From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 22:30:49 MDT
Eliezer writes
> Lee Corbin wrote:
> > You walk into a room and discover a frozen duplicate
> > of you created a few minutes ago. There he is, sprawled
> > out in the ice as was the Frankenstein monster. On top
> > the cask of ice sits a briefcase containing ten million
> > dollars. You must choose between (A) to have your xox
> > and the $10M vaporized, or (B) to be vaporized yourself
> > with your duplicate getting to be thawed out and sent
> > happily on his way to the bank with his new ten million.
> >
> > Only the most extreme "state-theory" followers, or extreme
> > materialists as you would call them, opt for choice B, like
> > I do, and as Robin Hanson does. We don't mind losing a few
> > minutes' memories, and anticipate going to the bank tomorrow
> > and enjoyably depositing all that money.
>
> Some people might be willing to die as long as a different person who is
> *almost* exactly like them has $10M with which to follow the same goals.
Yes, but that's only because you aren't a selfish individual.
Your idealism here is at variance with the goal of investigating
what personal identity is (or what we should believe about it).
I postulate an MSI (Most Selfish Individual) for the purposes
of identity investigations. This is an extremely intelligent
but also extremely self-centered and selfish person whose
own existence is almost the only thing that matters to him.
Yet I contend that the MSI will, upon correct reflection,
make choice (B) above. He is most definitely interested
in personally surviving the episode, yet also wishes to
enhance his future security by the acquisition of so
much money.
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:34 MST