From: hal@finney.org
Date: Wed Jul 19 2000 - 10:22:40 MDT
Robin -
> I was toying with putting together a simple game theory model of who went
> how low in this probability, as a function of preferences over having
> lots of copies. It would be a cute problem, but I just don't have the time
> now - perhaps another day.
I wonder if you or Emlyn could explain why you want lots of copies.
We are of course equipped by our evolutionary heritage for a drive to
reproduce, but for most people that is expressed more as a desire for sex,
rather than a longing for reproduction in the abstract. Our reproductive
desires don't seem necessarily to translate into the kind of behavior
which would cause rapid reproduction in the upload world. No doubt over
time, evolution operating on uploads would give them reproductive drives
appropriate for that environment, though.
Are you just trying to short-circuit this process and adopt behaviors
which evolution would eventually construct anyway? Or do you find the
prospect of copies of yourself pleasant in itself?
What about the fact that in your scenario, the quality of life of uploads
is arguably much worse than for the rest of the world? Why would you
want to create countless copies of yourself which could find themselves
mired in bonded servitude or even slavery, deprived of human rights,
struggling with subsistence wages, facing a life of boredom as even
the simplest advances or changes in society take subjective centuries
to unfold? It sounds like a pretty miserable existence.
Hal
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