[Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]

[John Mikes]

Brent:

who is making that 'backup' or 'replica' of you? and why?

you people take it for granted that a (supernatural???) authority has nothing else to do except making replicas of members of the Everything List. And you observe, how good - or bad - "its" work is.

Some teleological view of pantheism Ha Ha).

 

Otherwise where would the replicas come from and where would they go?

(Probably the notion comes from the "backup" mode of your computer and the file "backup" updated every Sunday).

John M

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...> wrote:

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> 2009/2/27 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>:
>
>> Gosh!  And what if the backup has been done last year, or one minute ago? I
>> will be dead too? Less dead?
>
> This shows a potential problem the psychological criterion for
> personal identity. If I am facing death it is little consolation to me
> if a backup was made an hour ago, since I (the presently speaking I)
> will not be able to anticipate any future experiences. Only if there
> exists some copy who will have a memory of my present experiences
> would I not object to dying, and this would require a backup updated
> every moment. In that case, I should also object to an hour of memory
> loss, due to a medication like midazolam. But I don't think that
> taking midazolam is tantamount to dying. Inconsistency! Either I have
> to agree that taking midazolam is like dying, or I have to agree that
> dying while leaving an old (how old?) backup behind does not matter.
> If I agree to the latter, then I give up worrying about the thing I
> don't like about dying, which is the fact that I won't be able to
> anticipate any future experiences. And if I give up worrying about
> that, then there isn't anything else that worries me about dying. So
> if I think that taking midazolam is no big deal (which I do), to be
> consistent I should also think that death is no big deal.
>
>

But isnt' there a range here.  I would certainly feel less anxious
about dying if there were a backup of me made an hour ago than if it
were made months or years ago or if there were no backup at all. On
the other hand, an hour of memory loss from taking midazolam may be
less worrisome simply because we, as a culture, have a lot of
experience with loss of consciousness and memory from anesthesia, etc.

Brent

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 Feb 2009, at 15:57, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

2009/2/27 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>

On 26 Feb 2009, at 18:41, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

There is no identity without memories... makes no sense to me.

I take it as a superficial part of identity, with respect to surviving. Personal identity, I think is more and less than personal memories.

By loosing memory "I" would be wounded, not dead.

By loosing your memory, the resulting 'I' is no more the previous 'I' and in this settings it makes no sense to talk about 'I', the subject is not the same.

So you die with Stathis' Midazolam.

 

If "I" with my memories happen to have no next moment with my memories... I will be dead, and no cul-de-sac is false... a next moment where none of your memories is left is no more a next moment.

No memories at all? In that case some month ago I would have agreed with you, but I have lost any certainties here.

What is you ? By what you say, I'm as you as you are... But I can assure you, I'm not you, and if tomorrow you wake up without your memories but mine instead you'll be me not you anymore (and If you have my memories you'll be rightly believe so).

If I wake up with your mind correctly uploaded in my brain (if that can be made), that "I" is you, I agree. But memories here include the interpreter of those memories, in part build by those memories, but also a part which reflects the constraint "reality" leading to consistency and truth, and most probable histories.

 

You know it was you because you did wake up as you...

How could I know that?

Because now you remember it and you are fully self aware and know who you are.

My brain can fool me completely. Like many, when training myself in lucid dream technic, I got long sequences of 'false awakenings', dreaming to wake up in cascad, each time sure to be fully aware, and "knowing who I am".

Each time I think I know who I am, I realize I am wrong, yet something, never definable, survive in such changes.

Now I have an identity cart, and a body, but this kind of notions will not tell you who I am really, in the sense or surviving per se, including amnesia experiences.

If I lost my life memories, in the street, probably my identity cart will help a lot for surviving in practice, but it will not tell me who I am unless it happens I got the memory back. 

Memories are not always good, and it seems that for surviving, some people have to forget, to develop partial amnesia. Collectivity can develop amnesia. The "I" is the "I" which survives those possible amnesia, as difficult as such an idea can be. In the second season of "the heroes", amnesia is used as torture, indeed.

 

you didn't know inside the dream...

This is Maury's conception of dream. I doubt it a lot, and consider it refuted by the work of Laberge and Dement (and Hearne) on lucid dreaming.

Well... I had once what is call a "lucid" dream... but I knew I was somehow "conscious" only when I was able to recollect it (when I woke up)... I don't know if I could ascribe meaning to say I was really conscious during the dream.
 

note that I'm not even sure we have of sense of self while dreaming,

OK, here I disagree rather strongly.

