Wow, a lot of assumptions without much justification
Let’s assume computationalism and the feasibility of brain scanning and mind upload. And let’s suppose one is a person with a large compute budget.
Already well into fiction.
But one is not both. This means that when one is creating a copy one can treat it as a gamble: there’s a 50% chance they find themselves in each of the continuations.
There’s a 100% chance that each of the continuations will find themselves to be … themselves. Do you have a mechanism to designate one as the “true” copy? I don’t.
What matters to one is then the average quality of one’s continuations.
Disagree, but I’m not sure that my preference (some aggregation function with declining marginal impact) is any more justifiable. It’s no less.
Before even a small fraction of one’s life has played out, one’s copy will bear no relation to oneself. To spend one’s compute on this person, effectively a stranger, is just altruism. One would be better off donating the compute to ASI.
Huh? This supposes that one of them “really” is you, not the actual truth that they all are equal continuations of you. Once they diverge, they’re still closer to twin siblings to each other, and there is no fact that would elevate one as primary.
There’s a 100% chance that each of the continuations will find themselves to be … themselves. Do you have a mechanism to designate one as the “true” copy? I don’t.
Do you think that as each psychological continuations plays out, they’ll remain identical to one another? Surely not. They will diverge. So although each is itself, each is a psychological stream distinct from the other, originating at the point of brain scanning. Which psychological stream one-at-the-moment-of-brain-scan ends up in is a matter of chance. As you say, they are all equally “true” copies, yet they are separate. So, which stream one ends up in is a matter of chance or, as I said in the original post, a gamble.
Disagree, but I’m not sure that my preference (some aggregation function with declining marginal impact) is any more justifiable. It’s no less.
Think of it like this: if one had one continuation in which one lived a perfect life, one would be guaranteed to live that perfect life. But if one had 10 copies in which one lived a perfect life, one does benefit at all. It’s the average that matters.
Huh? This supposes that one of them “really” is you, not the actual truth that they all are equal continuations of you. Once they diverge, they’re still closer to twin siblings to each other, and there is no fact that would elevate one as primary.
But one is deciding how to use one’s compute at time t (before any copies are made). Ones at time t is under no obligation to spend one’s compute on someone almost entirely unrelated to one just because that person is perhaps still technically oneself. The “once they diverge” statement is beside the point—the decision is made prior to the divergence.
Wow, a lot of assumptions without much justification
I go into more detail in a post on my Substack (although it’s perhaps a lot less readable, and I still work from similar assumptions, and one would be best to read the first post in the series first).
Do you think that as each psychological continuations plays out, they’ll remain identical to one another?
They’ll differ from one another, and differ from their past singleton self. Much like future-you differs from present-you. Which one to privilege for what purposes, though, is completely arbitrary and not based on anything.
Which psychological stream one-at-the-moment-of-brain-scan ends up in is a matter of chance.
I think this is a crux. It’s not a matter of chance, it’s all of them. They each have qualia. They each have continuity back to the pre-upload self. They each have different continuity, but all of them have equally valid continuities.
Think of it like this: if one had one continuation in which one lived a perfect life, one would be guaranteed to live that perfect life. But if one had 10 copies in which one lived a perfect life, one does benefit at all. It’s the average that matters.
Sure, just like if a parent has one child or 10 children, they have identical expectations.
I think we’re unlikely to converge here—our models seem too distant from each other to bridge. Thanks for the post, though!
Wow, a lot of assumptions without much justification
Already well into fiction.
There’s a 100% chance that each of the continuations will find themselves to be … themselves. Do you have a mechanism to designate one as the “true” copy? I don’t.
Disagree, but I’m not sure that my preference (some aggregation function with declining marginal impact) is any more justifiable. It’s no less.
Huh? This supposes that one of them “really” is you, not the actual truth that they all are equal continuations of you. Once they diverge, they’re still closer to twin siblings to each other, and there is no fact that would elevate one as primary.
Do you think that as each psychological continuations plays out, they’ll remain identical to one another? Surely not. They will diverge. So although each is itself, each is a psychological stream distinct from the other, originating at the point of brain scanning. Which psychological stream one-at-the-moment-of-brain-scan ends up in is a matter of chance. As you say, they are all equally “true” copies, yet they are separate. So, which stream one ends up in is a matter of chance or, as I said in the original post, a gamble.
Think of it like this: if one had one continuation in which one lived a perfect life, one would be guaranteed to live that perfect life. But if one had 10 copies in which one lived a perfect life, one does benefit at all. It’s the average that matters.
But one is deciding how to use one’s compute at time t (before any copies are made). Ones at time t is under no obligation to spend one’s compute on someone almost entirely unrelated to one just because that person is perhaps still technically oneself. The “once they diverge” statement is beside the point—the decision is made prior to the divergence.
I go into more detail in a post on my Substack (although it’s perhaps a lot less readable, and I still work from similar assumptions, and one would be best to read the first post in the series first).
They’ll differ from one another, and differ from their past singleton self. Much like future-you differs from present-you. Which one to privilege for what purposes, though, is completely arbitrary and not based on anything.
I think this is a crux. It’s not a matter of chance, it’s all of them. They each have qualia. They each have continuity back to the pre-upload self. They each have different continuity, but all of them have equally valid continuities.
Sure, just like if a parent has one child or 10 children, they have identical expectations.
I think we’re unlikely to converge here—our models seem too distant from each other to bridge. Thanks for the post, though!