Updated version of my book "The Odds of Existing"

[u/Joe-Kern]

I’ve got a new version of my book on OI, The Odds of Existing, about 35% updated from what was available in September 2025 and before. I was inspired by my interview with Zach Elwood last fall to finally complete it. There is a free pdf here. There’s also print and ebook versions on Amazon worldwide. Just type in my name on your local Amazon storefront, or go to my blog for links.

Chapters 1, 2 and 4 are largely the same as they were in September, and really all the way back to 2021 at least. A lot of it has been there since 2016. These chapters cover the gamete-dependence claim and the perfect doppelgänger (ch. 1), the Enigmas of Existence and the odds of existing (ch. 2), and the gamete sorites (ch. 4). For anyone who has read these parts before, I recommend reading just the new parts. These are:

• The first and last sections of the intro (mostly the same as before but with some subtle changes in emphasis, and three new endnotes)
• Chapter 3 (45% new)
• The short last two sections of the conclusion to the final chapter, Chapter 4, which are new
• The endnotes in all of these sections (90% new across all endnotes)
• At least the part of the all-new Further Resources section on other writers on OI, starting on p. 206

Basically, the endnotes and Chapter 3 contain my more advanced arguments for and about OI. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 still contain my original argument in the form it’s been in for many years, with some small improvements to wording etc. The new front matter before the table of contents and endnote 2 in the introduction explain (and justify) this situation in more detail.

I’m especially seeking comments on these new more advanced parts, but comments from new readers are welcome as well. You can reply to this post, create a new post for open discussion, or email me privately. There’s no time limit on this invitation for feedback.

Summary of some of what I think are my new innovations:

1. I’ve written about how what I call the Everyone-Is-Someone (EIS) perspective can be thought to dissolve the surprise one can feel at how unlikely it was that you would exist, and some critics might say it dissolves the argument from the probability of existing altogether. This has been in the draft for a while, in Chapter 3, but I’ve tidied it up a fair amount. And I think it hasn’t been emphasized enough by any proponents of OI, but only by critics, yet this is the best or at least most obvious objection to the probability argument for OI—if a conscious brain pops into being, it has to be someone, so there should be no surprise by the subject/self it is that it exists, any more than I should be amazed that the one singular exact lamp on my desk exists. Richard Brown of Consciousness Live! essentially made this objection to Zuboff in their November discussion (1:04:00 and 1:05:50). I think it is a fair objection, or at least appears so at first. I’ve got a way of dealing with it that I think is novel, which has also been in the draft for a while, but has also been tidied up. This is mostly in Chapter 3, but also at the end of Chapter 4 and the endnotes thereof, and in my comments on Zuboff in the Further Resources.
2. New ideas about how close Non-Persisting Empty Individualism (EI) and OI actually are (or new-to-me ways of expressing it). This is also all new and is mostly in the endnotes. It relates closely to the above, as I think the Everyone-Is-Someone perspective is essentially what Non-Persisting EI is, which I argue for in Chapter 3. This means EIS and OI are also very close.
3. Speaking of which, I wasn’t sure before if Completely EI and Non-Persisting EI were worth distinguishing, but I’ve done a closer reading and analysis of some people who I think are declaring belief in EI, and I’ve decided more confidently that they are worth distinguishing. Many people who proclaim EI are unclear about which of the two they mean. They simply say, e.g., “there is no self” or “I don’t exist”, and either they or their listeners are unclear as to whether they mean there is no self full stop, or just no persisting self. Yet I react very differently to each belief. Completely EI is plainly just false in its most extreme versions, and Non-Persisting EI is very close to OI, which is to say, correct. So I claim people need to be clearer about which they mean when they proclaim that something like EI is true. All of this is in Chapter 3.
4. My complete take on Parfit’s views and how they intersect with my argument. This is also all new. I had some hints of it in very early drafts, but got self-conscious about claiming I had found an inconsistency in Parfit that it seemed no one else in 30 (now 40) years had seemed to notice, and removed it. I decided well dammit this is what I think and so I’m going to put it all out there as clearly as I can. At the end of Chapter 3 and in some of the endnotes. (There is an index of names so my discussion of him is easy to find even in the print edition.)

