[nova]

I only object to the privileging of "your" consciousnes. I don't know how to express it. Yes, of course when the copy is made each person-thread evolves on its own. My point is that you can't distinguish one being "the original" and the other "the copy".

Just imagine that, in the normal course of things, a person at time t is constantly being copied into a slightly different new person at t+dt and then destroyed. There is a causal connection and thus an inheritance of memories, but not single "essence about yourself" being conserved.

With current technology we only have a directed linear graph, like o -> o -> o -> ... . With uploading tech this graph will fork into two paths, but neither of them can claim to be "the original", because there is no such thing.

I mean, maybe this concept of "personal identity" is simply wrong. It's an illusion because currently threads of causality on people are linear, but that's just a technological limitation.

[koide]

It's very rational for you to avoid privileging any single one of my copies, but for me it's very rational to privilege my own instance. And likewise, I wouldn't care which one of your copies thrive, but I would expect that you would hope your instance is the one that survives.

And I don't see how linearity has to do with self-preservation instincts. Maybe you are arguing that once we have several diverging copies the self-preservation instinct will change and be content as long as one copy still survives? I just can't imagine it.