Kevin Street wrote
... residency requirements might just put the problem off for
another day, since copying would give people a long term advantage
as well.
Yes.
I have not figured out voting criteria that are fair. After all,
after a few years, copies that were similar originally will have
experienced sufficiently different lives that no one can say they are
the identical.
> Suppose every civilization that could communicate becomes a
> homebody because it likes gossip that takes less than eight
> million subjective years for a response (the subjective time to
> talk with someone on Alpha Centuri)?
That's a very interesting idea, but it assumes that every
civilization eventually becomes AI in nature. What about all the
carbon based souls out there?
In the novel -- and I think it is reasonable -- the carbon based souls
lose out to those whose thinking ability is to us as we are to
tapeworms. In the novel, the carbon based move out of the solar
system.
> If replicators are used to prepare a copy of a strip of bacon,
> right down to the molecular level, but without it ever being
> part of a pig, how is it to be treated?
I should think that the answer in the first case is that the
replicated bacon should be treated just like it came from a pig.
When we deal with objects in our everyday life, we have to assume
physical continuity without any real evidence one way or the
other. ...
Very good point.
... with the assumption of continuity without evidence, it follows
that we value the functional nature of an object more than its
history.
Yes. Interestingly, in "Laws of Form" (a mathematics based primarily
on NOR gates), G. Spencer-Brown defines `equals' as `can be confused
with'. Thus, if we cannot distinguish one thing from another, we have
`a difference that makes no difference' and the two should be treated
the same.
> ... the mind of one of the faithful is copied into a
> computing machine's memory ...
The example of the simulated Moslem is a bit different, though.
While it makes sense to treat identical copies of objects as
different versions of the same thing, that reasoning doesn't hold
when you're talking about people.
... they are not the same person, and the duties and privileges of
the original should not automatically be gained by the duplicate.
OK, I can see that. But what if the two are exactly identical in all
observable and feelable ways, being carbon based and atomically the
same? If you believe in a soul, is it transmitted? (Neither you nor
those more personally involved can tell one way or the other.)
Theologically, is the original dead? Should we consider the two who
live as being imposters? Or has one soul become two?
Legally, what is right?
--
Robert J. Chassell
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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