You don't really need a particular break time. Just seeing objectively that consciousness is not a single unbroken line is all that is required. Contrast that with the subjective perception of a single continuous existence, and the stage is set.
I have an interesting day, then mulling over the day's exploits I go to sleep. During the night my consciousness disappears for a while every 20 minutes or so. The next day 2 Miriams wake up; one inside a virtual world, and the other in the bed where she went to sleep. They are both me. As they wake they both remember what a cool day yesterday was. They both have the same illusion of an unbroken consciousness stretching back into the past, but they are both wrong... and at the same time both are correct. My own subjective consciousness is what is important, so to say that one is the "real" me and the other merely a clone is meaningless. Subjectively they are both really me.
I'm aware that this is a weird concept and how it seems absurdly at odds with first thoughts. I have been familiar with this question for about the last 37 years so it seems fairly easy to me, but I remember how puzzling and insoluble it was when I first found it.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2003-03-12 05:29 am (UTC)I have an interesting day, then mulling over the day's exploits I go to sleep. During the night my consciousness disappears for a while every 20 minutes or so. The next day 2 Miriams wake up; one inside a virtual world, and the other in the bed where she went to sleep. They are both me. As they wake they both remember what a cool day yesterday was. They both have the same illusion of an unbroken consciousness stretching back into the past, but they are both wrong... and at the same time both are correct. My own subjective consciousness is what is important, so to say that one is the "real" me and the other merely a clone is meaningless. Subjectively they are both really me.
I'm aware that this is a weird concept and how it seems absurdly at odds with first thoughts. I have been familiar with this question for about the last 37 years so it seems fairly easy to me, but I remember how puzzling and insoluble it was when I first found it.