From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 29 2002 - 10:53:51 MST
Jeff Allbright wrote:
>
> Stated another way, I can see why we currently value "survival of
> self", even if only
> because of very strong evolutionary programming. It appears there is
> an implied
> assumption here that if we agree that "survival of self" is important
> to us now, then we must also
> agree that the broader "survival of identity" will be similarly
> important to us with the broader
> technical capabilities we will have in the future. I would argue
> that we will have
> broader choices to go with the broader capabilities, and that it
> would be more
> advantageous to consider all copies to be separate individuals with
> special relationships to each other due to branching.
>
### A very good statement.
You can expand it further by appealing to evolutionary analysis.
Our mind is a low-power general reasoning device built atop a huge
conglomerate of highly efficient, specialized modules, or drives. All of
these modules, as well as the general reasoning device (the rational
intellect), evolved during the propagation of a pattern of chemical and
physical processes, that now constitute our bodies and brains. Throughout
evolution, parts of the pattern changed, some elements were eliminated when
they no longer supported the propagation of the whole unit, and branching
occurred trillions of times since the initial replicator arose billions of
years ago.
The most evolutionarily modern tools for survival are analytic concepts.
They allow a contingent analysis of the environment, and the choice of the
optimal, individual solution. One of the most important advances is the
ability to analyze parts of the mind to resolve conflicts and choose the
best solution. Initially, the rational intellect performing these analytic
tasks is merely a tool of the various drives. The drive to survive uses the
intellect to produce a simple notion of self. The drive to proliferate uses
reason to maximize the number of offspring. Etc.
However, if the rational intellect is allowed more in-depth, recursive
analysis, both of the drives I mentioned above can be re-framed, as tools
for pattern propagation. You are able to reach conceptually to the beginning
of evolution and internalize its direction for your own. Since the rational
intellect itself has no motivation, it can only borrow a motivation from the
lower levels, but not necessarily from any single module.
If it happens so that your simple-self module (with built-in notions of
temporal continuity and direct qualia and memory access) is ascendant over
others, you will get gts's attitude. If your altruism module (evolved during
the kin-selected phase of our evolution) wins, you might get a Gandhi-like
persona.
I think that Lee and I allowed our rational faculties to take over
motivation by borrowing liberally form the simple-self module, and the
altruistic module, and the pattern-propagation-through-children module. We
abstracted the most important elements of them - imperative to propagate a
pattern, with maximal similarity to the original, that is compatible with
temporally extended propagation (you can't propagate for long if you don't
change, but if you change too much, it's no longer propagation), and took it
as the prime directive.
If course, it is a value judgment - but a value determined much closer to
first principles than the simple-self value set.
Also, patterns that propagate more efficiently will overtake others. Since I
will support my copying, teleportation, and uploading, while many of the
simple-selfers won't, in the end patterns like me will rule the world. Join
us.
Rafal
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