What could prove that wrong ?

In the state of dream you are paralyzed and hallucinating, except for your eyes muscles. When well prepared in specific lucid state dreaming, having the REM waves and being paralyzed, some lucid dreamers can communicate with the people in the environment (of the bed). The activity in the cortex is mainly the same as in the one of a brain by someone being awake, except from cerebral stem perturbation providing inputs to the dream (making sometimes hard for the subject to maintain the lucidity.

I would say the experience of Dement, Laberge and followers makes you, not wrong, but hardly plausible. In "conscience and méchanism" I show that Malcolm's argument against mechanism are deeply related to his arguments against consciousness in dreams.

(All references are in the general bibliography of C & M.)

 

I accept we have it during a recollection of the dream.

Personal identity is indeed related to recollection of some memory, even in awaked state. Yet I do distinguish dying and forgetting.

Well I don't differentiate forgetting everything and dying... result is the same.

I am not sure. It could depend on the forgetting path. 

 

 

Memories, like body and brain are things we possess, and this means, I think, that we can still survive without them.

I think not.
 

Suppose that I die tomorrow, and that sometimes after someone find a backup of "me" at the age of five, so that "I" am reconstituted from that backup. Would you say I am dead, or would you say that I have survived, only with a severe sort of amnesy ?

You will be dead.

Gosh!  And what if the backup has been done last year, or one minute ago? I will be dead too? Less dead?

Best regards,

Bruno

Well a backup of one minute ago is nearer to your you now... And in a sense I could say you survive 'at least a very actual near you did'.

My current 'I' is the past of an "infinity" of futur 'I' where all these 'I' having as past my current 'I' have all the right to say they were me... But one of these 'I' which was differentiated of the others 'I' cannot claim that the others 'I's are valid continuation... They are not.

If the memory is "I met my girl friend", I will make a backup. If my memory is "My girl friend leaves me", I could well be able to forget making a backup. The natural brain does already things like that. It is bad, but necessary in some situations.

What I care to continue is 'I', meaning my knowledge, my memories, my name, what I've done, who I did know... If it dissappears then it's plain death.

I think comp could imply the existence of an agnosologic path, where you loose each memory bit a bit, without ever noticing anything. Consciousness is a sort of invariant, personal identities is a personal matter on which comp per se will say nothing, except for showing the non triviality of the most basic beliefs (addition, multiplication) making possible self-reference, and showing the price of universality (we can be wrong, we can be fooled). Those incompatibilities will lead to different computationalist practices, in the long future.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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[Günther Greindl]

Bruno, List,

> in awaked state. Yet I do distinguish dying and forgetting.

Let us say that we have a measure of continuation (of psychological)
identity from 1 to 0, where 1=full continuation and 0=death, and we
apply this measure from one OM to the next.

Then forgetting would be everything between 0 and 1. O, extreme
forgetting, is death.

Oliver Sacks's book "The Man who mistook his wife for a hat" comes to
mind, where he also describes a patient, Jimmie, who has severe
retrograde amnesia which started when he was around 60 or so and which
"erased" his memories up to 40 years prior.

An especially chilling episode occurs in the book when Sacks mentions
that, on the first interview with the patient, he gives him a mirror
(which Sacks regrets) and the patient gets a panic attack, because he
sees a 65 year old when he expects to be 19. Fortunately, he forgets a
few moments later. He lives in an "eternal now" being reset every few
minutes, because (through alcohol abuse) he can't develop new memories
(and in his severe case many past ones where erased).

This person has lived up to 65, but, through losing his memories, from
65 onwards one could say that he "died" with 19 (relative to his 65+
states).


>I think "I" is a logical construction (we will come back on this).
>Memories have a big values, but "I" don't put it in my identity, nor

Hmm, I do think that memories constitutes your identity (in the wide
sense, also muscle memory as Brent mentioned). If not that,
what then?

Drescher (in Good and Real, 2006, MIT Press) for instance likens qualia
to gensyms in LISP

http://www.cs.utah.edu/dept/old/texinfo/emacs19/cl_6.html:
QUOTE:
Creating Symbols

These functions create unique symbols, typically for use as temporary
variables.

