But what 'I' am is different to what 'I' was, and what 'I' will be.
But still 'you' nonetheless.
There is an unbroken chain from me to the first life forms on earth, and a great deal of change has occurred in a few billion years, but that is quite different than arguing that 'I', in any sense that matters to 'me', has survived 4 billion years.
Irrelevant. "You" were never a caveman, or a single celled organism.
Obviously the tautology is true, but I don't care about the tautology. I care about whether or not in 25 billion years there will be something that exists that I can be associated with strongly enough for me to care about it. I doubt very much that this could be the case.
Why?
You can just point me to a post if you've already explained it. Pardon me for not reading through the whole thread.
Presuambly, its because of all the change you expect to go through, so as you say:
But I think we can agree that tomorrow I'll be largely the same person I am today, with little difference. The same knowledge, the same loves, hates, goals, personality etc etc.
So too, will you largely be the same the day before 10000 years from now as the day of. And the day before that, and the day before that, all the way back to tomorrow.
True - but I don't care about the guy 10,000 years from now who is going to be very different from the guy sat here today so I don't care that that guy will exist one day.
But you do care about the guy you'll be tomorrow with your ever-so-slight difference. When tomorrow is the 10000th-year day, you're still going to care about the you of tomorrow. I don't see where this chain breaks so as to make you stop caring about yourself and if it does, then you might as well not care about tomorrow either.
What is it that you want to survive? If I said that your perception will continue, but you will have no memories and none of the same personality, would you care?
This isn't about me, its about you!