“Yes, I would say that if the daughter cell is identical to the parent cell, then it doesn’t matter that the parent cell died at the instant of budding.”
OK good to know. I’ll have other questions but I need to mull it over.
“I would also say that it doesn’t matter that the vast majority of the cells comprising me twenty years ago are dead, even though the cells currently comprising me aren’t identical to the cells that comprised me then.”
I agree with this but I don’t think it supports your line of reasoning. I’ll explain why after my meeting this afternoon.
“I agree with you that if a person is perfectly duplicated and the original killed, then the original has been killed. (I would also say that the person was killed, which I think you would agree with. I would also say that the person survived, which I think you would not agree with.)”
Interesting. I have a contrary line of argument which I’ll explain this afternoon.
“I agree that volition is important for its own sake, but I don’t understand what volition has to do with what we’ve thus far been discussing. If forcing the original to bud kills the original, then it does so whether the original wants to die or not. If it doesn’t kill the original, then it doesn’t, whether the original wants to die or not. It might be valuable to respect people’s volition, but if so, it’s for some reason independent of their survival. (For example, if they want to die, then respecting their volition is opposed to their survival.)”
Disagree. Again I’ll explain why later.
“A question for you: if someone wants to stop existing, and they destructively scan themselves, am I violating their wishes if I construct a perfect duplicate from the scan? I assume your answer is “no,” since the duplicate isn’t them; they stopped existing just as they desired.”
Maybe. If you have destructively scanned them then you have killed them so they now no longer exist so that part you have complied perfectly with their wishes from my point of view. But in order to then make a copy, have you asked their permission? Have they signed a contract saying they have given you the right to make copies? Do they even own this right to make copies?
I don’t know.
What I can say is that our differences in opinion here would make a superb science fiction story.
There’s a lot of decent SF on this theme. If you haven’t read John Varley’s Eight Worlds stuff, I recommend it; he has a lot of fun with this. His short stories are better than his novels, IMHO, but harder to find. “Steel Beach” isn’t a bad place to start.
Thanks for the suggestion. Yes I already have read it (steal beach). It was OK but didn’t really touch much on our points of contention as such. In fact I’d say it steered clear from them since there wasn’t really the concept of uploads etc. Interestingly, I haven’t read anything that really examines closely whether the copied upload really is you. Anyways.
“I would also say that it doesn’t matter that the vast majority of the cells comprising me twenty years ago are dead,
even though the cells currently comprising me aren’t identical to the cells that comprised me then.”
OK I have to say that now I’ve thought it through I think this is a straw man argument that “you’re not the same as you were yesterday” used as a pretext for saying that you’re exactly the same from one moment to the next. It is missing the point entirely.
Although you are legally the same person, it’s true that you’re not exactly physically the same person today as you were yesterday and it’s also true that you have almost none of the original physical matter or cells in you today as you had when you were a child.
That this is true in no way negates the main point: human physical existence at any one point in time does
have continuity. I have some of the same cells I had up to about seven to ten years ago. I have some inert matter in me from the time I was born AND I have continual memories to a greater or lesser extent. This is directly analogous to my position that I posted before about a slow hybridizing transition to machine form before I had even clearly thought this out consciously.
Building a copy of yourself and then destroying the original has no continuity. It’s directly analgous to budding
asexually a new copy of yourself and then imprinting it with your memories and is patently not the same concept as normal human existence. Not even close.
That you and some others might dismiss the differences is fine and if you hypothetically wanted to take the position that killing yourself so that a copy of your mind state could exist indefinitely then I have no problem with that, but it’s patently not the same as the process you, I and everyone else goes through on a day to day basis. It’s a new thing. (Although it’s already been tried in nature as the asexual budding process of bacteria).
I would appreciate, however, that if that is a choice being offered to others, that it is clearly explained to them
what is happening. i.e. physical body death and a copy being resurrected, not that they themselves continue living, because they do not. Whether you consider it irrelevant is besides the point. Volition is very important, but I’ll get to that later.
“I agree with you that if a person is perfectly duplicated and the original killed, then the original has been killed. (I would also say that the person was killed, which I think you would agree with.
I would also say that the person survived, which I think you would not agree with.)”
That’s directly analogous to multi worlds interpretation of quantum physics which has multiple timelines.
You could argue from that perspective that death is irrelevant because in an infintude of possibilities
if one of your instances die then you go on existing.
