From: Wei Dai (weidai@weidai.com)
Date: Mon Mar 10 2003 - 18:43:56 MST
On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 02:50:58PM -0800, Hal Finney wrote:
> In this way I reach a contradiction between the belief that the number
> of copies doesn't matter, the belief that the existence of distant
> parallel copies of myself doesn't make much difference in what I should
> do, and the idea that there is value in making people happy. Of these,
> the most questionable seems to be the assumption that copies don't matter,
> so this line of reasoning turns me away from that belief.
I agree with you that "copies don't matter" probably isn't true. Since
everything exists, if the number of copies doesn't matter, than nothing
matters. What I reject is the idea that value is strictly proportional to
the global number of copies and with it the implication that you always do
good by re-running someone's pleasant experience. This is really obvious
to me, but we can talk more about why if you don't agree.
But what to replace this with? How should copies matter? This is the
question that I don't think we'll be able to make much progress on until
we have a more general advance in moral philosophy. (Although we can
speculate on possibilities. Maybe it has something to do with distance?
Maybe the value of copies are diminished if they're close together in
space-time?)
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