People are unable to self-project into deteriorated versions of themselves; this is not based on similarity in mind or body, as say philosophical & psychological theories

De Freitas, Julian, and George Alvarez. 2019. “Struggling to Imagine Ourselves.”  PsyArXiv. May 11. doi:10.31234/osf.io/c4wqg

Abstract: The uniquely human ability to imagine alternate versions of ourselves draws on specialized neural networks and plays a critical role in planning and decision making. But is there any constraint on our ability to self-project into a remembered or anticipated version of ourselves? And if so, might this constraint also affect our ability to relate to others? Here we show that people are unable to self-project into deteriorated versions of themselves. This psychological roadblock is not based on similarity in mind or body, as current philosophical and psychological theories predict, but on an overlapping cognitive template— in order to feel that someone is you, you have to attribute to them a shared essence. Moreover, individual differences in how people identify with different versions of themselves predict their ethical opinions, including endorsement of abortion or assisted death, suggesting that the capacity for self-projection also constrains people’s moral judgments about others.