Re: Can I kill the "original"?

From: hal@finney.org
Date: Wed May 17 2000 - 23:17:10 MDT


Harvey writes:

> EXACTLY! The whole copy question is a semantic problem. There is no right
> or wrong answer. The question of self-identity is a semantic question of
> terminology. There is no right or wrong answer. It is a question of
> self-value and what portion of oneself one desires to preserve under one's
> own name. How can anyone argue that one such choice is "right" and one such
> choice is "wrong"?

I agree, but I think you can still ask some meaningful questions about
which forms of behavior will come to predominate.

It's not right or wrong to try to preserve yourself. It's not right or
wrong to want to reproduce. It's not right or wrong to sacrifice yourself
in order that close relatives who share many of your genes may survive.

Yet we can predict that all of these behaviors will become common because
they all share the property of favoring the spread of the genes of the
organisms who act this way.

Similarly, we can predict that memes which favor reproduction will spread
as well. It will come to be viewed as "right" to duplicate your own mind.
It will come to be viewed as "right" for one mind to die if enough copies
of it can live. It will come to be viewed as "right" to make copies of
your mind in different substrates and different forms.

All of these behaviors will be viewed as "right" because they all favor
the spread of minds which adopt them. Minds which see such actions as
"right" will become numerically dominant, just as organisms which try
to reproduce and preserve themselves are dominant today.

Hal



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