Both copies would claim to be you, and would have equal right to that claim. Yet each copy would be a fully conscious person and would immediately diverge into its own individual from the shared point on.
This of course sounds like a contradiction, both are you and both are individuals? That's because our language and concepts just don't have the muscle for this situation. "Both are you" is short-hand since the wold "you" becomes ill-defined or at least radically transformed. Consider Hofstadter's "twin world" concept from his "I am a Strange Loop" for how a single "individual" could really be made up of multiple individuals.
From an objective point of a view it's much better if the digital version survives, because we're assuming the biological original has a shorter life span.
You avoided the question, what would you prefer? There would exist two (or n) instances of you, with a shared history, but no shared present. Maybe you posit the question is moot because the concept of you dilutes at the point where a copy is made? I can't imagine how it would dilute enough for the physical you change its self-preservation instinct, though.
On the other hand, I'm not so sure that the digital version is preferrable, there are lots of maladies that would be trivial on digital versions, for example destroying the being, controlling it and altering in any way. All that stuff is (so far) harder on the biological world.
(PS: Thanks for the Hofstadter pointer, I stopped following him at The Mind's I)
I don't like "would you kill X or Y" questions. For one details matter, and we have no details. For two it's just impossible to say sitting here in my comfy chair how I would react in some dire life-or-death situation.
This of course sounds like a contradiction, both are you and both are individuals? That's because our language and concepts just don't have the muscle for this situation. "Both are you" is short-hand since the wold "you" becomes ill-defined or at least radically transformed. Consider Hofstadter's "twin world" concept from his "I am a Strange Loop" for how a single "individual" could really be made up of multiple individuals.
From an objective point of a view it's much better if the digital version survives, because we're assuming the biological original has a shorter life span.