From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Nov 14 2002 - 22:24:12 MST
Wei Dai wrote (offline)
> With regard to the seven levels, I say let's discuss pragmatics instead of
> semantics. When you say you're at level 7, what this it mean in terms of
> the choices you would make in circumstances that might plausibly exist in
> the future? Does it mean that you care about each of your copies exactly
> as much as you care about yourself, so you'd weigh what happens to them
> just as much as what happens to you in your decision making?
Yes, that's the meaning of level seven. "Logically, but not necessarily
emotionally, anticipates all experiences of all duplicates past or future,
near or far." http://www.extropy.org/exi-lists/extropians/0210/16300.html
has the *definitions* of the levels for those who haven't see them.
To care about someone---your phrase---is to highly value what happens
to them, and except in pathological conditions, a person cares about what
happens to him or her. This means to care about the entities that he
or she shall be tomorrow, for example, and hence means to anticipate
what happens to them. Or, as you write, we *expect* what happens to
them to happen to us (same thing).
> Some moral philosophies argue that you should care about everyone as much
> as yourself. Suppose you adopted such a philosophy and actually managed to
> put it into practice. Can you still be at level 7? I think the answer is
> no, since "personal identity" no longer has any operational meaning.
> Do you agree?
Yes, I agree. Hal Finney pointed this out in
http://www.extropy.org/exi-lists/extropians/0211/16850.html
and in subsequent discussion several of us agreed with you,
namely, that at any higher level we're not talking about the
same thing anymore.
Kimball Collins, personal communication, offers a koan.
Suppose that while you sleep tonight a duplicate is made
of you. Atoms don't matter, and so in asking about the
two entities which wake up
Question: Which one do I wake up as?
Answer: Neither.
Question: Which one is me?
Answer: Both.
I don't entirely agree since I believe that I wake up as
both. But Kimball as getting at the "two nature" of
"you", with which I fully concur (see below).
Kimball and Wei Dai have some criticism for the thought
experiments:
Wei Dai writes
> BTW, I criticize your clock/torture experiment for not being realistic,
> because it seems to bear no relationship to any plausible future
> situation. Trying to gain intuition from such thought experiments is like
> evolving in an artificial environment. You have to be careful or you may
> find that the result is not fit to survive in the real world.
Unlike some other people who are at level seven, I believe that
while ultimate reproductive success is important, there is a truth
of the matter as to whether something is me. If---and I grant that
this is a big, ideal, "if"---I am to be able to prescribe my actions
consistently, then no harm can come from the thought experiments.
The only harm is to fail to think of all the important ones.
But suppose that you are right; then I should re-cast as many thought
experiments as possible in realistic future scenarios, e.g., "Re-pricing
of Solar resources makes necessary a choice in Solar Sector 13309
between (a) the last 24 time periods of memory of LeeCorbin entities
must be sacrificed or (b) the creation of 10^13 additional copies must
be foregone for 72 time periods." My pure hunch---no proof---is that
the essence of each thought experiment in present, familiar language
could be retained in some possible future scenario.
Kimball says, "Actions taken in thought experiments necessarily
involve values. It's better to defer choices in such until after
the ontology has been worked out." Specifically, Kimball entertains
two concepts of "you":
1. The level-seven type notion: pattern identity, information
state (as fully explicated in Mike Perry's Forever For All).
2. A "you" which retains its identity so long as continuity
is maintained. In this weaker sense, you become a different
person every day. See also Mike Perry's concept of "day-person"
in "Forever For All".
Hal Finney wrote, "the flesh is weak, so what else is new?", and Rafal
wrote "[Level seven thinkers] allow our rational faculties to take
over motivation by borrowing liberally from the simple-self module..."
http://www.extropy.org/exi-lists/extropians/0210/16568.html
I say that all of us who are at level seven: Rafal, Jef, me,
Kimball, and I think Wei Dai and Hal believe in a "you" of type 1
above---a physics level description of a pattern. We probably
have different views, or no view, about the "other" kind of
"you", namely a "weaker" [Hal], "simple-self" [Rafal],
or "animalistic" [Lee] lower level type "you", the you who
makes irrational, non-optimal, or incorrect choices and who
fails to see that one's duplicate is one's self.
Lee
P.S. Of course Wei Dai and Kimball gave permission for their
personal communications to be replied to on-line.
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