From d75fc0dba9836c3d90a9c4f67ea7904ab3068a9d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: continuist <continuist02@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2025 15:55:12 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Add Proof_of_OI.md

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+# Formal Proof: Open Individualism Necessarily Follows from EMR and PSR
+
+## Front Matter
+
+### Definitions
+
+- **Open Individualism (OI):** The metaphysical view that there is only one subject of experience — all conscious beings, across all space, time, and modality, are numerically the same experiencer.
+
+- **Closed Individualism (CI):** The view that each person is a separate, distinct subject of experience. You are only your body and not anyone else.
+
+- **Empty Individualism (EI):** The view that each moment of consciousness is a distinct experiencer. There is no enduring self — only a sequence of isolated experiential events.
+
+- **Extended Modal Realism (EMR):** The metaphysical view that all possible, impossible, and even incoherent worlds exist. Modal existence is total — nothing is arbitrarily excluded.
+
+- **Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR):** The principle that every fact must have a sufficient, non-arbitrary reason for why it is so and not otherwise. This includes identity facts.
+
+---
+
+## Assumptions
+
+- EMR is true: all minds in all forms exist across all modal realities.
+- PSR is true: no fact, including personal identity, can be brute or arbitrary.
+- We are not attempting to prove EMR or PSR in this document — only what follows from them.
+
+---
+
+## Step-by-Step Proof
+
+### Step 1: EMR implies that all minds — including identical and near-identical ones — exist.
+
+- There exist minds in different bodies and worlds that are phenomenally identical to your own.
+- Some of these duplicates are exact copies; others differ by small degrees.
+
+### Step 2: PSR requires that distinctions between minds have sufficient reason.
+
+- If two minds are phenomenally and structurally identical, there can be no non-arbitrary basis to say one is “you” and the other is not.
+- Any attempt to do so would violate PSR by positing an unexplained identity difference.
+
+### Step 3: Therefore, identical conscious states must correspond to the same subject.
+
+- The “you” experiencing Mind A must also be the “you” experiencing Mind B if there is no reason to distinguish them.
+- The only non-arbitrary solution is numerical identity of subject across instantiations.
+
+### Step 4: This principle generalizes to all minds.
+
+- Minds form a continuum across all modal realities.
+- If two minds differ, they do so gradually and by degree — but boundaries between “subjects” remain arbitrary unless grounded.
+- PSR disallows such brute boundary-making.
+
+### Step 5: Therefore, Open Individualism is the only theory of identity compatible with EMR and PSR.
+
+- CI fails because it posits brute separateness.
+- EI fails because it posits brute fragmentation of subjecthood at every moment.
+- OI alone requires no brute distinctions in assigning subjective identity.
+
+✅ **Q.E.D.**
+
+---
+
+## Rejection of Competing Theories
+
+### ❌ Closed Individualism (CI)
+
+- Treats each body as a separate subject.
+- Under EMR, there are many identical bodies and minds — yet only one “you.”
+- Assigning “you” to only one version is arbitrary unless justified.
+- CI therefore violates PSR.
+
+### ❌ Empty Individualism (EI)
+
+- Treats each moment of experience as a distinct subject.
+- Fails to account for continuity of experience — treats successive moments as fundamentally unconnected.
+- Introduces brute numerical identity distinctions across time with no justification.
+- EI therefore violates PSR.
+
+---
+
+## Rebuttals to Common Objections
+
+### Objection 1: “I only feel like I am this body — not all others.”
+
+**Response:**  
+This is an epistemic limitation, not a metaphysical one. You don’t feel your past self directly either, but you still consider it to be “you.” Introspective feeling does not justify metaphysical distinctness.
+
+---
+
+### Objection 2: “It’s absurd to say I am everyone.”
+
+**Response:**  
+Absurdity is not the same as incoherence. The conclusion may be counterintuitive, but it is logically required by EMR + PSR. Rejecting it requires accepting brute facts, which violates PSR.
+
+---
+
+### Objection 3: “But different minds have different thoughts and experiences — how can they be one?”
+
+**Response:**  
+Differences in experience do not imply differences in the experiencer. A single subject can undergo varying states without fragmenting into multiple subjects. Just as you are still “you” when you wake up with different thoughts than yesterday.
+
+---
+
+### Objection 4: “Personal identity must be tied to physical continuity.”
+
+**Response:**  
+This is a physicalist assumption that cannot account for modal duplicates. In EMR, there are exact replicas with no causal link to “your” body. Without PSR-justified boundaries, physical continuity cannot ground unique subjecthood.
+
+---
+
+## Conclusion
+
+- EMR ensures that all minds — including duplicates and variants — exist.
+- PSR ensures that distinctions between them must be non-arbitrary and justified.
+- Only Open Individualism avoids brute identity facts and fully satisfies both.
+- Therefore, Open Individualism is necessarily true given EMR and PSR.
+
+✅ **Final Conclusion: OI is the only metaphysically coherent theory of personal identity under EMR and PSR.**