From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Mon Nov 04 2002 - 21:43:28 MST
Lee Corbin wrote, some time back, of multiple levels:
> 1. Will travel by space warp, but won't permit disassembly of atoms.
>
> 2. Will permit teleportation, but only if the same atoms are used.
>
> 3. Will teleport, unless there is a delay.
>
> 4. Will teleport, but finds backups to be useless.
>
> 5. Finds backups acceptable, provided that they've had no run time.
>
> 6. Anticipates future experiences of duplicates, but only one in
> particular.
>
> 7. Logically, but not necessarily emotionally, anticipates all
> experiences of all duplicates past or future, near or far.
I know of some people who go beyond this:
8. Logically anticipates all experiences of all conscious entities,
self or other, human or alien, past or future, near or far.
One example is philosopher Arnold Zuboff, who in a paper called "Moment
Universals and Personal Identity" (not available online), proposes
that the elementary elements of our conscious experience, instants
of consciousness, are so simple and structureless that they are shared
across multiple streams of consciousness. In the end he concludes that
there is only one conscious entity in existence, and that we are all
parts of that entity.
A similar idea is involved in the concept of "observer-moments",
which I think was originated by Nick Bostrom. Nick's ideas can be
found at www.anthropic-principle.com. He discusses the "self-selection
assumption", that we should consider ourselves a randomly chosen conscious
observer; and extends this into the "absolute self-selection assumption",
which is that we should consider our observer-moment to be a randomly
chosen observer-moment from among all instances of consciousness in
the universe. This leads to the concept that the apparent continuity
of observer-moments is illusory, or at least unimportant, and that all
observer-moments exist independently.
Of course, acting on level 8 is likely to be evolutionarily counter-
productive so there will probably always be relatively few people who
adopt this position. Level 7 actors in contrast are likely to succeed
and spread.
Hal
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