Re: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]

2009-03-01 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

2009/2/28 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be:

 It leads to a very complex question: should we allow people to torture
 their doppelganger, for example as a ritual or sexual practice? Of
 course not without their consent, given that the golden ethical rule
 with comp is don't do to the other what the other does not want you
 to do on him/her (except to save your soul). But could someone makes
 the decision before the duplication? This is an advanced question
 which will make sense when we will all be virtual (with respect of the
 physical layer). Comp is consistent with a variety of answers.
 Less provocative, a similar question is: do I have the right to
 reconstitute an army of Bruno to extinguish a nuclear energy source
 which is on fire?

Assuming I were completely selfish and ruthless, I would not agree in
advance to do anything that would hurt my copy before the copy was
made, since I might end up being the copy. But after the copying this
would no longer be a consideration, and I would not hesitate to hurt
the copy or the original (depending on which one I was) no matter how
short the time since differentiation.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: The Amoeba's Secret - English Version started

2009-03-01 Thread Bruno Marchal
Hi Kim,

I didn't expect you to send the translation of the Amoeba's Secret  
(AS) on the list.  But it is OK, and you did a rather very good job.

For the other: The Amoeba's Secret is the book which has been  
ordered to me when I won the LE MONDE prize of the best thesis in  
1998. For obscure reasons (which I don't want to talk about) it has  
not been published, it is the only prize LE MONDE which has not been  
published. They were supposed to publish the thesis, but judging it to  
technical they asked me to describe the story of the thesis, despite  
they new it is a bit sad. But it t contains a good explanation of both  
UDA and its arithmetical translation AUDA (the interviex of the  
introspective universal machine) and where those ideas come from. That  
could help if only because it is far shorter than Conscience et  
Mécanisme. You can see it as an enlarged joining post. In that book I  
am using the term psychology of machine instead of theology, which  
despite its connotation is far more well suited, especially concerning  
the secret feature of the amoeba's discourse, and which basically  
concerns the corona G* minus G of the discourse of the self- 
referentially correct machine. The machine is mute on that, or assert  
those proposition in an interrogative way. It is the magic of comp: it  
gives you a logic of what is true (ASSUMING comp) but unprovable  
(ASSUMING comp and some amount of self-consistency).

Best,

Bruno


On 28 Feb 2009, at 13:27, Kim Jones wrote:

 The Amoeba’s Secret



 by Bruno Marchal



 May 19 2000



 English version by K. Jones



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]

2009-03-01 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 01 Mar 2009, at 09:54, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:


 2009/2/28 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be:

 It leads to a very complex question: should we allow people to  
 torture
 their doppelganger, for example as a ritual or sexual practice? Of
 course not without their consent, given that the golden ethical rule
 with comp is don't do to the other what the other does not want you
 to do on him/her (except to save your soul). But could someone makes
 the decision before the duplication? This is an advanced question
 which will make sense when we will all be virtual (with respect of  
 the
 physical layer). Comp is consistent with a variety of answers.
 Less provocative, a similar question is: do I have the right to
 reconstitute an army of Bruno to extinguish a nuclear energy source
 which is on fire?

 Assuming I were completely selfish and ruthless, I would not agree in
 advance to do anything that would hurt my copy before the copy was
 made, since I might end up being the copy. But after the copying this
 would no longer be a consideration, and I would not hesitate to hurt
 the copy or the original (depending on which one I was) no matter how
 short the time since differentiation.


All right, I understand. The question now is: are you sure it is in  
your interest to be that selfish. It is not a moral question: can  
you be coherent, take the full piece of botter dead is not big deal  
of the midazolam argument, and keep that sort of selfishness.

Do you prefer to live in a country 1 where self-torture is allowed  
but only when the decision is made before the duplication (and yes you  
could be the victim indeed), or in a country 2 where self-torture is  
allowed after the duplication. It seems to me that your midazolam- 
argument (I re-quote below(*)) should in fine relativize the very  
notion of selfishness.

I think it is preferable to live in the first country: yes I could be  
the victim, but I can remember my consent. In the second type of  
country, I could even more so be the tortured one ... eventually; and  
without my consent. OK?

I guess you did see this, because of your terrible assumption:  
Assuming I were completely selfish and ruthless,  The real  
question is: let us suppose you are not selfish ... can you sympathize  
with those who will propose some right of self-torture?

Note that in  The prestige, the self-inflicting decision is taken  
before, by Angier. Borden had less choice, and it is as he got the  
full secret that nobody really can both remember and stay alive.   
(Here I am inconsistent or really near inconsistency, as the  
prestige).

With comp, selfishness is not a problem. It is selfishness +  
ignorance: this mix can generate suffering.

