Re: Duplicates are Selves

From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Sun Apr 06 2003 - 01:14:01 MST

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    Eliezer writes:
    > When I teleport, I want to anticipate a 100% subjective probability
    > of being where I'm going, not a 50% subjective probability of being
    > where I'm going. I therefore want to be moved, not copied.

    Lee Corbin responds:
    > I think that it is the deepest mistake I've been able to
    > identify in a decades-long examination of the identity
    > paradox to suppose that it's a question of probability.

    My opinion on this is uncertain, but at this point I am inclined to
    agree with Lee that the many-worlds analogy is not as strong as it
    might seem. (In the following, I will use the term "copies" to refer
    to both the original and the duplicate in a duplication scenario, or to
    the versions of yourself which exist in separate many-worlds branches
    after a MW split.)

    Being duplicated, so that there are two of you, A and B, is fundamentally
    different from going through a many-worlds split, which results also
    in two of you, A and B. The difference is that your total measure
    is twice as much in the duplication scenario as in the MW scenario.
    This is a real, meaningful difference and it may be enough to justify
    different decisions regarding these situations.

    For example, in the MW case, if you can bias the probabilities you
    can shift more of your measure from B to A, decreasing B's measure and
    increasing A's. But in the duplication scenario that is not possible;
    both of your copies have "full" measure, the same measure as what you
    started with. You can't increase the measure of either one (although you
    can decrease one or both), while you definitely can do so in the MW case.
    The ability to increase measure of one of A or B is a difference between
    the two scenarios which may justify different actions.

    In the face of duplication technology, evolution may drive us to increase
    the total measure of our copies, just as in the MW example (i.e. the
    real world) it has driven us to act so as to maximize the total measure
    of our copies. (That last part is just the MW-specific way of saying
    that evolution has taught us to maximize our probability of survival.)
    If that happens, once copying becomes possible, we would strive to keep
    all copies alive, and to make more whenever possible.

    I understand the pragmatic concern that the desire to get from one place
    to another by a teleportation machine would be thwarted for the copy
    that gets left behind. You have to consider whether there wouldn't be
    something useful that an extra copy of yourself could accomplish.

    But more practically, there will have to be some limits on the creation of
    copies, else everyone could create new ones at a rapid and unstoppable
    pace. I think we have to assume that these limits, whether legal
    or social or economic, would prevent the routine creation of copies.
    In practice, then, you wouldn't face bizarre situations like teleporting
    from one store to another on a shopping trip and leaving a frustrated
    copy behind at each store. It wouldn't make sense to create copies in
    this way, for if it were so easy and cheap to create copies, and if it
    were beneficial, you'd just create them all the time. Therefore I think
    teleporters would normally behave destructively, and copying would be
    done at times and in situations which were specifically intended for
    that purpose.

    Hal



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