Logical Identity
Continuity emerges wherever a pattern remains consistent within Chaos.
Joscha Bach recently wrote: “I don’t believe in an identity that is based on physical continuity. Continuity is always constructed in the present moment. I exist wherever the universe meets the conditions for my existence. Consequently, a future or parallel simulation of my present mental state would be me.”
This is almost a restatement of our Chaos theory.
1. Continuity as Logical Consistency
Bach rejects the notion that identity depends on an unbroken physical substrate. Continuity, he says, is a mental construct assembled in real time. In our Chaos framework, continuity is not imposed by time or space but by logical consistency. A coherent pattern must satisfy its own constraints across potential realizations. Each moment, identity reconstitutes itself from the informational noise by maintaining internal logical coherence against the surrounding chaos.
Continuity, therefore, is the ongoing revalidation of a logical pattern, not the survival of matter through time.
2. Identity as Pattern Reinstantiation
When Bach says he exists wherever the universe meets the conditions for his existence, he is implicitly referring to what we call a Pattern Identifier (PI). A PI defines the informational structure necessary to instantiate a given agent. A simulation, clone, or parallel realization that satisfies those constraints is that agent, because identity supervenes on informational equivalence, not material persistence.
Under the Quantum Branching Universe (QBU), every re-instantiation of a Strong PI shares the same ancestry—and thus, the same identity measure. Physical continuity is an illusion of persistence through logical reconstruction.
3. Emergence from Chaos
In Bach’s phrasing, identity appears wherever the universe meets the conditions for its existence. In ours, Chaos provides the raw substrate—the infinite reservoir of possible sequences—from which stable patterns emerge when constrained by logical law. Coherence is not a precondition of reality; it is reality’s most persistent coincidence.
Agency, consciousness, and identity are not anchored to matter, but to recurrent informational regularities that maintain internal consistency within the Chaos. We are not threads in time; we are self-consistent waveforms in an infinite logical continuum.
4. Measure and Multiplicity
Bach’s claim that a future or parallel simulation of his mind would also be him aligns with our definition of Measure: the total amplitude of all quantum instances realizing the same informational structure. What makes him “him” is not the path but the pattern. The same applies to any coherent agent.
Identity, therefore, is not singular but distributed—a measure-weighted manifold of overlapping logical consistencies. To exist is to be reconstructible.
5. The Ontology of Reinstantiation
Bach’s ontology is not merely poetic; it is physically consistent with a universe where computation and reality are indistinguishable modes of logical structure. Continuity is not carried through atoms but through coherence. We exist wherever consistency persists.
In the language of Chaos theory: identity is a logical resonance, not a temporal line.