Function: gensym &optional x
This function creates a new, uninterned symbol (using make-symbol) with
a unique name.
ENDQUOTE

I am not so sure about qualia, but I think the "I" symbol fits this
description nicely: a unique symbol for use as temporary variable,
around which memories (filters on histories) gather. This "I" variable
is not really essential, what is essential is the memories (relating one
to the world). Indeed, Susan Blackmore (english naturalist
philosopher/psychologist) describes having eliminating any feeling of
"I" through meditation. To be more precise, I think she has simply
eliminated the I symbol but it is still present subsymbolically as an
anchor for memories (see also papers by Aaron Sloman and John Pollock
describing persons as virtual machines).

Plotinus Universal Soul (less mystically: the first person view) could
never die (as in: there will always be an experience in Platonia,
somewhere, somewhen (better: nowhere, nowhen); but your _personal
identity_ here on Earth in this Universe etc. ceases to exist without
your memories.

Less and less memories -> means more and more histories pass through you
(assuming COMP), until, when you have lost all memories (including the
"memory" of your brain organization which leads you to be able to
process visual stimuli, same holds for other senses) which equals death
all histories pass through that state, and as Russell nicely points out
in his book (he uses bitstrings) all histories are as good as no
histories - all differences get lost, there is no person left to
appreciate (that is then indeed the true view from nowhen and nowhere -
nothing).

To put up the above paragraph another way: you need memories to _be_
_someone_. To be someone is to be someone relatively to possible
histories, which gets mediated by memories.

Best Wishes,
Günther



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[Günther Greindl]

Stathis, List,

> if a backup was made an hour ago, since I (the presently speaking I)
> will not be able to anticipate any future experiences. Only if there

As Bruno said in a previous post, what we should care about in personal
survival is not concrete memories (although memories are essential to
anchor a person in reality) but rather something else (values, insights etc)

In your example, living for an hour will not necessarily accrete much
experience or new insights which you would like to share with your
future self or others. So, indeed, death does not matter (apart from
ethical considerations which are not at issue now, but only personal
identity) for the one hour duplicate, and you can also take the
amnesia-inducing medication.

On the other hand, if you had an insight in exactly that hour: let's
say, you've been working on a scientific problem for ten years, and in
that hour you (the duplicate) saw something which sparked something in
your brain that led you to a solution (and you know it was due to the
extreme situation, and the other you will not have this insight), then
you should worry very much. If you are annihilated, something important
is lost (for yourself, for others).

The issue that we are very reluctant to die if our backup is ten years
old but need not worry so much if we backed up one hour ago is simply
the heuristic that in one hour we don't change so much, but in ten years
we often change so much that we indeed become a very _different_ person.

So, what counts is change, not "objective" time.

What we _are_ is I think more about what we (can) _become_, rather than
a single snapshot at time t_0. And if this becoming is lost, that is the
true tragedy.

Best Wishes,
Günther


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[Brent Meeker-2]

John Mikes wrote:
> Brent:
> who is making that 'backup' or 'replica' of you? and why?

Ask Bruno, he's the one who brought it up.

Brent


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[Günther Greindl]

> John Mikes wrote:
>> Brent:
>> who is making that 'backup' or 'replica' of you? and why?

It is only a thought experiment to make clear what we care about
regarding personal identity.

And if computationalism is true, this thought experiment will be
practically quite relevant in the near(?) future (as in mind uploading
etc) (see Bostrom and Sandberg; Whole Brain emulation roadmap
http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/Reports/2008-3.pdf)

And as regards COMP, the duplications occur all the time.

Cheers,
Günther

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[russell standish-2]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 08:34:48PM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>
> 2009/2/27 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>:
>
> > Gosh!  And what if the backup has been done last year, or one minute ago? I
> > will be dead too? Less dead?
>
> This shows a potential problem the psychological criterion for
> personal identity. If I am facing death it is little consolation to me
> if a backup was made an hour ago, since I (the presently speaking I)
> will not be able to anticipate any future experiences. Only if there
> exists some copy who will have a memory of my present experiences
> would I not object to dying, and this would require a backup updated
> every moment. In that case, I should also object to an hour of memory
> loss, due to a medication like midazolam. But I don't think that
> taking midazolam is tantamount to dying. Inconsistency! Either I have
> to agree that taking midazolam is like dying, or I have to agree that
> dying while leaving an old (how old?) backup behind does not matter.
> If I agree to the latter, then I give up worrying about the thing I
> don't like about dying, which is the fact that I won't be able to
> anticipate any future experiences. And if I give up worrying about
> that, then there isn't anything else that worries me about dying. So
> if I think that taking midazolam is no big deal (which I do), to be
> consistent I should also think that death is no big deal.
>

If Multiverse (or COMP), and no cul-de-sacs is true, then the backups
are actually irrelevant. There will always be next OM to
experience. If "no cul-de-sacs" is false, however, then true death is
possible, and I'm not convinced that the presence of backups will help
much.

