From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Thu Dec 06 2001 - 23:59:19 MST
> I wrote:
> > I've got to agree with Damien on this one. 50 years sounds
> better than
> dying
> > tomorrow.
> >
> > Why? Because I have a big attachment to "me", whatever that
> is, but as to
> > patterns of atoms and/or information which are strongly or
> even exactly
> > like me? I couldn't care less. Well, I'd probably actually
> care a bit
> about
> > most other people out there (I really do like people a
> lot), but there are
> > limits.
> >
Mark Walker replied:
> Has that hot Aussi sun hardboiled yours and Damien's brains?
> ;) Ok now put
> on the skis because here we go down the slippery slope.
> Would you prefer 2 more years as "you" or a 1000 years of
> doppelgangerhood?
> (Hint: think of the wife and the kids).
Ah, but you've given the game away right here.
What you've invoked in this reference to "the wife and kids" here is not
the value of my own, personal existence to itself (ie: to me). Rather,
you are invoking the utility of an Emlyn to other people.
And in predicting my actions, you would be absolutely correct. If I
could choose between
2 more years of Emlyn and 0 years of Emlyn',
or
0 more years of Emlyn and 1000 years of Emlyn',
I would choose the latter, most certainly. But not for the right
reasons! Particularly, I'd be doing it for "the wife and kids". To me,
it would not be life extension, it would actually be a huge personal
sacrifice. I'd have to do it in secret, too, because it'd only
be fair on my family if they never knew.
It's a similar question to "Would you rather die tomorrow, or
live another 1000 years at the cost of 10,000 people on the other side of
the world, who you never would have interacted with, dying tomorrow"?
> Personally, I would
> take the 1000
> rather than the 50 but I can't say that I have no attachment
> to the present
> set of molecules. I would probably take 999.5 years with the
> present set as
> opposed to 1000 as a doppelganger, which probably means I am
> not as pure a
> functionalist as I could be, but I am not sure how much more
> I would be
> willing to sacrifice.
>
Why not go a step further?
For each of us, chances are that the following statement is true:
There exists person X, who's utility to society* is greater than yours
(given that
we have some magical metric for measuring such).
Which of the following would you (as a functionalist) do. Which would you do
as yourself? Why?
1 - Live out your 3 score & 10.
2 - Be replaced** tomorrow by your exact (enough) replica, who will live
1000 years.
3 - Be replaced** tomorrow by an exact (enough) replica of person X, who
will live 1000 years.
* Insert your personal favourite subset of all people; Nation? Village?
Family? The guy at the video shop?
** By replaced, I mean what non-functionalists would understand as "die".
Emlyn
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