Fine, but it’s not me. I’m mortal and always will be even if some virtual copy of me might not be.
So you guessed correctly, unless we’re using some different definition of “person” (which is likely I think)
then the person did not survive.
“I agree that volition is important for its own sake, but I don’t understand what volition has to do with what we’ve thus far been discussing. If forcing the original to bud kills the original, then it does so whether the original wants to die or not. If it doesn’t kill the original, then it doesn’t, whether the original wants to die or not.
It might be valuable to respect people’s volition, but if so, it’s for some reason independent of their survival.
(For example, if they want to die, then respecting their volition is opposed to their survival.)”
Volition has everything to do with it.
While it’s true that volition is independent of whether they have died or not (agreed),
the reason it’s important is that some people will likely take your position to justify forced
destructive scanning at some point because it’s “less wasteful of resources” or some other pretext.
It’s also particularly important in the case of an AI over which humanity would have no control.
If the AI decides that uploads via destructive scanning are exactly the same thing as the original, and it needs the space for it’s purposes then there is nothing to stop it from just going ahead unless volition is considered to be important.
Here’s a question for you: Do you have a problem with involuntary forced destructive scanning in order to upload individuals into some other substrate (or even a copied clone)?
So here’s a scenario for you given that you think information is the only important thing:
Do you consider a person who has lost much of their memory to be the same person?
What if such a person (who has lost much of their memory) then has a backed up copy of their memories from six months ago imprinted over top. Did they just die? What if it’s someone else’s memories: did they just die?
Here’s yet another scenario. I wonder if you have though about this one:
Scan a person destructively (with their permission).
Keep their scan in storage on some static substrate. Then grow a perfectly identical clone of
them (using “identical” to mean functionally indentical because we can’t get exactly identical as discussed before). Copy the contents of the mindstates into that clone.
Ask yourself this question: How many deaths have taken place here?
I agree that there is physical continuity from moment to moment in typical human existence, and that there is similar continuity with a slow transition to a nonhuman form. I agree that there is no such continuity with an instantaneous copy-and-destroy operation.
I understand that you consider that difference uniquely important, such that I continue living in the first case, and I don’t continue living in the second case.
I infer that you believe in some uniquely important attribute to my self that is preserved by the first process, and not preserved by the second process.
I agree that if a person is being offered a choice, it is important for that person to understand the choice. I’m perfectly content to describe the choice as between the death of one body and the creation of another, on the one hand, and the continued survival of a single body, on the other. I’m perfectly content not to describe the latter process as the continuation of an existing life.
I endorse individuals getting to make informed choices about their continued life, and their continued existence as people, and the parameters of that existence. I endorse respecting both their stated wishes, and (insofar as possible) their volition, and I acknowledge that these can conflict given imperfect information about the world.
Do you have a problem with involuntary forced destructive scanning in order to upload individuals into some other substrate (or even a copied clone)?
Yes. As I say, I endorse respecting individuals’ stated wishes, and I endorse them getting to make informed choices about their continued existence and the parameters of that existence; involuntary destructive scanning interferes with those things. (So does denying people access to destructive scanning.)
Do you consider a person who has lost much of their memory to be the same person?
It depends on what ‘much of’ means. If my body continues to live, but my memories and patterns of interaction cease to exist, I have ceased to exist and I’ve left a living body behind. Partial destruction of those memories and patterns is trickier, though; at some point I cease to exist, but it’s hard to say where that point is.
What if such a person (who has lost much of their memory) then has a backed up copy of their memories from six months ago imprinted over top?
I am content to say I’m the same person now that I was six months ago, so if I am replaced by a backed-up copy of myself from six months ago, I’m content to say that the same person continues to exist (though I have lost potentially valuable experience). That said, I don’t think there’s any real fact of the matter here; it’s not wrong to say that I’m a different person than I was six months ago and that replacing me with my six-month-old memories involves destroying a person.
What if it’s someone else’s memories: did they just die?
If I am replaced by a different person’s memories and patterns of interaction, I cease to exist.
Scan a person destructively (with their permission). Keep their scan in storage on some static substrate. Then grow a perfectly identical clone of them (using “identical” to mean functionally indentical because we can’t get exactly identical as discussed before). Copy the contents of the mindstates into that clone. How many deaths have taken place here?
Several trillion: each cell in my current body died. I continue to exist. If my clone ever existed, then it has ceased to exist.