Either way, there is little to be concerned about :)

Cheers

--

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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/2/28 Günther Greindl <guenther.greindl@...>:

> The issue that we are very reluctant to die if our backup is ten years
> old but need not worry so much if we backed up one hour ago is simply
> the heuristic that in one hour we don't change so much, but in ten years
> we often change so much that we indeed become a very _different_ person.
>
> So, what counts is change, not "objective" time.
>
> What we _are_ is I think more about what we (can) _become_, rather than
> a single snapshot at time t_0. And if this becoming is lost, that is the
> true tragedy.

The problem with this explanation is that fear of death is only
partly, if at all, attenuated by rational considerations. I could
probably make my hour old backup do anything I want by holding a gun
to his head.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Brent Meeker-2]

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> 2009/2/28 Günther Greindl <guenther.greindl@...>:
>
>  
>> The issue that we are very reluctant to die if our backup is ten years
>> old but need not worry so much if we backed up one hour ago is simply
>> the heuristic that in one hour we don't change so much, but in ten years
>> we often change so much that we indeed become a very _different_ person.
>>
>> So, what counts is change, not "objective" time.
>>
>> What we _are_ is I think more about what we (can) _become_, rather than
>> a single snapshot at time t_0. And if this becoming is lost, that is the
>> true tragedy.
>>    
>
> The problem with this explanation is that fear of death is only
> partly, if at all, attenuated by rational considerations.

Well mine is pretty attenuated - but whether it was strictly rational
considerations or just getting older I couldn't say.

> I could
> probably make my hour old backup do anything I want by holding a gun
> to his head.
>  
But would you shoot him?  ;-)

Brent
Indeed, I would personally find the idea of clones of myself that I
could run into quite disturbing, and the more like me they were, the
worse it would be.
    --- Stathis Papaioannou

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 28 Feb 2009, at 03:02, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>
> 2009/2/28 Günther Greindl <guenther.greindl@...>:
>
>> The issue that we are very reluctant to die if our backup is ten  
>> years
>> old but need not worry so much if we backed up one hour ago is simply
>> the heuristic that in one hour we don't change so much, but in ten  
>> years
>> we often change so much that we indeed become a very _different_  
>> person.
>>
>> So, what counts is change, not "objective" time.
>>
>> What we _are_ is I think more about what we (can) _become_, rather  
>> than
>> a single snapshot at time t_0. And if this becoming is lost, that  
>> is the
>> true tragedy.
>
> The problem with this explanation is that fear of death is only
> partly, if at all, attenuated by rational considerations. I could
> probably make my hour old backup do anything I want by holding a gun
> to his head.

Darwinian evolution did not prepare us to duplication and the like.
This happens all the time. Our cortex contradicts some instincts wired  
in the limbic system and in the cerebral stem.

In discussions about duplication with amnesia, it is important to  
distinguish the quasi academical or conceptual question "do we  
survive?", and the practical question "Are we happy surviving in this  
or that way". I would say "no" in practice to a doctor who proposes me  
an artificial brain and warning me on a possible amnesia, yet, if I  
have no choice, I believe that comp forces me to say that I will  
survive (yet unhappily wounded). Of course we are then lead to the  
idea that we always survive no matter what. In practice we want keep  
what we like, be it books, programs, friends, memories, sure.

Stathis, you post which I quote below was very good:

<<This shows a potential problem the psychological criterion for
personal identity. If I am facing death it is little consolation to me
if a backup was made an hour ago, since I (the presently speaking I)
will not be able to anticipate any future experiences. Only if there
exists some copy who will have a memory of my present experiences
would I not object to dying, and this would require a backup updated
every moment. In that case, I should also object to an hour of memory
loss, due to a medication like midazolam. But I don't think that
taking midazolam is tantamount to dying. Inconsistency! Either I have
to agree that taking midazolam is like dying, or I have to agree that
dying while leaving an old (how old?) backup behind does not matter.
If I agree to the latter, then I give up worrying about the thing I
don't like about dying, which is the fact that I won't be able to
anticipate any future experiences. And if I give up worrying about
that, then there isn't anything else that worries me about dying. So
if I think that taking midazolam is no big deal (which I do), to be
consistent I should also think that death is no big deal.>>

