On Saturday, April 25, 2015, Dennis Ochei <[email protected]> wrote:
> Here's the clincher. > > 1. Suppose I erase my body's memories after. Do I go to jail? > > 2. Suppose I erase the memories of this body. I find another body (say a > laboratory synthesized one with no memories) and download my memories onto > it. Does the new body go to jail? > > 3. I commit a crime and then a buddy of mine, who had no knowledge of the > crime decides he wants to experience my memories. He downloads the entirety > of my memories while retaining his own. Does he go to jail? > > 4. I commit a crime, then I kidnap someone and forcibly download their > memories onto my brain, retaining my own. I then delete their memories. > Memory transfer technology is at such a stage that it is not possible to > transfer or delete selected memories. So it is impossible to remove my > memories without removing my victim's. Do I go to jail? > > 5. I commit a crime, then I kidnap someone and forcibly download my > memories onto their brain, without erasing theirs. I then delete my > memories. Memory transfer technology is at such a stage that it is not > possible to transfer or delete selected memories. So it is impossible to > remove my memories without removing my victim's. Does my kidnapped victim > go to jail? > > > At first glance, you want to say no to 1, but then someone could just > backup their memories, leave themselves a note on where to restore them, > and then waltz out of the country. Reminds me a bit of the anime Death Note. > > You want to say yes to 2, but that seems to entail saying yes to 3-5, and > you really don't wanna say yes to 5. Even of you evade that entailment it > seems your answers to 3-5 have to be the same. > Well, not only is the concept of personal identity, problematic, so is the concept of guilt and free will. If I kill someone and I did it because of the way I was born and the way my environment was it's not my fault, and if I did it due to randomness it's not my fault. So the practical solution to questions of crime and punishment is to do what will deter crime. In particular, people should be deterred from using copying and memory transfer to commit crimes and avoid punishment. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
