Sorry, I can't let go of this one. I'm trying to understand it psychologically.
Here's another thought experiment which is roughly equivalent to our original scenario. You are sitting in a room, with a not very nice man. He gives you two options. 1) He'll toss a coin. Heads he tortures you, tails he doesn't. 2) He's going to start torturing you a minute from now. In the meantime, he shows you a button. If you press it, you will get scanned, and a copy of you will be created in a distant town. You've got a minute to press that button as often as you can, and then you are getting tortured. What are you going to choose (Stathis and Bruno)? Are you *really* going to choose (2), and start pressing that button frantically? Do you really think it will make any difference? I'm just imagining having pressed that button a hundred times. Each time I press it, nothing seems to happen. Meanwhile, the torturer is making his knife nice and dull, and his smile grows ever wider. Cr^%^p, I'm definitely choosing (1). Ok, sure, each time I press it, I also step out of a booth in Moscow, relieved to be pain-free (shortly to be followed by a second me, then a third, each one successively more relieved.) But I'm still choosing (1). Now, the funny thing is, if you replace "torture" by "getting shot in the head", then I will pick (2). That's interesting, isn't it? Jonathan Colvin