It leads to a very complex question: should we allow people to torture  
their doppelganger, for example as a ritual or sexual practice? Of  
course not without their consent, given that the golden ethical rule  
with comp is "don't do to the other what the other does not want you  
to do on him/her (except to save your soul)". But could someone makes  
the decision before the duplication? This is an advanced question  
which will make sense when we will all be virtual (with respect of the  
physical layer). Comp is consistent with a variety of answers.
Less provocative, a similar question is: do I have the right to  
reconstitute an army of "Bruno" to extinguish a nuclear energy source  
which is on fire?

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/2/28 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>:

> It leads to a very complex question: should we allow people to torture
> their doppelganger, for example as a ritual or sexual practice? Of
> course not without their consent, given that the golden ethical rule
> with comp is "don't do to the other what the other does not want you
> to do on him/her (except to save your soul)". But could someone makes
> the decision before the duplication? This is an advanced question
> which will make sense when we will all be virtual (with respect of the
> physical layer). Comp is consistent with a variety of answers.
> Less provocative, a similar question is: do I have the right to
> reconstitute an army of "Bruno" to extinguish a nuclear energy source
> which is on fire?

Assuming I were completely selfish and ruthless, I would not agree in
advance to do anything that would hurt my copy before the copy was
made, since I might end up being the copy. But after the copying this
would no longer be a consideration, and I would not hesitate to hurt
the copy or the original (depending on which one I was) no matter how
short the time since differentiation.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 01 Mar 2009, at 09:54, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>
> 2009/2/28 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>:
>
>> It leads to a very complex question: should we allow people to  
>> torture
>> their doppelganger, for example as a ritual or sexual practice? Of
>> course not without their consent, given that the golden ethical rule
>> with comp is "don't do to the other what the other does not want you
>> to do on him/her (except to save your soul)". But could someone makes
>> the decision before the duplication? This is an advanced question
>> which will make sense when we will all be virtual (with respect of  
>> the
>> physical layer). Comp is consistent with a variety of answers.
>> Less provocative, a similar question is: do I have the right to
>> reconstitute an army of "Bruno" to extinguish a nuclear energy source
>> which is on fire?
>
> Assuming I were completely selfish and ruthless, I would not agree in
> advance to do anything that would hurt my copy before the copy was
> made, since I might end up being the copy. But after the copying this
> would no longer be a consideration, and I would not hesitate to hurt
> the copy or the original (depending on which one I was) no matter how
> short the time since differentiation.

All right, I understand. The question now is: are you sure it is in  
"your" interest to be that selfish. It is not a moral question: can  
you be coherent, take the full piece of botter "dead is not big deal"  
of the midazolam argument, and keep that sort of selfishness.

Do you prefer to live in a country 1 where "self-torture" is allowed  
but only when the decision is made before the duplication (and yes you  
could be the victim indeed), or in a country 2 where "self-torture" is  
allowed after the duplication. It seems to me that your midazolam-
argument (I re-quote below(*)) should in fine relativize the very  
notion of selfishness.

I think it is preferable to live in the first country: yes I could be  
the victim, but I can remember my consent. In the second type of  
country, I could even more so be the tortured one ... eventually; and  
without my consent. OK?

I guess you did see this, because of your terrible assumption:  
"Assuming I were completely selfish and ruthless, ...". The "real"  
question is: let us suppose you are not selfish ... can you sympathize  
with those who will propose some right of self-torture?

Note that in  "The prestige", the self-inflicting decision is taken  
before, by Angier. Borden had less choice, and it is as he got the  
full secret that nobody really can both remember and stay alive.  
(Here I am inconsistent or really near inconsistency, as "the  
prestige").

With comp, selfishness is not a problem. It is selfishness +  
ignorance: this mix can generate suffering.

Bruno

(*) Stathis wrote (2009/2/27):

> This shows a potential problem the psychological criterion for
> personal identity. If I am facing death it is little consolation to me
> if a backup was made an hour ago, since I (the presently speaking I)
> will not be able to anticipate any future experiences. Only if there
> exists some copy who will have a memory of my present experiences
> would I not object to dying, and this would require a backup updated
> every moment. In that case, I should also object to an hour of memory
> loss, due to a medication like midazolam. But I don't think that
> taking midazolam is tantamount to dying. Inconsistency! Either I have
> to agree that taking midazolam is like dying, or I have to agree that
> dying while leaving an old (how old?) backup behind does not matter.
> If I agree to the latter, then I give up worrying about the thing I
> don't like about dying, which is the fact that I won't be able to
> anticipate any future experiences. And if I give up worrying about
> that, then there isn't anything else that worries me about dying. So
> if I think that taking midazolam is no big deal (which I do), to be
> consistent I should also think that death is no big deal.

