From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@msx.upmc.edu)
Date: Fri Jun 21 2002 - 17:28:43 MDT
Lee Corbin [mailto:lcorbin@tsoft.com] wrote:
The VR Solipsist
### A cool experiment. It might give an answer to the the question of how
much hardwired are your emotional systems - once you know the "others" are
not sentient, there is no rational connection between your emotions, and
your altruistic behaviors (=behaviors modified by concern for other
sentiences). The reasoned altruism of a self-aware person in search of
general moral principles no longer applies even in priciple. What remains
are the hard-wired simple habits, the ones that are important for behavior
at earlier levels of human ontogeny (Kohlberg stages 2 to 4 or 5). How long
will you stay nice out of force of habit? Are you able to discard the layers
of conditioning that normally would (hopefully) prevent you from stealing
money from a blind beggar in the street? Are you able to discard the
hard-wired desire to survive, now that you know the truth?
Personally, I would keep on living (hardwired), enjoy carnal pleasures
(hardwired), discard altruism (both innate, hardwired, and reasoned,
software). I would devote my time to the cheapest hedonism with absolutely
no concern for damage to the (as it turns out, inanimate) surroundings. At
some point the simulation would be stopped by the god, and that's it.
Rafal
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