From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Fri Jun 01 2001 - 15:00:07 MDT
John Clark wrote:
>
> Thought Experiment:
>
> You step into my matter duplicating chamber. The chamber is symmetrical.
> You stand 5 feet from the center. I turn on the machine. A person who
> looks just like you seems to appear 10 feet away. He's staring at you.
> Questions:
> 1)Are you the original or the copy?
Well, assuming the experiment is possible, there is no "original". There
is no "copy". There are two of you, one of whom happens to have all the
same atoms as the "original", the other one of whom happens to have
different atoms, but who both have the same pattern, which is all that is
important.
The above thought experiment is the standard unspoken switcheroo pulled by
anti-uploading types. Because we're programmed to think of material
continuity as important, they use your intuitions to insist that *if*
material continuity exists *then* that copy must be "the real you", in
which case the other copy is *not* "the real you". But you are both the
original; you are both copies; as much so as if the original atoms had
vanished and new atoms been used for both of you. Material chauvinism is
an illusion unless there are exotic physics involved.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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