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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[Günther Greindl]

Stathis, Bruno,

>> It leads to a very complex question: should we allow people to torture
>> their doppelganger, for example as a ritual or sexual practice? Of
>> course not without their consent, given that the golden ethical rule
>> with comp is "don't do to the other what the other does not want you
>> to do on him/her (except to save your soul)".

You have already answered your question in the first two sentences with
the last two sentences.

>But could someone makes
>> the decision before the duplication? This is an advanced question
>> which will make sense when we will all be virtual (with respect of the
>> physical layer). Comp is consistent with a variety of answers.

In law it is usual that with personal rights, consent can be withdrawn
anytime. Why should it be different with duplicates? So, if a duplicate
withdraws consent, every prior consent is nullified.

>> Less provocative, a similar question is: do I have the right to
>> reconstitute an army of "Bruno" to extinguish a nuclear energy source
>> which is on fire?

Bruno_[n] can decide for himself if he goes on the mission or
not. It they decide not to (some or all of them), you have to cope with
an army of Brunos though. Maybe they could translate your book into
english? ;-))

> made, since I might end up being the copy. But after the copying this
> would no longer be a consideration, and I would not hesitate to hurt
> the copy or the original (depending on which one I was) no matter how
> short the time since differentiation.

That would lead to terrible consequences. You would have slaves! How
long would your willingness to hurt them last, after differentiation?
Assuming duplication technologies, these guys can stick around for very
long, so maybe after a 1000 years they are more similar to 'me in a 1000
years' than to you. Why should you have the right to hurt people like me?

In case of availability of duplication technology, there can be only one
rule, without exemption: every duplicate has the same rights as the
original (it is as the original in any sense that matters), immediately.
You have no more rights over your duplicates as I have over mine;
duplicates are not things to be owned, but persons.

(There is only one right where one should have priority over one's own
code: the decision to make duplicates in the first place.)

Cheers,
Günther


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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/3/2 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>:

> All right, I understand. The question now is: are you sure it is in
> "your" interest to be that selfish. It is not a moral question: can
> you be coherent, take the full piece of botter "dead is not big deal"
> of the midazolam argument, and keep that sort of selfishness.
>
> Do you prefer to live in a country 1 where "self-torture" is allowed
> but only when the decision is made before the duplication (and yes you
> could be the victim indeed), or in a country 2 where "self-torture" is
> allowed after the duplication. It seems to me that your midazolam-
> argument (I re-quote below(*)) should in fine relativize the very
> notion of selfishness.
>
> I think it is preferable to live in the first country: yes I could be
> the victim, but I can remember my consent. In the second type of
> country, I could even more so be the tortured one ... eventually; and
> without my consent. OK?

Living in the first country is equivalent to allowing a contract where
you agree to a gain today at the cost of suffering tomorrow, like
selling your soul to the devil.



--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[ronaldheld]

Maybe the terminology does not fit here, to make a copy of my brain,
wouldn't you need more than memories, but the state of the brain at
one time to "quantum resolution" (TNG transporter term).
                            Ronald

On Feb 23, 9:04 pm, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@...> wrote:

> 2009/2/24 Brent Meeker <meeke...@...>:
>
> > I tend to agree with Quentin that memories are an essential component of
> > personal identity.  But that also raises a problem with ideas like
> > "observer moments" and "continuity".  Almost all my memories are not
> > being remembered at an given time.  Some I may not recall for years at a
> > time.  I may significant periods of time in which I am not consciously
> > recalling any memories.  So then how can memories and continuity be
> > essential?  I practice we rely on continuity of the body and then ask,
> > "Does this body have (some) appropriate memories?"
>
> The continuity is contingent on having access to the relevant memories
> as required. If you are listening to a recording the parts where the
> music plays must be from that particular recording, but the silent
> parts could as easily be from any other recording. In the same way, if
> you are staring at a blank wall thinking of nothing for a moment, then
> during that moment you might be a generic human having such a similar
> experience.
>
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou

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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/3/2 ronaldheld <RonaldHeld@...>:
>
> Maybe the terminology does not fit here, to make a copy of my brain,
> wouldn't you need more than memories, but the state of the brain at
> one time to "quantum resolution" (TNG transporter term).

