From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@uui.com)
Date: Wed Aug 06 2003 - 11:35:54 MDT
Excuse me, I have not read much of this thread, but have some
questions anyway.
Anders writes
> On Tue, Aug 05, 2003 at 04:36:02AM -0400, Wei Dai wrote:
>
> > So we have one prominent extropian telling us to live for today, and
> > another one telling us to live for the far future. Who is right? It
> > occurs to me that we should take a probability-weighted average of the
> > two positions. If the simulation argument is correct, there is a tiny
> > probability that we live in root reality and what we do today affects
> > an astronomical number of potential future individuals (including all
> > future simulated individuals), and a near 1 probability that we live in
> > a simulation and our actions affect relatively few people. We need to
> > take both possibilities into account when making decisions. When we do,
> > I think the two positions cancel out somewhat and we can live a more
> > "normal" life.
<snip>
> So the answer seems to be that we should behave like sims. But this
> is largely based on the idea that the M-brain inhabitants (N) are
> just immortal - if they have generations shifting, then they also
> get a sizeable T factor and they will be dominant - hence morality
> should be root reality oriented.
Well, Robin's paper at http://hanson.gmu.edu/lifeinsim.html
"How to Live in a Simulation" ends with the by-now familiar
words
If you might be living in a simulation then all else equal
it seems that you should care less about others, live more
for today, make your world look likely to become eventually
rich, expect to and try to participate in pivotal events,
be entertaining and praiseworthy, and keep the famous people
around you happy and interested in you.
Besides your suggested improvement above, namely that morality
should be root reality oriented, do you (or does anyone) have
a list of current improvements to Robin's advice? (To be honest,
I take very little of Robin's advice on this, perhaps mostly due
to laziness, but do find welcome this new suggestion that one's
moral behavior ought to be as if one lived in root reality.)
Lee
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