From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@msx.upmc.edu)
Date: Thu Jun 13 2002 - 07:43:37 MDT
Lee Corbin [mailto:lcorbin@tsoft.com] wrote:
(For example, the assignation of benefit to programs that
get to run---e.g. the negative benefit to a little girl that
gets re-tortured---,
### I think we have here two related but separate issues: the ontological
question whether a re-run is a person and the ethical question about what we
can do to a re-run.
I would argue that the former cannot be answered at present due to
insufficient knowledge about the necessary physical elements needed for
qualia to manifest themselves (as a devil's advocate I advanced the notion
that quantum phenomena not simulatable in a classical Turing machine might
be needed, and now we do not have the knowledge to exclude this
possibility).
However, the ethical dimension can be tackled now: as matter of prudence, we
can agree to use the Turing test (unrelated to the Turing machine) to verify
sentience and assume that the test proves consciousness and ethical
subjectship (until we find better methods, this test not being applicable to
non-verbal subjects). Since the stuff of ethics are sentient wishes, we only
need to ascertain the wishes of sentients and act accordingly. We ask the
re-run if ve wants to receive a reward for termination of its copy. If he
says no, we don't terminate the other run. If ve says yes, it is perfectly
allowable to terminate one of them - since *both* runs will give identical
answers and have the same attitude, moral symmetry will not be breached by
the termination (i.e. termination of a person willing to terminate other
persons is not wrong). As to the other of Lee's examples, we ask the girl if
she wants to continue in the simulation, be terminated, or be granted the
same priviledges as other sentiences of her kind. Most likely she will want
to live (subjectively - be magically transported from the Nazi dungeon to a
radiant future), and the person responsible for initiating the simulation
will be obliged to support her until adulthood (no taxpayer money for
that!).
Rafal
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:46 MST