From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Oct 26 2002 - 01:11:59 MDT
Jef writes
> I was happy to see your posting on the Seven Levels
> since it should help move the discussion beyond the
> interminable debate running on about whether the
> same object can be in two places at once.
Always the irrepressible optimist, eh? Actually, on
its own terms that's a good discussion, just not to
the same point as ours.
> My response to your 7 levels is as follows: The first
> four strike me as representing naive understandings
> held by some and not useful to discuss further here.
Some posters of ancient pedigree and high standing on
the Extropian list embrace even level #1, so I don't
think it appropriate to dismiss their views as "naive",
though, from our perspective it does indeed feel as
though we've "moved on" from that. But that's *often*
exactly how it feels when people disagree. The phrase
I especially hate hearing is "I used to believe that
too..." ;-)
>> 5. Finds backups acceptable, provided that they've had no run time.
>>
>> Subject finds it desirable to keep frozen physical duplicates in
>> storage (in case anything happens to him or her), but only provided
>> that the duplicate, whether physically instantiated or merely kept
>> safe as information, is completely identical to him or her at a
>> particular past instant. In this case, he or she expects to survive
>> physical destruction of the present body, but not if that body has
>> already been reanimated and is having experiences elsewhere.
> This is where, for me, it begins to get interesting. The key
> point is how we understand our self-identity.
Yes. Our goal should be two-fold: (1) to obtain a *consistent*
viewpoint that attains the least awkwardness in terms of our
ordinary daily concepts (2) anticipate how people like us will
actually evolve psychologically and conceptually when such things
as uploading and xox's become available.
It should be noted that SF writers play a vital role in (2).
Greg Egan's work was mentioned, and an even better Greg Egan
reference is in his stories in the collection "Axiomatic".
These are by far the *most* advanced stories ever written
on personal identity (IMO), and so far as you and I are
concerned, Greg Egan is fully "up to speed" on personal
identity (i.e., he agrees with us, or at least appears to).
> I define my self-identity as a particular pattern,
> continuously changing, of thoughts, memories, drives,
> etc. moving through time and space.
Yes. See Mike Perry's book "Forever For All" for the
most complete description of our theory; it's called
the "State" theory, or the "Information" theory, or
the "Pattern" theory of personal identity. Derek Parfit
in the book "Reasons and Persons" gave the first widely
known account of it in 1986 or so.
> If another instantiation of myself were to be created,
> then clearly that new entity would begin as equivalent
> to me but then the two entities would proceed to
> diverge increasingly with time.
Yes, all the current contributors agree.
> Argument B
> We could point out that we now have two entities operating
> independently of each other in our society, and that for
> society to function properly we must have individual rights
> and responsibilities....
Quite right. I imagine that legally one would be divorced
from one's duplicate, though I'm far from sure. But it does
not seem relevant to personal *survival*.
> We could argue that just as genes evolve and propagate
> themselves through time without any identity paradox,
> so can replicated humans, each branching off on his
> own path through the universe. In the end it's all
> semantics. The facts stand on their own, and how we
> choose to describe them depends on the scope and context
> we use.
As Korzybski used to demur, never say "that's all just
semantics". Semantics is extremely crucial. Actually,
in cases like this, it's just shorthand. If we argue
over whether abortion is murder, we are debating whether
all the semantic links that go out from *murder* to all
our other concepts are valid. That is, just as murder
is abhorrent and illegal, to define abortion as a species
of murder carries those semantic links. (Or even to
accede to such usage.)
I think that arguing whether your duplicate is yourself
is just shorthand in the same way for what you would do
in countless thought experiments. We can predict your
behavior and you can understand your own behavior if you
know whether or not your duplicate is your self. So just
think of it as shorthand, but I don't think that it should
be dismissed.
>> 6. Anticipates future experiences of duplicates, but only one in
>> particular.
>>
>> This is the nearly incoherent "closest continuer" theory. If you
>> must die, but N duplicates of you were made at several points in
>> the past, then you "really are" whichever one of them survives
>> and is the most similar to you. Somehow your soul, or identity,
>> is transferred by hidden celestial machinery into this particular
>> one, but not into any of the others.
> I agree this appears quite incoherent. I question why you chose
> to place this so near the top of your list, but I suspect it
> has to with the "anticipation" to which you refer.
Yes, it is connected to what I call the "anticipation dilemma",
but I have known people who believed in 1-6 but didn't go on to
7. Ten or twelve years ago Mike Perry even believed in #6 and
perhaps even now does, though I don't think so.
The horrible idea is well-documented in Nosick's terrible
"Philosophical Investigations", about which I agree with Barrow
and Tipler's remark on page 121 of "The Anthropic Cosmological
Principle": "The interested reader is advised to avoid
"Philosophical Investigations". Nozick sets up all the right
answers and then JUST FAILS TO ANSWER THEM. Most annoying.
He believes in the closest continuer theory.
> I've run into something like this in discussions with
> others, and I think its roots are in the mind/body
> dichotomy. To me this is cleared up by realizing that
> "you" are not your body, nor are "you" in your body.
> Rather, your consciousness is a result of processes
> conducted by your body.
Exactly so. And it's key to point out that there are
a *whole lot of processes* that would qualify to be
you that your body (or a computer) could be running.
>> 7. Logically, but not necessarily emotionally, anticipates all
>> experiences of all duplicates past or future, near or far.
>>
>> By subscribing to "the faith of a physicist", the subject believes
>> that any physical object at any coordinates whatsoever is the same
>> person that he or she is, provided only that the physical process
>> running in the object resembles him or her closely enough.
>>
>> The extreme difficulty of sitting across a table, watching
>> your physical duplicate, and honestly being able to exclaim,
>> "There goes I, by the grace of God", or of being able to say
>> with a straight face, "Logically, I anticipate the dinner that
>> I had last night as much as I anticipate tonight's repast",
>> prevents almost everyone from accepting level seven.
> To me, the position stated in #7 is based on following the
> logic in Argument A past its point of usefulness, beyond
> the point where that subjective definition of what constitutes
> a personal identity makes sense. It's a cool idea, and it
> tickles the brain in the way novel ideas do, but it seems
> to me to be much less practical than Argument B.
The key here is what you would do in terms of personal
survival, assuming that you relish future experiences
enough for them to dominate your decision making
process. Assume then, that they do: to *survive*
the 21st century, or even to *survive* tomorrow so that
you can personally ENJOY a certain wonderful encounter
is, let us posit, at the very top of your priorities.
Then, would you (A) drink a potion that has a 90%
chance of being deadly poison or (B) kill yourself
so that a duplicate created five minutes ago can
continue to live?
Yes, perhaps for you this is being between a hard
place and a rock, but for me (A) means that there
is only a 10% chance I get to have the wonderful
encounter (say) while (B) guarantees that I will
(sans about five minutes' worth of memories).
Lee
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