From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Jul 30 2002 - 10:07:43 MDT
--- Hal Finney <hal@finney.org> wrote:
> Lee Corbin recently repeated his thought experiment
> about altruisum:
>
> > 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.
> > ...
> > 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?
>
> I have made various comments about this scenario
> over time, mostly
> expressing my dissatisfaction with various aspects,
> but let me take it
> on its own terms for once.
>
> Generally, an altruist cares about other people. In
> this scenario,
> there are no other people. Hence an altruist would
> not behave kindly
> in this scenario.
>
> An egoist manipulates other people to his own
> advantage. In this
> scenario, manipulation works just as well as it does
> in the real world.
> Hence an egoist would continue to behave "kindly"
> and "altruistically"
> in this scenario.
>
> So I think that Lee's test can work in a sense, but
> the outcome may
> be the opposite of what some people would expect.
> The true altruist
> behaves non-altruistically, and vice versa.
I'd have to disagree. In such a scenario, a true
altruist will learn the most from the experience,
because they will learn either that they are at heart
sadistic bastards living behind a false veneer of
civility, or that their altruism is truly one of
egoistic selfishness because they actually do feel bad
when they treat the non-humans in the scenario badly,
ergo they are altruistic only or primarily because it
makes them feel good about themselves.
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