From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Apr 05 2003 - 00:32:41 MST
Robert writes
> Lee then added a *very* useful hierarchy -- that should get written
> up so we don't have to rehash these topics every year or so.
>
> > The seven levels are
The original "Seven Levels of Identity" post can be read at
http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::fg13MWJR-L2lj-eSFg-X3Uj-cAxRRw4pFh55
> > 1. Will travel by space warp, but won't permit disassembly of atoms.
>
> Space warp is "magic physics" at this point in time so I think we can
> set it aside until Amara, Anders or GTS come up with some more "weird"
> papers out of the LANL preprint archive.
Yes, but it's philosophically interesting, IMO. All these thought
experiments reveal our beliefs about identity. This level is really
just a base to start from; presumably no one has an objection to
traveling through space, even if the space is curved.
> > 2. Will permit teleportation, but only if the same atoms are used.
>
> Very hard (bordering on highly improbable) -- you have to turn matter
> into energy, transmit it across a distance then convert it back into
> matter. If possible it seems likely to be *very* expensive.
Yes, but the point is that some people argue that the very
identities of their atoms *are* important, and that they'd have
no objection to teleportation if they didn't have this lingering
feeling that "their" original atoms were back in the previous
teleporter pod reduced to piles of elements.
> > 3. Will teleport, unless there is a delay.
>
> Can't get around the delay unless you intend to violate speed-of-light
> constraints. (So seems to lead back to the "magic physics" realm.)
Sorry. Here "delay" is meant to refer to the awkward interval
of time in which one is "simultaneously" in two locations.
Operationally speaking, one is teleported somewhere, and then
both the original and duplicate can see and wave to each other
on closed-circuit TV. Yes, this is a little harder to think
about over interplanetary distances, but the principle remains
the same. The point here is that some people *would* consent
to teleportation provided that there was no possibility from
any relativistic frame of reference to such an "overlap".
> > 4. Will teleport, but finds backups to be useless.
>
> That is plain stupid and equivalent to signing ones own death
> certificate -- I asserted this at Extro3 -- one needs distributed
> replicated intelligence to survive the natural (or even engineered)
> hazard function.
It may be stupid from an evolutionary point of view, but
I'll be the first to admit that I cling to various preferences
despite their evolutionary weakness. Ethics, for example: in
some possible future scenarios the unethical may be able to
outbreed the ethical, and few of us would have a completely
easy time prescribing behavior.
More to the point, there exist some concepts of self, for example
concepts that would survive extremely rapid evolution, which I
think are just incorrect concepts. Some people, who I have
referred to as "radical uploaders", e.g. Ralph Merkle, would
not mind evolving one second from now into creatures so advanced
that they would resemble us no more than we resemble the fetuses
from which we grew. If that happened to me, I contend, then
I'd be dead as soon as it happened.
> > 5. Finds backups acceptable, provided that they've had no run time.
>
> Ok, this seems reasonable assuming some type of upload or teleportation
> (atomic pattern copying) technology becomes feasible.
I think that it still distinguishes some people from me.
I don't care if my backup has had any run time not. In
fact, I'd probably prefer that he has, just because I
like for me to have experience, on the whole.
> > 6. Anticipates future experiences of duplicates, but only one in
> > particular.
>
> It seems hard to "anticipate" future experiences. It seems to suggest
> that one can predict the future and that seems unlikely. I think this
> point needs reframing.
By "anticipate", I simply mean the feeling that all functioning
humans have of "what is about to happen to them". In an awkward
example from my POV, suppose that my duplicate and I are each
strapped down as Nurse Ratchet approaches with a needle. "Now
which of you boys are going to get the injection today?", she inquires
with a cruel leer. Well, whichever of us she approaches *anticipates*
the pain of the needle, while the other of us does not.
Some people, I think, take this example or an unconscious formulation
of it, as their definition of self. That's perfectly natural. I
prefer to think of this part of myself as my "animal" nature, but
Rafal Smigrodzki had a description that was perhaps better than mine
when we were discussing this last summer. I'll dig around for it.
> > 7. Logically, but not necessarily emotionally, anticipates all
> > experiences of all duplicates past or future, near or far.
>
> One obviously (if one adheres to speed-of-light limits) has a problem
> with the availability of data to "reintegrate" the experiences of
> duplicates in "real-time".
Well, I have a very complicated thought experiment that bothered
me so bad back in 1986 that I could scarcely work. It's based
upon Newcomb's Paradox, and the interested reader may wish to
devise it for himself or herself. I've never written it up
satisfactorily, but the bare pieces that can be put together
(I think) are in http://www.leecorbin.com/UseOfNewcombsParadox.html
where I also give as an introduction my take on Newcomb's Paradox.
> > The [foolish person who is afraid to non-destructively
> > teleport] probably is afraid that the original is going
> > to go home and sleep with his wife.
>
> Oh, with "copies" you are into much more complex problems than
> that -- who has the right/obligation to go to ones job in the
> morning, who is contractually obligated to make the mortgage
> payments, etc. etc. It is a *REAL* mess.
Because I've always intuited that my duplicate and I would
agree on all matters (seeing quite eye to eye), I have never
supposed that a sensible person would be unable to work all
this out with his duplicate. Moreover, I claim that one should
have an extremely good feeling about the fact that one has a
duplicate, because whatever it is that you value in being alive
at all, according to physics you have twice as much to value.
But your point is a good one, and forces me to acknowledge the
peculiar difficulties that would arise if one in the best of
intentions had himself duplicated, only to quickly discover a
hidden animosity or self-loathing! Yes, indeed, there could
be frightful legal problems all of a sudden.
> > Yes, although I suspect that a totally consistent value system
> > would not be compatible with the result that an intricate and
> > rather marvelous assemblage of atoms (such as the original)
> > should be destroyed without a good reason.
>
> Not clear Lee -- the problem is that "assembling" (or disassembling)
> atoms is now difficult.
Well, the disassembly I had in mind was just scrambling---
and sadly happens soon after any kind of death. Getting
mangled still far above the level of constituent atoms
usually results in death. A disintegrator ray was supposed
to just wreck your structure without harming your individual
atoms, as I recall.
> But my read of what it seems like robust nanotech enables is
> that it need not be that way (there are limits but it seems
> like they involve ability to deliver energy and remove heat).
I don't think that I understand you here. I should start a new
thread about this, however.
Lee
> But the probable rates would make most individuals eyes
> pop out of their heads. So the "value" of an individual (as
> a physical entity) becomes much lower. It is the information
> content (as a description of a pattern of atoms) that is valuable.
>
> It is a very different world and I don't think most people are
> anywhere near ready to deal with it (emotionally).
>
> Robert
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