Today there is no need for a convention concerning the identity of conscious beings like ourselves. You're born, you change a little or a lot, you die. That's the whole story. If we eventually have the ability to dismantle people and reconstitute them, or copy a mind into another body, we'd need conventions to deal with such cases. I don't find it difficult at all to believe that a person's identity could be a matter of convention if there were difficult cases to deal with.
If Captain Kirk was beamed down to Omicron Persei 8, it would be easy to say he's still Captain Kirk. But if the transporter malfunctioned and two captains arrived, there would be no "correct" answer. We'd need a convention.
Today there is no need for a convention concerning the identity of conscious beings like ourselves. You're born, you change a little or a lot, you die. That's the whole story. If we eventually have the ability to dismantle people and reconstitute them, or copy a mind into another body, we'd need conventions to deal with such cases. I don't find it difficult at all to believe that a person's identity could be a matter of convention if there were difficult cases to deal with.
If Captain Kirk was beamed down to Omicron Persei 8, it would be easy to say he's still Captain Kirk. But if the transporter malfunctioned and two captains arrived, there would be no "correct" answer. We'd need a convention.