From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Oct 30 2002 - 11:29:59 MST
Interesting question. I really think we should listen to our
lawyers here, since I think there are already useful tools in the
legal toolkit to handle problems like this. But in the meantime,
let's play lawyer:
I think a practical solution is to view copies as belonging to a
new category similar to familyhood, but even closer. Me and my
copy are in many ways more close than me and my brother. Lets
call this relationship a copyhood. Today everybody forms a
copyhood of one - themselves and nobody else. Tomorrow some
people will have a copyhood of several persons.
Laws and contracts can be adapted by specifying whether they
relate to somebody as an individual person or a copyhood. If we
base our thinking on the traditional humanistic liberal rights
perspective most of the traditional rights will apply to each
member of a copyhood since they are closely tied to the view of
humans as having individual consciousness etc. The copyhood
would be more like a family or a company. I think especially the
later is an useful legal tool to adjust the system. If copies are
regarded as members of a company jointly owned by the copyhood
(created by the act of making a copy), then a lot of the issues
about obligations can be handled. If copy A dies without paying a
debt, that debt can be transferred to the copyhood.
It is also possible to leave a copyhood legally. After that point
the individual is to be regarded as an independent person. Debts
and obligations have to be resolved beforehand (or it won't be a
legal divorce), and the relevant part of the copyhood's assets
has to be paid to the leaving member.
Marriage will likely be an issue for each religion. But legally
we seem to be moving (slowly) towards legislation allowing more
arbitrary partnerships. I guess some countries might say that
marriages automatically exists between copyhoods, and others say
that it is between people - if I copy myself Me1, Me2 and my wife
have to re-register the partnership as having a new structure
(the first marriage is annulled, and then a new three-person
partnership is registered). No doubt there is a lot of potential
here for messy divorces...
If two copies commit a crime together and then blame each other,
there are standard laws to deal with that (depends on which
country you are in), no need to give them special status because
they are copies. A more interesting problem might be if part of a
copyhood commits a crime and another part doesn't know or doesn't
agree; in this case it would be like a company where part of the
company commits a crime and likely the legally logical answer is
to hold the owners (the entire copyhood) responsible, although
again there are legal systems about where the crime stops (if an
employee or owner of company X kills somebody it is not viewed as
a crime by the company).
It seems like a rich legal field with plenty of material for
interesting posthuman courtroom dramas.
"Yes, I admit it! I lied to protect 03! 05 and 17 told me that if
I didn't help them cover up, they would blame me too! But nobody
of us did it. It was our wife! All of her!"
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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