there can be no other experience and there can be no such thing as no experience unless we have this magical ID I mentioned earlier or unless the entire Universe becomes forever incapable of hosting conscious life. Perhaps then we can die. Otherwise, we can only forget, have our personality changed and bodies replaced. But we'll always feel conscious no matter what form we take.
The confusion just comes from thinking that there has to be some one objective definition of what a self is and the fact we use multiple fuzzy definitions in our everyday life.
If you don't believe in the existence of objective self, then death loses meaning. There is only amnesia and sudden personality changes. Which is my point basically.
It's only once you draw clean lines limiting what every person is that death becomes a problem.
Just view it as some enduring and evolving configuration of matter having experiences fed to it by its senses.
But that's how I view it. Again, this is strange because the thing you suggest, I'm already on that side, except my conclusion is completely different. This configuration, it consists of the entire Universe when you think of it. Our skin is not a barrier, it's a bridge. Or maybe not even that because the idea that our body is somehow fundamentally separated from the rest of the world is nothing but an illusion. It's just one continuous flow of energy and matter that is conscious. We're all that thing and we're fundamentally one. If the presence of multiple brains is confusing, imagine what it would be like if there was only one conscious brain inside the Universe. I think this view, that everyone is everything, plays well with the lack of belief in essence and metaphysical IDs.
That's why I said I should make a full thread about it. Because honestly, I didn't express all my thoughts out of convenience, neither in that nor in this post and now it's getting messy :(
