RE: Cryonics and uploading as leaps of faith? (was Re: Uploaded Omnisciience)

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Jun 29 2003 - 01:11:36 MDT

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    Damien writes

    > At 10:56 PM 6/28/03 -0700, Lee wrote:
    >
    > >If all the questions are oriented around *action*, then
    > >either you will upload or you will not. Either you will
    > >sacrifice yourself for your duplicate or you will not.
    >
    > Quite so. `Sacrifice' is it, exactly.

    Must one apply so much pressure to a single word?
    I think that you knew what I meant.

    > >But I
    > >also claim that people's beliefs would (and perhaps
    > >will) alter dramatically after they've known a few
    > >duplicates. When every one of their intuitions is
    > >telling them "this really is the same person", the
    > >older view will collapse.
    >
    > I agree that this delusion will become common, because operationally, from
    > the outside, you *will* be dealing with the same person (or an improved
    > version), and the duplicates, from the inside, will recall the same
    > memories as the original. That's built in to the premise.

    What evidence do you have that this is a delusion? The
    whole point of some recent posters was that nothing can
    be proved either way. I guess you disagree with them
    too, but coming from the opposite direction from me.

    > >"I still think that all you
    > >are zombies", the old guy will say, "all this teleporting
    > >and duplicating and what not".
    >
    > Only if he's an idiot. Obviously exact duplicates are *not* zombies, any
    > more than new children are zombies. The only real question is whether you
    > will *sacrifice yourself for your duplicate*. Many people on this list,
    > ironically enough, have enough Rand in their memetic substrate that they
    > regard the idea of self-sacrifice as noxious and wicked.

    Okay, I RETRACT the word sacrifice. Period.

    A unit, I claim can select that it be destroyed, and
    this is no sacrifice. The same person will still live,
    and it will be a wise decision for this person to have
    adopted the philosophy that rejects that he is simply
    an instance.

    I think that you would be sorely tempted to begin teleporting
    if almost everyone else did. And after you did a few times...
    well, it just wouldn't be so hard anymore.

    Lee

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