From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Fri Mar 08 2002 - 19:44:16 MST
--> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
> Anders Sandberg wrote:
> >
> > I think Greg Egan has done the best "message within pi" trick so far in
> > _Diaspora_. The message of the Transmuters is both obvious (in a way),
> > informative and suggests a way out of the system. I think I will use
> > something similar when I start creating universes - give the inhabitants
> > a chance to get out if they poke deep enough.
>
> If you wish to create a universe with truly sentient inhabitants
> that suffer and die until they perform some physics trick, then you are
evil
> and must be stopped.
I don't think any of those involved in this discussion know enough about the
big picture to make that statement anything other than opinion/conjecture.
In my case, I'm swayed by the argument for generation of data, specifically
data sets representing sentient points of view or from-scratch in-vitro
cultures, being more important than the suffering and death of the
participants. Of course, should you believe in the pattern theory of
identity, you shouldn't have any qualms at all about doing anything to
anyone -- you can be sure that somewhere in the infinite universal
computronium, it's all justified and made right for the wronged patterns. If
it was wrong to begin with. If there's a universal ethical or moral ether by
which to judge it all by. Etc.
Besides, we all like The Two Gregs enough to put the efficient backwards
time travelling storm maidens in any universe we create.
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
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