Bruno

(*) Stathis wrote (2009/2/27):


 This shows a potential problem the psychological criterion for
 personal identity. If I am facing death it is little consolation to me
 if a backup was made an hour ago, since I (the presently speaking I)
 will not be able to anticipate any future experiences. Only if there
 exists some copy who will have a memory of my present experiences
 would I not object to dying, and this would require a backup updated
 every moment. In that case, I should also object to an hour of memory
 loss, due to a medication like midazolam. But I don't think that
 taking midazolam is tantamount to dying. Inconsistency! Either I have
 to agree that taking midazolam is like dying, or I have to agree that
 dying while leaving an old (how old?) backup behind does not matter.
 If I agree to the latter, then I give up worrying about the thing I
 don't like about dying, which is the fact that I won't be able to
 anticipate any future experiences. And if I give up worrying about
 that, then there isn't anything else that worries me about dying. So
 if I think that taking midazolam is no big deal (which I do), to be
 consistent I should also think that death is no big deal.



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]

2009-03-01 Thread Günther Greindl

Stathis, Bruno,

 It leads to a very complex question: should we allow people to torture
 their doppelganger, for example as a ritual or sexual practice? Of
 course not without their consent, given that the golden ethical rule
 with comp is don't do to the other what the other does not want you
 to do on him/her (except to save your soul). 

You have already answered your question in the first two sentences with 
the last two sentences.

But could someone makes
 the decision before the duplication? This is an advanced question
 which will make sense when we will all be virtual (with respect of the
 physical layer). Comp is consistent with a variety of answers.

In law it is usual that with personal rights, consent can be withdrawn
anytime. Why should it be different with duplicates? So, if a duplicate
withdraws consent, every prior consent is nullified.

 Less provocative, a similar question is: do I have the right to
 reconstitute an army of Bruno to extinguish a nuclear energy source
 which is on fire?

Bruno_[n] can decide for himself if he goes on the mission or
not. It they decide not to (some or all of them), you have to cope with 
an army of Brunos though. Maybe they could translate your book into 
english? ;-))

 made, since I might end up being the copy. But after the copying this
 would no longer be a consideration, and I would not hesitate to hurt
 the copy or the original (depending on which one I was) no matter how
 short the time since differentiation.

That would lead to terrible consequences. You would have slaves! How
long would your willingness to hurt them last, after differentiation?
Assuming duplication technologies, these guys can stick around for very
long, so maybe after a 1000 years they are more similar to 'me in a 1000
years' than to you. Why should you have the right to hurt people like me?

In case of availability of duplication technology, there can be only one
rule, without exemption: every duplicate has the same rights as the
original (it is as the original in any sense that matters), immediately. 
You have no more rights over your duplicates as I have over mine; 
duplicates are not things to be owned, but persons.

(There is only one right where one should have priority over one's own 
code: the decision to make duplicates in the first place.)

Cheers,
Günther


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Re: AUDA Page

2009-03-01 Thread Günther Greindl

Hello,

have incorporated most of Bruno's change wishes:

http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/web/auda

Best Wishes,
Günther


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Re: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]

2009-03-01 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

2009/3/2 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be:

 All right, I understand. The question now is: are you sure it is in
 your interest to be that selfish. It is not a moral question: can
 you be coherent, take the full piece of botter dead is not big deal
 of the midazolam argument, and keep that sort of selfishness.

 Do you prefer to live in a country 1 where self-torture is allowed
 but only when the decision is made before the duplication (and yes you
 could be the victim indeed), or in a country 2 where self-torture is
 allowed after the duplication. It seems to me that your midazolam-
 argument (I re-quote below(*)) should in fine relativize the very
 notion of selfishness.

 I think it is preferable to live in the first country: yes I could be
 the victim, but I can remember my consent. In the second type of
 country, I could even more so be the tortured one ... eventually; and
 without my consent. OK?

Living in the first country is equivalent to allowing a contract where
you agree to a gain today at the cost of suffering tomorrow, like
selling your soul to the devil.



-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: The Amoeba's Secret - English Version started

2009-03-01 Thread russell standish

On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 05:55:12PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 Hi Kim,
 
 I didn't expect you to send the translation of the Amoeba's Secret  
 (AS) on the list.  But it is OK, and you did a rather very good job.
 
 For the other: The Amoeba's Secret is the book which has been  
 ordered to me when I won the LE MONDE prize of the best thesis in  
 1998. For obscure reasons (which I don't want to talk about) it has  
 not been published, it is the only prize LE MONDE which has not been  
 published. 

Thanks for sharing these old wounds with us. FWIW, I have read so far the
story up to the end of your undergrad days, and I think it is very
well written, and as I commented to Kim J - the chapter Amoeba's
secret would make an excellent basis for a short film. So far, Le
Monde's decision not to publish is completely inexplicable (I can
understand that the thesis itself being too technical might be a
reason for not publishing that).

Was there any discussion of removing some of the personal elements
from the sorry affair that happened when your thesis was submitted to
ULB? Even with politics operating behind the scene (which you have
hinted), I can't imagine that nothing of the work is publishable.


-- 


Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au


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