From: Bradley Thomas (brad36@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Dec 02 2009 - 07:25:58 MST
>I can give an exact answer to your question. I would not hesitate to kill
myself if the copy that survives is running in lockstep with me, since in
that case I could expect to live on in the copy with an uninterrupted stream
of consciousness.
The only instance of you that is going to be in lockstep with you, is you!
Brad Thomas
www.bradleythomas.com
Twitter @bradleymthomas, @instansa
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sl4@sl4.org [mailto:owner-sl4@sl4.org] On Behalf Of Stathis
Papaioannou
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 2:37 AM
To: sl4@sl4.org
Subject: Re: [sl4] Uploading (was : goals of AI)
2009/12/2 Matt Mahoney <matmahoney@yahoo.com>:
> I wrote:
>> Suppose there was a program that simulated you so well that nobody
>> could tell the difference between you and the program in a Turing
>> test environment. What is the probability that the program will be
>> you after you shoot yourself?
>
> Surely everyone recognizes my question as nonsense.
Yes, it's nonsense.
> The more important question is: what will it take to convince you to
> shoot yourself?
Yes, that's the more important question.
> The answer surely depends on the process by which the upload is
> created, even if the end result is the same. There can not be an
> "appearance" of death, because as we know, all animals are programmed
> by evolution to fear the things that can kill them.
>
> So naturally we value continuity of experience, and continuity of the
> physical body, even though rationally it makes no difference. Having
> two copies exist at the same time destroys the illusion.
>
> For a similar reason, it is important that nobody else can tell the
> difference between you and your copy. Otherwise they would believe the
> upload failed and not try it themselves. It doesn't make any
> difference to your copy if the memories are different or not, because
> it would be unaware of any differences.
I can give an exact answer to your question. I would not hesitate to kill
myself if the copy that survives is running in lockstep with me, since in
that case I could expect to live on in the copy with an uninterrupted stream
of consciousness. This is what happens from day to day and year to year in
ordinary life: my body disintegrates and is replaced by a copy who thinks he
is me, and it doesn't worry me apart from the fact that the copy is a little
more decrepit every time. (Indeed, aging could be seen as being due to the
fact that the disintegration/copying process is not 100% accurate). But if
the two copies start to diverge then I would hesitate to kill myself, and
the longer the period of divergence the more hesitant I would be.
-- Stathis Papaioannou
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