From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Sat Jun 02 2001 - 07:45:14 MDT
Rafal Smigrodzki wrote
> Then there is the "personality" part of our brain which tells me
> to keep a cookie for the "myself-tomorrow" but avoid giving it to
> a perfect copy of myself, if he was sitting next to me right now.
> Both reasoning subsystems are important but they evolved (in both
> the genetic and social sense) to work in different spheres and
> using them interchangeably can lead to difficulties.
Yes, this is the problem. We evolved to sacrifice for the
self of tomorrow, but not for any creature sitting next to
us. (Even if it's our child, we don't truly feel it's pain.)
So how do we rationally determine whether something is us
or not? Modern physics teaches us that other entities
must differ at least in space or time. The self of tomorrow
(for whom we sacrifice) physically resembles you, but so does
the duplicate sitting next to you. If we try to adopt a
totally and completely materialistic view---recognizing that
we are machines that evolved---then it seems desirable to
behave consistently, as Rafal is advising.
On completely objective grounds the duplicate sitting next
to you resembles you far more than the "you" of tomorrow
does. Why can't people rise above the idea that somehow
it's not you? Just because it doesn't "feel" like it is?
Well, grow up! This isn't the first time that your feelings
(evolutionarily evolved) just turned out to be wrong.
Lee Corbin
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