This is a weird roadblock I've run into before when discussing this topic.
No matter how many times I say that I'm speaking from the individual's point of view, some readers seem incapable of looking at it from an individual perspective.
In the case of your statement, it would solely depend on how the copy was made. If it's copied by somehow reading the consciousness, storing it as data, and perfectly restoring it in a new brain, then no, it is not the same consciousness, and from your perspective you are dead.
If it's copied through some kind of direct transfer, where the electrical impulses move, through some kind of biological link, to a new brain, then it is possible that the same continuous consciousness could now exist in the new brain.
(to be clear, I don't mean any of what I said to be insulting. I'm just observing that there are perspectives on this issue that I don't quite understand)
We feel like there is a difference between those 2 cases because we experience a continuity in our experience of the universe (ie. consciousness).
Under this premise (as you stated), copying your entire state and spawning it elsewhere (then killing the original) means your original version experiences a stopping of their continuity.
But if you analyze that premise, you realize that the only reason we believe we existed a second ago is because of our memory (the same reason the clone believes it was always alive).
How can you know that you aren't being cloned, in-place, right now? ie. Copied, killed, and spawned in place almost instantaneously. At every instant you carry all your memories and thus "feel" continuity, but it's a new you.
In this view, being killed and spawned elsewhere is no different. It isn't taking anything away from you because you never had it.
Obviously this is just a thought experiment, but just the fact that right now, while you were questioning if being cloned and killed was bad for the original you, this process could have been happening to you without your knowledge, might mean it is irrelevant.
I know what you mean. Guess a helpful analogy for some might be to consider two objects of one class. Those objects can be instantiated with identical values, but they are, in fact, two different objects. They occupy a different, physical space and can be differentiated by that. Same with two identical copies of a person. Not the same space, not the same consciousness. I'm not sure why some overlook the space part in all of this.
Well I consider what makes "the individual" that is me the composition that makes up the brain and body I have. If you can recreate that composition I consider both people to equally have my individual point of view.
The problem with that is that it means that consciousness is not bound to your body. Two people can share the same consciousness and from that point on it is very easy to imagine that you are sharing the consciousness of your parents and their grandparents and so on until every organism on earth shares the same consciousness. This means consciousness has to be a property of the universe. Making a clone doesn't grant you immortality because you already are immortal.
The opposite scenario is that there are now two consciousnesses. If the original dies so does its consciousness and you failed to achieve immortality. Your clone is just your offspring with an identical body and set of memories.
So which is it? I personally picked it based on what I want to believe in, because even if it is a lie it helps me shape the world into one in which I want to life in, rather than one that I do not like and would prefer to get rid of.
No matter how many times I say that I'm speaking from the individual's point of view, some readers seem incapable of looking at it from an individual perspective.
In the case of your statement, it would solely depend on how the copy was made. If it's copied by somehow reading the consciousness, storing it as data, and perfectly restoring it in a new brain, then no, it is not the same consciousness, and from your perspective you are dead.
If it's copied through some kind of direct transfer, where the electrical impulses move, through some kind of biological link, to a new brain, then it is possible that the same continuous consciousness could now exist in the new brain.
(to be clear, I don't mean any of what I said to be insulting. I'm just observing that there are perspectives on this issue that I don't quite understand)