How about this: choose between 59 minutes of torture for you and 10 hours for the clone, vs 1 hour for you and the clone, with the experience for both you and the clone being indistinguishable for the first 59 minutes.
If you choose the 59min/10hrs, what’s going through your mind in minute 59 ? Is it “this is all about to stop, but some other poor bastard is going to have a rough 9 hours” ? Or is it “ohgodohgodohgod I hope I’m not the clone” ?
In your new formulation, I’d choose the 1 hour for both of us and we (both copies of me) would both expect it to be over soon at the 59th minute. My copies and I would be in agreement in our expectations of each other’s behavior.
I identify closely with anything sufficiently similar to me—including close past and future versions of me. For instance, if there was a copy of me made an hour ago (whether or not the copy had runtime during that hour), and he or I were given the choice during your test, we would choose the same thing, as mentioned above.
If you choose the 59min/10hrs, what’s going through your mind in minute 59 ? Is it “this is all about to stop, but some other poor bastard is going to have a rough 9 hours” ? Or is it “ohgodohgodohgod I hope I’m not the clone” ?
It’s true that both the original, and the clone, don’t know if they’re the clone or not at minute 59. But the original, who really made the decision before the clone was created, correctly optimized his own future experience to have 59 minutes of torture instead of an hour. The original doesn’t care about the clone’s experiences. (That is, I wouldn’t care.)
I changed my mind since then. So I would make different decisions now… more in line with what others here have been proposing.
I would try to optimize for all projected future clones. But in a scenario where I know some clones are going to die no matter what they do (your previous question), I would partially discount the experiences such clones have before they die and try to optimize more for the experiences of the survivor. That’s just my personal preference: the lifelong memory of the survivor matters more than the precise terminal existence of the killed clone.
Regarding your new questions about anticipation, under the new theory that has no concept of personal continuity, there doesn’t seem to be such a thing as personal survival where duplication&termination are involved.
I’d choose one hour I think.
How about this: choose between 59 minutes of torture for you and 10 hours for the clone, vs 1 hour for you and the clone, with the experience for both you and the clone being indistinguishable for the first 59 minutes.
If you choose the 59min/10hrs, what’s going through your mind in minute 59 ? Is it “this is all about to stop, but some other poor bastard is going to have a rough 9 hours” ? Or is it “ohgodohgodohgod I hope I’m not the clone” ?
I’d choose one hour also.
In your new formulation, I’d choose the 1 hour for both of us and we (both copies of me) would both expect it to be over soon at the 59th minute. My copies and I would be in agreement in our expectations of each other’s behavior.
I identify closely with anything sufficiently similar to me—including close past and future versions of me. For instance, if there was a copy of me made an hour ago (whether or not the copy had runtime during that hour), and he or I were given the choice during your test, we would choose the same thing, as mentioned above.
It’s true that both the original, and the clone, don’t know if they’re the clone or not at minute 59. But the original, who really made the decision before the clone was created, correctly optimized his own future experience to have 59 minutes of torture instead of an hour. The original doesn’t care about the clone’s experiences. (That is, I wouldn’t care.)
Sounds consistent. Forgive me if I probe a bit further: I’m not trying to be rude, I’m interested in the boundaries of your theory.
In an unconsciousness—clone—destroy original brain—wake scenario, do you anticipate surviving ?
In an unconsciousness—clone twice—destroy original brain—wake scenario, do you identify with / anticipate being zero, one or two of the clones ?
I changed my mind since then. So I would make different decisions now… more in line with what others here have been proposing.
I would try to optimize for all projected future clones. But in a scenario where I know some clones are going to die no matter what they do (your previous question), I would partially discount the experiences such clones have before they die and try to optimize more for the experiences of the survivor. That’s just my personal preference: the lifelong memory of the survivor matters more than the precise terminal existence of the killed clone.
Regarding your new questions about anticipation, under the new theory that has no concept of personal continuity, there doesn’t seem to be such a thing as personal survival where duplication&termination are involved.