I think this is an important question that is all too easy to gloss over. I for one don’t care all that much about myself at 90, especially if I try to put away biases and actually imagine what I will be like at 90 (assuming life extension/uploading fail). Maybe I care a little more about her than I did about my grandparents, and maybe a little less even, since the idea of me being 90 is revolting, and I admittedly don’t do a lot of things that would preserve my health over such a long period of time at the cost of pleasure to my current self, and no I haven’t done an expected utility calculation involving the imminence of uploading.
Also, the first time I was seriously informed about uploading, I was told that the digital copy of myself could quickly evolve since it wouldn’t be shackled by the slowness of neurons, and that it would rapidly become unrecognizable as it correlated its own contents and repaired inconsistencies and set off to fulfill its ultimate utility function.
My reaction was, “Such an abomination must not be! Surely the extreme conclusions of my presently disjoint and unconscious preferences will be something that present me will find horrid. How disgusting to have a perversion of one’s own self ‘evolve’ in a box moments after uploading… Why should present Laura give a damn about boxed Laura if she’s so amazingly completely different?” I have since softened this reaction in light of other reflections and other ideas of uploading, but I still don’t have a great answer to this basic question.
I think this is an important question that is all too easy to gloss over. I for one don’t care all that much about myself at 90, especially if I try to put away biases and actually imagine what I will be like at 90 (assuming life extension/uploading fail). Maybe I care a little more about her than I did about my grandparents, and maybe a little less even, since the idea of me being 90 is revolting, and I admittedly don’t do a lot of things that would preserve my health over such a long period of time at the cost of pleasure to my current self, and no I haven’t done an expected utility calculation involving the imminence of uploading.
Also, the first time I was seriously informed about uploading, I was told that the digital copy of myself could quickly evolve since it wouldn’t be shackled by the slowness of neurons, and that it would rapidly become unrecognizable as it correlated its own contents and repaired inconsistencies and set off to fulfill its ultimate utility function.
My reaction was, “Such an abomination must not be! Surely the extreme conclusions of my presently disjoint and unconscious preferences will be something that present me will find horrid. How disgusting to have a perversion of one’s own self ‘evolve’ in a box moments after uploading… Why should present Laura give a damn about boxed Laura if she’s so amazingly completely different?” I have since softened this reaction in light of other reflections and other ideas of uploading, but I still don’t have a great answer to this basic question.