Incidentally, I think you’re being a lot more adversarial here than this discussion actually calls for.
Very Good response. I can’t think of anything to disagree with and I don’t think I have anything more to add to the discussion.
My apologies if you read anything adversarial into my message. My intention was to be pointed in my line of questioning but you responded admirably without evading any questions.
Other stuff:
“Yes, I would say that if the daughter cell is identical to the parent cell, then it doesn’t matter that the parent cell died at the instant of budding.”
OK good to know. I’ll have other questions but I need to mull it over.
“I would also say that it doesn’t matter that the vast majority of the cells comprising me twenty years ago are dead, even though the cells currently comprising me aren’t identical to the cells that comprised me then.” I agree with this but I don’t think it supports your line of reasoning. I’ll explain why after my meeting this afternoon.
“I agree with you that if a person is perfectly duplicated and the original killed, then the original has been killed. (I would also say that the person was killed, which I think you would agree with. I would also say that the person survived, which I think you would not agree with.)” Interesting. I have a contrary line of argument which I’ll explain this afternoon.
“I agree that volition is important for its own sake, but I don’t understand what volition has to do with what we’ve thus far been discussing. If forcing the original to bud kills the original, then it does so whether the original wants to die or not. If it doesn’t kill the original, then it doesn’t, whether the original wants to die or not. It might be valuable to respect people’s volition, but if so, it’s for some reason independent of their survival. (For example, if they want to die, then respecting their volition is opposed to their survival.)” Disagree. Again I’ll explain why later.
“A question for you: if someone wants to stop existing, and they destructively scan themselves, am I violating their wishes if I construct a perfect duplicate from the scan? I assume your answer is “no,” since the duplicate isn’t them; they stopped existing just as they desired.” Maybe. If you have destructively scanned them then you have killed them so they now no longer exist so that part you have complied perfectly with their wishes from my point of view. But in order to then make a copy, have you asked their permission? Have they signed a contract saying they have given you the right to make copies? Do they even own this right to make copies? I don’t know.
What I can say is that our differences in opinion here would make a superb science fiction story.
There’s a lot of decent SF on this theme. If you haven’t read John Varley’s Eight Worlds stuff, I recommend it; he has a lot of fun with this. His short stories are better than his novels, IMHO, but harder to find. “Steel Beach” isn’t a bad place to start.
Thanks for the suggestion. Yes I already have read it (steal beach). It was OK but didn’t really touch much on our points of contention as such. In fact I’d say it steered clear from them since there wasn’t really the concept of uploads etc. Interestingly, I haven’t read anything that really examines closely whether the copied upload really is you. Anyways.
“I would also say that it doesn’t matter that the vast majority of the cells comprising me twenty years ago are dead, even though the cells currently comprising me aren’t identical to the cells that comprised me then.”
OK I have to say that now I’ve thought it through I think this is a straw man argument that “you’re not the same as you were yesterday” used as a pretext for saying that you’re exactly the same from one moment to the next. It is missing the point entirely.
Although you are legally the same person, it’s true that you’re not exactly physically the same person today as you were yesterday and it’s also true that you have almost none of the original physical matter or cells in you today as you had when you were a child.
That this is true in no way negates the main point: human physical existence at any one point in time does have continuity. I have some of the same cells I had up to about seven to ten years ago. I have some inert matter in me from the time I was born AND I have continual memories to a greater or lesser extent. This is directly analogous to my position that I posted before about a slow hybridizing transition to machine form before I had even clearly thought this out consciously.
Building a copy of yourself and then destroying the original has no continuity. It’s directly analgous to budding asexually a new copy of yourself and then imprinting it with your memories and is patently not the same concept as normal human existence. Not even close.
That you and some others might dismiss the differences is fine and if you hypothetically wanted to take the position that killing yourself so that a copy of your mind state could exist indefinitely then I have no problem with that, but it’s patently not the same as the process you, I and everyone else goes through on a day to day basis. It’s a new thing. (Although it’s already been tried in nature as the asexual budding process of bacteria).
I would appreciate, however, that if that is a choice being offered to others, that it is clearly explained to them what is happening. i.e. physical body death and a copy being resurrected, not that they themselves continue living, because they do not. Whether you consider it irrelevant is besides the point. Volition is very important, but I’ll get to that later.
