From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@msx.upmc.edu)
Date: Wed May 01 2002 - 12:23:42 MDT
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky [mailto:sentience@pobox.com] wrote:
There is a somewhat equivalent argument from the "purely selfish"
perspective which states that the expected integral over time of
post-Singularity happiness is likely to outweigh any happiness achieveable
in the present day regardless of discount rate.
### An interesting twist on discount rates appears if you consider survival
in a many-universe model of reality. You are guaranteed indefinite survival
of a googolplex of your continuations, no matter how little you do for the
Singularity, however, the thickness of the sheaf of the universeses
containing such continuations in relation to the number of branches
containing terminations of your existence does depend on your actions and
beliefs. So, the motivational cicuitry and memetics which developed without
explicit knowledge of the true nature of existence is now somewhat out of
synch with reality.
One way of addressing the problem is to develop an anticipatory identity
relationship with all entities conforming to some specifications (in my
case, possessing a certain collection of memories and goals shared with my
present state), but deny the identity relationship to all entities and their
decisions which result in a reduction of the predicted thickness of my
universe sheaf. Since the parts of space-time with the greatest influence on
this quantity are the next moments, I need to concentrate my efforts on
immediate survival, discounting events farther down the space-time cone.
The effect is very similar to the pre-multiverse perspective but with a
certain detachment and equanimity - I do have to do my best to survive, but
I don't really need to worry about ultimate death, merely the truncation of
offshoots of my own tree of life.
Rafal
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