It matters to you if you’re the original and then you are killed.
You are right that they are both an instance of person X but my argument is that this is not the equivalent to them being the same person in fact or even in law (whatever that means).
Also when/if this comes about I bet the law will side with me and define them as two different people in the eyes of the law. (And I’m not using this to fallaciously argue from authority, just pointing out I strongly believe I am correct—though willing to concede if there is ultimately some logical way to prove they are the same person.)
The reason is obvious. If they are the same person and one of them kills someone are both of them guilty?
If one fathers a child, is the child the offspring of both of them?
Because of this I cannot agree beyond saying that the two different people are copies of person x. Even you are prepared to concede that they are different people to each other after the mental states begin to diverge so I can’t close the logical gap why you say they are the same person and not copies of the same person one being the original. You come partway to saying they are different people. Why not come all the way?
I agree with TheOtherDave. If you imagine that we scan someone’s brain and then run one-thousand simulations of them walking around the same environment, all having exactly the same experiences, it doesn’t matter if we turn one of those simulations off. Nobody’s died. What I’m saying is that the person is the mental states, and what it means for two people to be different people is that they have different mental states.
I’m not really sure about the morality of punishing them both for the crimes of one of them, though. On one hand, the one who didn’t do it isn’t the same person as the one who did—they didn’t actually experience committing the murder or whatever. On the other hand, they’re also someone who would have done it in the same circumstances—so they’re dangerous. I don’t know.
it doesn’t matter if we turn one of those simulations off. Nobody’s died.
You are decreasing the amount of that person that exists.
Suppose the multiple words interpretation is true. Now I flip a fair quantum coin, and kill you if it comes up heads. Then in 50% of the worlds you still live, so by your reasoning, nobody has died. All that changes is the amplitude of your existence.
Suppose the multiple words interpretation is true. Now I flip a fair quantum coin, and kill you if it comes up heads. Then in 50% of the worlds you still live, so by your reasoning, nobody has died. All that changes is the amplitude of your existence.
Well, maybe. But there is a whole universe full of people who will never speak to you again and are left to grieve over your body.
You are decreasing the amount of that person that exists.
Yes, there is a measure of that person’s existence (number of perfect copies) which I’m reducing by deleting a perfect copy of that person. What I’m saying is precisely that I don’t care, because that is not a measure of people I value.
Similarly, if I gain 10 pounds, there’s a measure of my existence (mass) which I thereby increase. I don’t care, because that’s not a measure of people I value.
Neither of those statements is quite true, admittedly. For example, I care about gaining 10 pounds because of knock-on effects—health, vanity, comfort, etc. I care about gaining an identical backup because of knock-on effects—reduced risk of my total destruction, for example. Similarly, I care about gaining a million dollars, I care about gaining the ability to fly, there’s all kinds of things that I care about. But I assume that your point here is not that identical copies are valuable in some sense, but that they are valuable in some special sense, and I just don’t see it.
As far as MWI goes, yes… if you posit a version of many-worlds where the various branches are identical, then I don’t care if you delete half of those identical branches. I do care if you delete me from half of them, because that causes my loved ones in those branches to suffer… or half-suffer, if you like. Also, because the fact that those branches have suddenly become non-identical (since I’m in some and not the others) makes me question the premise that they are identical branches.
You are decreasing the amount of that person that exists.
And this “amount” is measured by the number of simulations? What if one simulation is using double the amount of atoms (e.g. by having thicker transistors), does it count twice as much? What if one simulation double checks each result, and another does not, does it count as two?
All that changes is the amplitude of your existence.
The equivalence between copies spreads across the many-worlds and identical simulations running in the same world, is yet to be proven or disproven—and I expect it won’t be proven or disproven until we have some better understanding about the hard problem of consciousness.
Can’t speak for APMason, but I say it because what matters to me is the information.
If the information is different, and the information constitutes people, then it constitutes different people. If the information is the same, then it’s the same person. If a person doesn’t contain any unique information, whether they live or die doesn’t matter nearly as much to me as if they do.
And to my mind, what the law decides to do is an unrelated issue. The law might decide to hold me accountable for the actions of my 6-month-old, but that doesn’t make us the same person. The law might decide not to hold me accountable for what I did ten years ago, but that doesn’t mean I’m a different person than I was. The law might decide to hold me accountable for what I did ten years ago, but that doesn’t mean I’m the same person I was.
“If the information is different, and the information constitutes people, then it constitutes different people.”
True and therein lies the problem. Let’s do two comparisons:
You have two copies. One the original, the other the copy.
Compare them on the macro scale (i.e. non quantum). They are identical except for position and momentum.
Now let’s compare them on the quantum scale: Even at the point where they are identical on the macro scale, they are not identical on the quantum scale. All the quantum states are different. Just the simple act of observing the states (either by scanning it or by rebuilding it) changes it and thus on the quantum scale we have two different entities even though they are identical on the macro scale except for position and momentum.
Using your argument that it’s the information content that’s important, they don’t really have any useful differences from an information content especially not on the macro scale but they have significant differences in all of their non useful quantum states. They are physically different entities.
Basically what you’re talking about is using a lossy algorithm to copy the individuals. At the level of detail you care about they are the same. At a higher level of detail they are distinct.
I’m thus uncomfortable with killing one of them and then saying the person still exists.
So, what you value is the information lost during the copy process? That is, we’ve been saying “a perfect copy,” but your concern is that no copy that actually exists could actually be a perfect copy, and the imperfect copies we could actually create aren’t good enough?
