Re: When You Aren't a Person at All ( was How to tell if you area nice person)

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Jun 23 2002 - 03:51:25 MDT


Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> Sorry, perhaps you can make "wallpaper" seem more real, but
> right now I cannot identify with anything that could notice
> its own lack of consciousness. For sure, anyway, it wouldn't
> act like I do.

That's interesting, because during the recent Extro chat there were at least
two versions of Eliezer fighting it out; one of them realized he was
wallpaper, and the other one wouldn't admit it. Eventually the real author
showed up and shooed them both out. Or at least it was someone claiming to
be the author; for all anyone else knew it could have been another Eliezer
figment, whether aware of its own wallpaperness or not.

I have no trouble identifying with an Eliezer that noticed its own lack of
consciousness. It'd be a shock, of course, but not so large a shock as to
be insurmountable.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence


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