“I agree with you that if a person is perfectly duplicated and the original killed, then the original has been killed. (I would also say that the person was killed, which I think you would agree with. I would also say that the person survived, which I think you would not agree with.)”
That’s directly analogous to multi worlds interpretation of quantum physics which has multiple timelines. You could argue from that perspective that death is irrelevant because in an infintude of possibilities if one of your instances die then you go on existing. Fine, but it’s not me. I’m mortal and always will be even if some virtual copy of me might not be. So you guessed correctly, unless we’re using some different definition of “person” (which is likely I think) then the person did not survive.
“I agree that volition is important for its own sake, but I don’t understand what volition has to do with what we’ve thus far been discussing. If forcing the original to bud kills the original, then it does so whether the original wants to die or not. If it doesn’t kill the original, then it doesn’t, whether the original wants to die or not. It might be valuable to respect people’s volition, but if so, it’s for some reason independent of their survival. (For example, if they want to die, then respecting their volition is opposed to their survival.)”
Volition has everything to do with it. While it’s true that volition is independent of whether they have died or not (agreed), the reason it’s important is that some people will likely take your position to justify forced destructive scanning at some point because it’s “less wasteful of resources” or some other pretext.
It’s also particularly important in the case of an AI over which humanity would have no control. If the AI decides that uploads via destructive scanning are exactly the same thing as the original, and it needs the space for it’s purposes then there is nothing to stop it from just going ahead unless volition is considered to be important.
Here’s a question for you: Do you have a problem with involuntary forced destructive scanning in order to upload individuals into some other substrate (or even a copied clone)?
So here’s a scenario for you given that you think information is the only important thing: Do you consider a person who has lost much of their memory to be the same person? What if such a person (who has lost much of their memory) then has a backed up copy of their memories from six months ago imprinted over top. Did they just die? What if it’s someone else’s memories: did they just die?
Here’s yet another scenario. I wonder if you have though about this one: Scan a person destructively (with their permission). Keep their scan in storage on some static substrate. Then grow a perfectly identical clone of them (using “identical” to mean functionally indentical because we can’t get exactly identical as discussed before). Copy the contents of the mindstates into that clone.
Ask yourself this question: How many deaths have taken place here?
I agree that there is physical continuity from moment to moment in typical human existence, and that there is similar continuity with a slow transition to a nonhuman form. I agree that there is no such continuity with an instantaneous copy-and-destroy operation.
I understand that you consider that difference uniquely important, such that I continue living in the first case, and I don’t continue living in the second case.
I infer that you believe in some uniquely important attribute to my self that is preserved by the first process, and not preserved by the second process.
I agree that if a person is being offered a choice, it is important for that person to understand the choice. I’m perfectly content to describe the choice as between the death of one body and the creation of another, on the one hand, and the continued survival of a single body, on the other. I’m perfectly content not to describe the latter process as the continuation of an existing life.
I endorse individuals getting to make informed choices about their continued life, and their continued existence as people, and the parameters of that existence. I endorse respecting both their stated wishes, and (insofar as possible) their volition, and I acknowledge that these can conflict given imperfect information about the world.
Yes. As I say, I endorse respecting individuals’ stated wishes, and I endorse them getting to make informed choices about their continued existence and the parameters of that existence; involuntary destructive scanning interferes with those things. (So does denying people access to destructive scanning.)
It depends on what ‘much of’ means. If my body continues to live, but my memories and patterns of interaction cease to exist, I have ceased to exist and I’ve left a living body behind. Partial destruction of those memories and patterns is trickier, though; at some point I cease to exist, but it’s hard to say where that point is.
I am content to say I’m the same person now that I was six months ago, so if I am replaced by a backed-up copy of myself from six months ago, I’m content to say that the same person continues to exist (though I have lost potentially valuable experience). That said, I don’t think there’s any real fact of the matter here; it’s not wrong to say that I’m a different person than I was six months ago and that replacing me with my six-month-old memories involves destroying a person.
If I am replaced by a different person’s memories and patterns of interaction, I cease to exist.
Several trillion: each cell in my current body died. I continue to exist. If my clone ever existed, then it has ceased to exist.
Incidentally, I think you’re being a lot more adversarial here than this discussion actually calls for.
Very Good response. I can’t think of anything to disagree with and I don’t think I have anything more to add to the discussion.
My apologies if you read anything adversarial into my message. My intention was to be pointed in my line of questioning but you responded admirably without evading any questions.
Thanks for the discussion.