From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri Jun 21 2002 - 10:47:25 MDT
If you are quite rational, and you are curious about whether
or not you are sincerely altruistic towards others, here is
a thought experiment that may help you determine the truth.
First, about "rational". By that I mean that you can calmly,
objectively, and judiciously weigh evidence both in favor and
against some conjecture.
Next, by "sincerely altruistic", remember that we often have ulterior
motives for helping others that we're not even aware of. Sometimes
your generous gesture has a bit of calculation behind it; you yearn
for gratitude, or perhaps for others to be obligated to you. Some
libertarians (and others) embrace the egotist theory of altruism, and
try to explain every act as selfish. I think that this is nonsense,
but if you believe it, then you'll not profit from anything further
I have to say. (The reason that I believe in genuine altruism is that
there is now a good evolutionary explanation for its existence.)
The VR Solipsist
What if it were somehow revealed to you by an unimpeachable
source that not only were you living in a simulation, but that
you were the only human creature in it? For concreteness,
a vast, cool, and unsympathetic Intelligence as far above
you as you are above a bacterium is apparently conducting
an experiment for reasons impossible to guess at. This vast
being has no human level emotions at all, and can no more be
truly affected by anything you do or think than you can be
affected by the opinion a bacterium.
(You could come to believe this by several means if you need to
know how this could conceivably happen to you. The Being might
contact you in dreams, and slowly build your confidence that what
it told you about your waking life is correct, etc.)
So now you are in a position where you truly believe that all
the people you know or ever have known are only portrayals, not
emulations of people. That is, each of them is no more than
a puppet driven by the fingers of this vast cool mind, a mind
that you are completely incapable of offending or of causing any
emotion in. No one exists but you. No one is real but you.
SO the question is, How is your behavior changed? Is it changed
in any way?
(First, remember that you would still be nice to your boss, because
the simulation you're living in is *faithful*: do things that appear to
piss him off, and you'll get fired. You can still starve to death in
this faithful simulation, remember, and you can also die in traffic
accidents, or get beaten up by thugs. So you'll still be very
polite to policemen, because they might still give you a ticket.
You'll still be polite to your mother, because she does have your
phone number, and can still nag you. But remember: she's not
really there any longer, and her feelings don't really exist.)
Again, would your behavior be changed by this revelation at all,
and if so, how?
Lee Corbin
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