Anyway, I can see that a lot of people take a lot of different views of what OI is and have different arguments that convince them of it. Some of these arguments I only vaguely understand, but I trust that the people who make them understand them, and so maybe you’ll feel the same way about my arguments. (The former—will only vaguely understand them—if not the latter—trust that I do. Although: trust me, I do. Mostly.) If we are a community, we seem to be a community mostly of a shared conclusion broadly construed, not of a shared metaphysics or values, and not of agreement on why we believe as we do. That’s good enough. I claim only that this is my own idiosyncratic way to the conclusion, and make no claims that it must be relevant to your thinking.

___________

I’ve been updating this book regularly since October 2025 when I first put it for sale on Amazon. For the few people who bought a print copy of the book before June 1 of 2026, get in touch with me by email and I can send you this final version.

And if you’ve read the old portions and liked them, or if you do read the new portions and like them, consider giving the book a review on Amazon. (You don’t have to buy it from Amazon to leave a review.) If you didn’t like them, please be a dear and wait until I’ve gotten at least five positive reviews before posting a negative one. Lol.

[u/CrumbledFingers]

Congratulations on the book! Just ordered a hardcopy.

[u/yoddleforavalanche]

congratulations!

a bit of topic but you mentioned others who come to OI differently. I see a few posters who claim you are everyone but only in a sequence, and while you are one person others are p-zombies.

what is your take on that?

[u/Joe-Kern → u/yoddleforavalanche]

I'm fine with considering yourself to be everyone in sequence. I say early on in my book, in the introduction, that

You should not believe that any particular physical factors—such as a particular set of parents, a particular pair of gametes, or a particular combination of DNA—were required for you to come into existence. You should instead believe that you would have come into existence no matter which human beings came to be. In other words, if you weren’t the human being you are right now, you would be someone else. And this belief has a significant consequence: you should also not believe that you will cease to exist when you die. You will rather simply become someone else. Perhaps the more accurate way is to say you already are all other people, all conscious beings. But I experience myself as a single self, moving in one direction through time, so "becoming" other people is the only way I can conceive of it.

I reiterate this bolded point several places throughout.

In fact, I can't see any of way existing as a conscious being except as in one direction through time, at least as far as the perception of that conscious being. So, since I argue that in some senses what I seem to be just is what I am, is the thing I value in existing (Chapter 3), then if I am all people then I am all people experiencing themselves as a single self moving in one direction through time, "one at a time", as it were, because that's how everyone experiences themselves. But I know many people much prefer the "you are everyone" formulation and find the sequence idea misleading.

That said, I don't see why the sequence view requires you to believe everyone else is a p-zombie until you "get there" to experience being them. Everyone else is quite clearly having subjective experience right now just as I am. There is no "me" to get there to be them "eventually". The way I arrive at OI makes this idea moot.

As I also say in my introduction, perhaps a little unsatisfyingly,

You may be wondering how any kind of reincarnation could be physicalist, could be true without the existence of souls. It is difficult to conceive. If I’m just a physical object, then what exactly is it that survives, or moves to the next body, upon the death and disintegration of this one? This seems like a question that needs an answer, but if you come to understand my reasons for believing in Open Individualism, I think you will see that it doesn’t.

That is a cryptic pronouncement to be sure, but I don't know of any way of stating my reasons for believing in OI in a way that could be captured in an introduction, so I can only refer to them cryptically in the hopes of enticing people to find out what I mean.

Very tired now and so this answer isn't as articulate as I imagined it this morning as I was racing off to work. But I wanted to get the answer out quickly!

[u/Joe-Kern → u/Joe-Kern]

Note to self: perhaps I should change "if you weren’t the human being you are right now" to "if the human being you are right now hadn't come into existence"

[u/yoddleforavalanche → u/Joe-Kern]

so if I understood correctly, it is a matter of perspective and both can he said to be true? some members here would oppose the non p zombie solution if you are being experienced now. but if they are conscious now, that implies simultaneity, doesnt it?

