From: Emlyn (emlyn@one.net.au)
Date: Wed Mar 28 2001 - 01:45:08 MST
> Emlyn wrote:
>
> > I think these points of view are not equivalent. Particularly, I think
there
> > are more moderate scenarios (give up the rest of your life even though
you
> > are healthy, to let an upload live instead), in which behaviour is not
> > equivalent. If I though it would be *me* going into the machine, I'd go
for
> > it (selfish), but if I thought it would be someone like me who is not
me;
> > they can bite me (altruism, or lack of). So it is not clear that we
would
> > choose destructive upload whether identically, given different motives.
>
> My counterargument is the argument from scale which I gave earlier.
> If the upload's life was going to be orders of magnitude longer the
> time you have left, then the case is the same, whether it's a question
> of you living one extra minute vs. the copy living 50 more years, or
> your living 50 more years vs. the copy living millions of years.
>
> -Dan
Why would I possibly give up *50 years* for a copy?
Even if I give you this argument of scale, it does not cover all cases. If I
had 50 years to go, and knew that I could live an extra 50 (100 total from
now), by (destructive) uploading, I'd do it. On the other hand, my altruism
toward a (not me) copy would definitely not extend to giving my remaining 50
years so that it could have 100. Again, the same situation yields a
different response, whose determinant is the motivation. Self-preservation
will be strong enough to yield a choice to upload, but altruism will not be.
Emlyn
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