Copying nonsense (was Re: [sl4] Uploading (was : goals of AI))

From: Matt Mahoney (matmahoney@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 05 2009 - 18:43:08 MST


If a copy of you is made by some means then there will be two people who claim to be you. If one of them is killed then one of them is killed.

I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept.

You ask which copy will be you? What will you experience? These are not well formed questions because "you" is not a well defined concept in a world where minds can be copied. The question only has artificial importance because of this evolved belief in this nonexistent thing that people so desperately want to preserve, sometimes called a "consciousness", "qualia", "experience", or a "soul" that has absolutely no effect on behavior. So why even talk about it? If you taboo the words "you" and "I" then there is no controversy whatsoever.

Really, this whole discussion is getting tedious. I could go through the SL4 archives and find a dozen more just like it if I didn't have more important things to do with my time.

 -- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com



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