The question is what level of resolution is needed in order to copy
the memories, personality etc. You may not need quantum resolution,
since in that case it is hard to see how you could avoid drastic
mental state changes while just sitting still. Also, in which TNG
episode does it mention quantum resolution for the transporter?


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 01 Mar 2009, at 23:48, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>
> 2009/3/2 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>:
>
>> All right, I understand. The question now is: are you sure it is in
>> "your" interest to be that selfish. It is not a moral question: can
>> you be coherent, take the full piece of botter "dead is not big deal"
>> of the midazolam argument, and keep that sort of selfishness.
>>
>> Do you prefer to live in a country 1 where "self-torture" is allowed
>> but only when the decision is made before the duplication (and yes  
>> you
>> could be the victim indeed), or in a country 2 where "self-torture"  
>> is
>> allowed after the duplication. It seems to me that your midazolam-
>> argument (I re-quote below(*)) should in fine relativize the very
>> notion of selfishness.
>>
>> I think it is preferable to live in the first country: yes I could be
>> the victim, but I can remember my consent. In the second type of
>> country, I could even more so be the tortured one ... eventually; and
>> without my consent. OK?
>
> Living in the first country is equivalent to allowing a contract where
> you agree to a gain today at the cost of suffering tomorrow, like
> selling your soul to the devil.

I would say that it  is more like selling your soul to yourself, but I  
admit this could be the same, in some case. You better have to know  
yourself.

I think that comp practitioners will divide, in the long run,  along  
three classes:

A:  majority. Accept teleportation but disallow overlap of  
"individuals": annihilation first, reconstitution after. No right to  
self-infliction. In case of accidental or exceptional self-
multiplication, consent is asked at any time.
B: a stable minority (in the long run). Accept teleportation but do  
allow overlap of individuals. Some will fight for the right of self-
infliction including the consent made before the duplication, but with  
precise protocol. You know the problem of the masochist: I say no,  
continue, I say "no no", stop!
C:  the bandits. They violates protocols and don't ask for consents.  
They should normally be wanted, I mean researched by all the polices  
of the universe, or already be in jail or in asylum.

Legend for the future: the A and B people will fight with each other  
until the A people realize that only the B people can help them to  
lessen the pain inflicted by the C people. A little bit like Orpheus  
going to hell for saving the soul of his love Eurydice.

The case of the B people is an interesting case, if only because it  
shows the richness of the hardly definable notion of self-consent.
With comp you can't build a paradise without building an hell. The  
existence of B people can make hell partially controllable. I think.  
This points to harm reduction strategies in the politics of health.  
The very existence of the B people makes the C people transparently  
cowards.

A masochist has much in common with a Godelian sentence, which asserts  
their (true) unprovability or their (false but consistent) refutability.
They are quite different from the Löbian sentences which asserts  
positively their (true) provability.

The genuine pain is not in the intensity of the flame, but in the  
unfairness of the violation of the consents and protocols. Amnesia of  
consent is equivalent to no consent at all. Except for ...

Masochism could be a self-referential type of Trojan Horse concept for  
developing, as far as it is comp-possible, a mechanist theory of pain.  
And the first easy thing you can deduce are of the negative type: pain  
is not definable, pain is unavoidable (for consistent entities), but  
also pain can be limited, and this even in the transfinite.

Indulge my thinking aloud. This is not published material. Yet I did  
wrote, for myself, a long time ago a "A Refutation of Sade". Sade, in  
his own way, showed already the danger of confusing Mechanism and  
Materialism. He took Mechanism and Materialism from La Mettrie, who  
already builded the seeds of person elimination philosophies.

Best,

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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[Brent Meeker-2]

To have strict continuity you would certainly need the state, but not
at the quantum level, see Tegmark's paper.  But you could probably do
without most of the state information if you were willing to accept a
gap - as in anesthesia.

