From: Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Mar 27 1997 - 09:46:01 MST
On Thu, 27 Mar 1997 ShawnJ99@aol.com wrote:
> This brings to mind an interesting question. Is the clone to be held
> responsible for crimes (real crimes, like murder) which were committed by the
> "original" sometime just prior to duplication?
Reminds me of a humorous sf story I read a few years back where an
amoeboid alien escaped punishment this way (it was guilty of selling
pornographic pictures to earthly biologists who used them to illustrate
mitosis in their textbooks). Both the resulting individuals claimed
innocence, and pointed out that they were underage.
In a more serious vein (?), I think that in a society where you can copy
yourself (most likely among infomorphs like uploads) guilt and property
will have to be redefined a bit. My suggestion is that when you copy
yourself, your possessions should be divided equitably between the copies
(it might be possible to "testament" property in more complex
arrangements, or for the copies to pool their resources into a collective
if they want) and social contracts such as marriage would be
re-negotiated. All copies would be equally responsible for the actions in
their shared past, so all should be punished for such crimes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
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