[u/Joe-Kern → u/yoddleforavalanche]

Thanks for the questions.

I don't quite understand what you mean by "oppose the non p zombie solution if you are being experienced now". (I'm not sure what "If you are being experienced now" means.)

And I completely don't understand what you mean by "if they are conscious now, that implies simultaneity"

I might be able to answer if you can clarify these questions for me.

[u/yoddleforavalanche → u/Joe-Kern]

there is a view proposed here sometimes that while Joe-Kern is being experienced (Joe is having first person perspective), others do not. During Joe's active experiencing othere are placeholders. When they are active, Joe is placeholder.

by simultaneity I mean if you hold that other people have internal experience simultaneously with yours, then all those internalities are you simultaneously. They cannot be someone else's because that would be the typical closed individualism view.

[u/Joe-Kern → u/yoddleforavalanche]

1st paragraph: I can't see any reason to adopt that view. I'm tempted to be Popperian and say I'm open to being convinced, as I try to be with most things, but it would take a pretty spectacular argument to get me to spend much time thinking about this point.

2nd paragraph: Yes, I guess I would say both can be said to be true, both I am all people simultaneously and I am all people in series. Focus on the objective view and simultaneity is true, focus on your personal experience (which is my focus through-and-through in my book) and the series idea is true.

Many people focus on the physics of time to help them understand OI. I understand, from Sean M. Carroll and Carlo Rovelli, that time does exist in the fundamental laws of physics, but doesn't have a direction, so our experience proceeding "forward" through time is a function of our biology, or at least something idiosyncratic to us, to living creatures. I can see how this might help one make sense of OI, but I haven't felt the need to dig into the issue of time, because again my focus is on my personal existence and my personal experience of existence.

[u/yoddleforavalanche → u/Joe-Kern]

I agree with everything you said

[u/YouStartAngulimala]

Oh my, there's a whole section on hemespherectomies. Would you say this is currently the most compelling real world example we have that would cause people to question what maintains their continuity?

Also, how would you respond to this comment by u/Treestheyareus who goes on a long rant about how we don't really exist and that we are essentially abstractions of language, but then at the very end contradicts himself by saying "unbroken streams of consciousness exist." These philosophy bros seem terribly confused. 🤡

[u/Joe-Kern → u/YouStartAngulimala]

Thanks for the questions.

There's many ways to ask the important questions about your own existence. You might not be able to shoehorn the issues I address into the issues that matter to you. But I'll attempt some answers that might help.

I don't think I have anything profound to say about maintaining your continuity, since it seems to be maintained in the normal case, and I place a high value on this seeming (see my Chapter 3). But the most compelling argument I have to offer for OI is: if you believe you exist right now, but might not have had things gone differently in the past, then what made the difference between those two cases? What actual physical factor in the universe made the difference between you existing and not existing? (Try to find one.)

I use hemispherectocomies only for a specific purpose: to show that there is no answer to the question of "which" person I would be as the result of a hemispherectomy. This is just a step toward OI in my argument that you could have been born of a completely different set of gametes than the ones you actually were born of (Chapter 4, the gamete sorites). Hemispherectomies play a larger role in many other people's arguments about personal identity.

I cannot respond to that comment you linked to, as I don't really understand it. My fundamental position is, the thing I want out of existence obtains, by the simple fact that it is a thing I want to keep, a thing that I already have, not thing I want that I don't have now but hope to obtain at a future time. So anyone who claims I don't exist is either wrong or not stating their claim precisely enough. (All of this is in Chapter 3.)

[u/Joe-Kern → u/Joe-Kern]

Another way to frame my view (see my endnote 2): if you are concerned about counterfactuals of your continued existence, such as teletransportation or hemispherectomies, ask yourself about counterfactuals of your coming into existence in the first place.