Brent


ronaldheld wrote:

> Maybe the terminology does not fit here, to make a copy of my brain,
> wouldn't you need more than memories, but the state of the brain at
> one time to "quantum resolution" (TNG transporter term).
>                             Ronald
>
> On Feb 23, 9:04 pm, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@...> wrote:
>> 2009/2/24 Brent Meeker <meeke...@...>:
>>
>>> I tend to agree with Quentin that memories are an essential component of
>>> personal identity.  But that also raises a problem with ideas like
>>> "observer moments" and "continuity".  Almost all my memories are not
>>> being remembered at an given time.  Some I may not recall for years at a
>>> time.  I may significant periods of time in which I am not consciously
>>> recalling any memories.  So then how can memories and continuity be
>>> essential?  I practice we rely on continuity of the body and then ask,
>>> "Does this body have (some) appropriate memories?"
>> The continuity is contingent on having access to the relevant memories
>> as required. If you are listening to a recording the parts where the
>> music plays must be from that particular recording, but the silent
>> parts could as easily be from any other recording. In the same way, if
>> you are staring at a blank wall thinking of nothing for a moment, then
>> during that moment you might be a generic human having such a similar
>> experience.
>>
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
> >
>

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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/3/3 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>:

> I think that comp practitioners will divide, in the long run,  along
> three classes:
>
> A:  majority. Accept teleportation but disallow overlap of
> "individuals": annihilation first, reconstitution after. No right to
> self-infliction. In case of accidental or exceptional self-
> multiplication, consent is asked at any time.
> B: a stable minority (in the long run). Accept teleportation but do
> allow overlap of individuals. Some will fight for the right of self-
> infliction including the consent made before the duplication, but with
> precise protocol. You know the problem of the masochist: I say no,
> continue, I say "no no", stop!
> C:  the bandits. They violates protocols and don't ask for consents.
> They should normally be wanted, I mean researched by all the polices
> of the universe, or already be in jail or in asylum.

I think B might work, since it is more or less like the present
situation, where our decisions are based on a rough risk-benefit
analysis, i.e. we decide on a course of action if as a result
gain*Pr(gain) >= loss*Pr(loss). So we decide to smoke, for example, if
we judge the pleasure of smoking (or the suffering caused by trying to
give it up) to outweigh the suffering that may result from
smoking-related illnesses. However, there are also differences if the
copies are allowed to overlap. If I make a decision that has an
adverse effect on my future self I may regret the decision, but it's
not possible to ask my past self to reverse it. On the other hand, if
I agree for one of my copies to torture the other it is always
possible for the victim to ask the torturer to release him. Also, it
is possible for the torturer to come to believe that he is never at
risk himself after repeated duplications: I've done this many times
and it's always the *other* guy who suffers, not me, so there is no
reason for me not to repeat the process. This would be so even if the
agreement was for 100 copies to be made and 99 of them enslaved: the
one who does the enslaving may come to believe that he is never at
risk, and continue creating copies 100 at a time.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/3/3 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>:

> I think that comp practitioners will divide, in the long run,  along
> three classes:
>
> A:  majority. Accept teleportation but disallow overlap of
> "individuals": annihilation first, reconstitution after. No right to
> self-infliction. In case of accidental or exceptional self-
> multiplication, consent is asked at any time.
> B: a stable minority (in the long run). Accept teleportation but do
> allow overlap of individuals. Some will fight for the right of self-
> infliction including the consent made before the duplication, but with
> precise protocol. You know the problem of the masochist: I say no,
> continue, I say "no no", stop!
> C:  the bandits. They violates protocols and don't ask for consents.
> They should normally be wanted, I mean researched by all the polices
> of the universe, or already be in jail or in asylum.

I think B might work, since it is more or less like the present
situation, where our decisions are based on a rough risk-benefit
analysis, i.e. we decide on a course of action if as a result
gain*Pr(gain) >= loss*Pr(loss). So we decide to smoke, for example, if
we judge the pleasure of smoking (or the suffering caused by trying to
give it up) to outweigh the suffering that may result from
smoking-related illnesses. However, there are also differences if the
copies are allowed to overlap. If I make a decision that has an
adverse effect on my future self I may regret the decision, but it's
not possible to ask my past self to reverse it. On the other hand, if
I agree for one of my copies to torture the other it is always
possible for the victim to ask the torturer to release him. Also, it
is possible for the torturer to come to believe that he is never at
risk himself after repeated duplications: I've done this many times
and it's always the *other* guy who suffers, not me, so there is no
reason for me not to repeat the process. This would be so even if the
agreement was for 100 copies to be made and 99 of them enslaved: the
one who does the enslaving may come to believe that he is never at
risk, and continue creating copies 100 at a time.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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