Le 08-juin-05, à 14:18, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
Jonathan Colvin writes:
That raises an interesting question. *Should* we (whether reasoned on
an
ethical basis or a purely selfish one) care more about a copy of
ourselves
getting hurt than a complete stranger?
I have little doubt that I *would* rather a stranger get stuck than
my copy,
but only, I think, because I would have more empathy for my copy than
for a
stranger, in the same way that I would have more empathy for my mother
getting stuck than I would for someone I don't know.
Beyond the empathetic rationale, I don't see any convincing argument
for
favoring the copy over a stranger. The copy is not, after all, *me*
(although it once was). We ceased being the same person the moment we
were
copied and started diverging.
Yes, this is exactly my position, except that I'm not sure I would
necessarily care more about what happens to my copy than to a
stranger. After all, he knows all my secrets, my bank account details,
my passwords... it's not difficult to see how we might become bitter
enemies.
The situation is different when I am considering my copies in the
future. If I know that tomorrow I will split into two copies, one of
whom will be tortured, I am worried, because that means there is 1/2
chance that I will "become" the torture victim. When tomorrow comes
and I am not the torture victim, I am relieved, because now I can feel
sorry for my suffering copy as I might feel sorry for a stranger. You
could argue that there is an inconsistency here: today I identify with
the tortured copy, tomorrow I don't. But whether it is inconsistent or
irrational is beside the point: this is how our minds actually work.
Every amputee who experiences phantom limb pain is aware that they are
being "irrational" because there is no limb there in reality, but
knowing this does not make the pain go away.
This shows that you (Stathis) and Jonathan accept the first three steps
of the Universal Dovetailer Argument (UDA). It remains just 5 steps to
understand the reversal, both ontological and epistemological, between
physics and computer science/number theory.
May be you could print the unique pdf slide for help:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004Slide.pdf
And you can find the explanation of the eight steps in the html document
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.htm
or you can print the equivalent in pdf:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.pdf
You see, it is not difficult. It looks you find the first three steps
by yourself.
Hope you will succeed in convincing Lee. And some others ?
I am curious if you accept the fourth step.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
