Directionally, I agree with your points. On the last one, I’ll note that counting person-years (or animal-years) falls naturally out of empty individualism as well as open individualism, and so the point goes through under the (substantively) weaker claim of “either open or empty individualism is true”.[1]
For the casual reader: The three candidate theories of personal identity are empty, open, and closed individualism. Closed is the common sense view, but most people who have thought seriously about personal identity—e.g., Parfit—have concluded that it must be false (tl;dr: because nothing, not memory in particular, can “carry” identity in the way that’s needed for closed individualism to make sense). Of the remaining two candidates, open appears to be the fringe view—supporters include Kolak, Johnson, Vinding, and Gomez-Emilsson (although Kolak’s response to Cornwall makes it unclear to what extent he is indeed a supporter). Proponents of (what we now call) empty individualism include Parfit, Nozick, Shoemaker, and Hume.
Directionally, I agree with your points. On the last one, I’ll note that counting person-years (or animal-years) falls naturally out of empty individualism as well as open individualism, and so the point goes through under the (substantively) weaker claim of “either open or empty individualism is true”.[1]
(You may be interested in David Pearce’s take on closed, empty, and open individualism.)
For the casual reader: The three candidate theories of personal identity are empty, open, and closed individualism. Closed is the common sense view, but most people who have thought seriously about personal identity—e.g., Parfit—have concluded that it must be false (tl;dr: because nothing, not memory in particular, can “carry” identity in the way that’s needed for closed individualism to make sense). Of the remaining two candidates, open appears to be the fringe view—supporters include Kolak, Johnson, Vinding, and Gomez-Emilsson (although Kolak’s response to Cornwall makes it unclear to what extent he is indeed a supporter). Proponents of (what we now call) empty individualism include Parfit, Nozick, Shoemaker, and Hume.
Agree. I find Empty Individualism pretty depressing to think about though. And Open Individualism seems more natural, from (my) subjective experience.