From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Thu May 31 2001 - 14:34:34 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote,
> Yes, this is the attitude that I would also exhibit under
> torture: "Do it to him! Not to me!".
> Your position, I think, becomes untenable in the light of certain
> thought experiments.
Unfortunately, this discussion is going down the exact same route that it
always goes. I'm not sure how to respond to change the sequence of this
discussion. I feel like Bill Murray in groundhog day. No matter what I do
or say, the arguments coming back and the examples are always the same.
> The first one is an elaboration of, "Would You
> Teleport?". As said elsewhere in this thread, you would find that
> indeed you would, and your philosophy (i.e. account of your actions
> and prescriptions for your actions) would change accordingly.
The teleport question is really the same as the copy question. Detailed
discussions about how a teleport would really build a copy and dispose of
the original turn out to be the same as the copy/uploading procedure.
People's answer to this question tend to match their answer to the
copy/upload question.
> But now consider the question of "Teleport With Delay", that is,
> it turns out that there is a tenth of a second overlap between
> the arrival of the duplicate at the remote station, and the
This makes no difference to me or someone who identifies with their
perceived experiential viewport to the world. It doesn't matter how much
time elapses between the original or the copy, wherever one wakes up, that
is where one is. Looking at a clock has no effect on self-identity. I wake
up and think, oh I'm inside this body now. Looking at a clock or a GPS does
not effect my reaction.
> disintegration at the local station. Once again, employing,
> as Emlyn calls it, "proof-by-peer-pressure", you'd still end up
> teleporting, saying "Oh what the hell, this is an emergency,
> maybe I've been wrong".
Wrong. This argument only works for people who don't believe the teleport
kills them. For those who believe the teleport equals death, they will
never commit suicide "just this once." This argument only appears valid
when projected on the other side. No one would take this viewpoint for
themselves if they believe "just this once" equals permanent death.
But what if the overlap interval is
> several minutes? Would you do it then? (Sorry if this question
> is not to the point; I'm just guessing about where you are coming
> from exactly. But that's what I want to know now.)
Same answer as before. The distance in space or time does not affect my
answer. Calling the procedure a copy, upload, teleport, or delayed teleport
does not affect my answer. Every being that wakes up perceives itself
inside its respective body. Each perceives the others as outside their
body. They are all identical and equally valid, but each person is still
limited to experiencing life trapped within their one-and-only body.
> Additionally (and parenthetically) there were what appear to
> be some errors in the remainder of your post:
>
> >Another way to state this difference seems to be this:
> >One camp is happy as long as any copy survives. The
> >other camp is unhappy as long as any copy dies.
>
> In my experience, these are not the two camps: the real two
> camps are those that embrace the information (or state) theory
> and those who embrace the path (or continuity) theory.
I disagree. I do not identify with either of the two camps you have
defined. You have chosen one camp and are arguing against the other camp.
You are not addressing my concerns which seem to be a third camp. That is
why I do not use the same words to describe the two camps. The important
differences that concern me are not the same as the differences you
perceive.
> As
> stated, I don't know which of your two camps I'd be in. Under
> some circumstances, all that matters is that a single copy of
> me doesn't die, so that I can end up propagating all over the
> universe. But in another way, each termination of a copy is
> a tragedy, just as each cubic foot in Jupiter tragically is
> not running me at this moment.
But what if I told you that the Jupiter copy is already running. Kill
yourself now on my say-so. Why won't you? Just because you can't detect
that you are really immortal on Jupiter? Surely some self-preservation
keeps you from killing yourself just because some external party tells you
to. I can make films of you, simulate your actions, and play back your own
e-mails back to you from Jupiter. Somehow, I still don't think you would be
convinced to kill yourself. Why sacrifice yourself for another copy of
yourself? He won't perceive the dying of the light when you kill yourself.
His mind won't fade as you lose consciousness. The consequences of death
will still happen to you, just as surely as any death strikes down anyone.
I'm not sure how a Jupiter simulation of you alleviates your desire to live.
I would argue that there may be a copy of you running on Jupiter or
elsewhere. How would you know? If the copy would be disconnected from you,
and you would have no direct knowledge of whether it exists or not. If NASA
informs you that Voyager found you at Jupiter, you would have only their
word for this claim. You could not get this knowledge from the other you.
If they both were the same "you", why do you have more knowledge and control
over the Earth-bound you as compared to the Jupiter-you. Obviously, you are
more connected to this copy than that copy.
> But whether its thoughts are exact copies of yours
> is an empirical question. You have long ago come to
> rely upon instruments, and other people, and Quine's
> "web of belief". You know many facts that you
> cannot personally attest to. This would become
> one of them.
Not true. I rely on no one else to tell me who I am, what I feel, or what I
think. This is what makes the internal me different than the rest of the
external universe. I have direct access to my own self while no one else
does. I do not have direct access to things outside of me, while other
people might. This is the one and only difference. You seem to admit that
I will not have direct knowledge of the new me like I used to with the old
me. This thing that I lose with the new me is the exact thing that I am
seeking to preserve. My only criteria for survival is that I continue to
experience myself continuing throughout life. The copy is exact in all ways
to external people, but it loses the one special connection to my self that
I have. The only thing that makes me special and unique to me is the one
thing the copy procedure destroys.
> I agree entirely with what you wrote in your "meat-example",
> just that I don't think it forces one to abandon recognizing
> objective truths, like whether a certain object is Harvey
> Newstrom or not, or whether a certain object is a Christmas
> tree.
I do not object that there can be multiple Harvey Newstroms. I can even
envision scenarios where they all have equal claim to being "me". But each
of the new me's will only experience one and only one body. They will not
be magically or telepathically linked. Whichever individual body that each
new me wakes up in, that will be the one and only one that it perceives as
itself. None of them will point to another one and claim "that is me."
They will all point to themselves and say "this is me." Whichever me I
currently inhabit, that is the one that I wish to preserve. Saving a
different copy of me while I experience the death of my own me is what I
call death. Having other me's survive is merely what I would call having
clone-children survive my death.
(I have an identical twin already. The fact that some external people can't
tell us apart does not confuse me as to which twin is me. I have always
been in my body and never teleport between bodies. Even if my twin were
brainwashed with my memories and personality, I still wouldn't be fooled. I
am still me, he is a natural clone with false memories implanted. I don't
see how this duplicate twin is "me". It is merely similar in appearance and
action to external parties.)
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> <http://Newstaff.com>
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