Again, just to be clear, what I’m trying to understand is what you value that I don’t. If data at these high levels of granularity is what you value, then I understand your objection. Is it?
“Again, just to be clear, what I’m trying to understand is what you value that I don’t. If data at these high levels of granularity is what you value, then I understand your objection. Is it?”
OK I’ve mulled your question over and I think I have the subtley of what you are asking down as distinct from the slight variation I answered.
Since I value my own life I want to be sure that it’s actually me that’s alive if you plan to kill me. Because we’re basically creating an additional copy really quickly and then disposing of the original I have a hard time believing that we’re doing something equivalent to a single copy walking through a gate.
I don’t believe that just the information by itself is enough to answer the question “Is it the original me?” in affirmative. And given that it’s not even all of the information (though is all of the information on the macro scale) I know for a fact we’re doing a lossy copy. The quantum states are possibly irrelevant on a macro scale for determing is (A == B) but since I knew from physics that they’re not exactly equivalent once you go down to the quantum level I just can’t buy into it though things would be murkier if the quantum states were provably identical.
Here’s what I’ve understood; let me know if I’ve misunderstood anything.
Suppose P is a person who was created and preserved in the ordinary way, with no funky hypothetical copy/delete operations involved. There is consequently something about P that you value… call that “something” X for convenience.
If P’ is a duplicate of P, then P’ does not possess X, or at least cannot be demonstrated to possess X.
This only applies to people; non-person objects either do not possess X in the first place, or if they do, it is possible in principle for a duplication process to create a duplicate that also possesses X.
X is preserved for P from one moment/day/year to the next, even though P’s information content—at a macroscopic level, let alone a quantum one—changes over time. I conclude that X does not depend on P’s information content at all, even on a macroscopic level, and all this discussion of preserving quantum states is a red herring.
By similar reasoning, I conclude that X doesn’t depend on atoms, since the atoms of which P is comprised change over time. The same is true of energy levels.
I don’t have any idea of what that X might actually be; since we’ve eliminated from consideration everything about people I’m aware of.
I’m still interested in more details about X, beyond the definitional attribute of “X is that thing P has that P’ doesn’t”, but I no longer believe I can elicit those details through further discussion.
EDIT: Yes, you did understand though I can’t personally say that I’m willing to come out and say definitively that the X is a red herring though it sounds like you are willing to do this.
I think it’s an axiomatic difference Dave.
It appears from my side of the table that you’re starting from the axiom that all that’s important is information and that originality and/or physical existence including information means nothing.
And you’re dismissing the quantum states as if they are irrelevant. They may be irrelevant but since there is some difference between the two copies below the macro scale (and the position is different and the atoms are different—though unidentifiably so other than saying that the count is 2x rather than x of atoms) then it’s impossible to dismiss the question “Am I dying when I do this?” because your are making a lossy copy even from your standpoint. The only get-out clause is to say “it’s a close enough copy because the quantum states and position are irrelevant because we can’t measure the difference between atoms in two identical copies on the macro scale other than saying we’ve now got 2X the same atoms whereas before we had 1X).
It’s exactly analogous to a bacteria budding. The original cell dies and close to an exact copy is budded off a.
If the daughter bacteria were an exact copy of the information content of the original bacteria then you’d have to say from your position that it’s the same bacteria and the original is not dead right? Or maybe you’d say that it doesn’t matter that the original died.
My response to that argument (if it were the line of reasoning you took—is it?) would be that “it matters volitionally—if the original didn’t want to die and it was forced to bud then it’s been killed).
I can’t personally say that I’m willing to come out and say definitively that the X is a red herring though it sounds like you are willing to do this.
I did not say the X is a red herring. If you believe I did, I recommend re-reading my comment.
The X is far from being a red herring; rather, the X is precisely what I was trying to elicit details about for a while. (As I said above, I no longer believe I can do so through further discussion.)
But I did say that identity of quantum states is a red herring.
As I said before, I conclude this from the fact that you believe you are the same person you were last year, even though your quantum states aren’t identical. If you believe that X can remain unchanged while Y changes, then you don’t believe that X depends on Y; if you believe that identity can remain unchanged while quantum states change, then you don’t believe that identity depends on quantum states.
To put this another way: if changes in my quantum states are equivalent to my death, then I die constantly and am constantly replaced by new people who aren’t me. This has happened many times in the course of writing this comment. If this is already happening anyway, I don’t see any particular reason to avoid having the new person appear instantaneously in my mom’s house, rather than having it appear in an airplane seat an incremental distance closer to my mom’s house.
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.
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 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.)
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.)
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.
“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.
What if you were in a situation where you had a near 100% chance of a seemingly successful destructive upload on the one hand, and a 5% chance of survival without upload on the other? Which would you pick, and how does your answer generalize as the 5% goes up or down?
Of course I would do it because it would be better than nothing. My memories would survive. But I would still be dead.
Here’s a thought experiment for you to outline the difference (whether you think it makes sense from your position whether you only value the information or not):
Let’s say you could slowly transfer a person into an upload by the following method:
You cut out a part of the brain. That part of the brain is now dead. You replace it with a new part, a silicon part (or some computational substrate) that can interface directly with the remaining neurons.
Am I dead? Yes but not all of me is and we’re now left with a hybrid being. It’s not completely me, but I’ve not yet been killed by the process and I get to continue to live and think thoughts (even though part of my thoughts are now happening inside something that isn’t me).
Gradually over a process of time (let’s say years rather than days or minutes or seconds) all of the parts of the brain are replaced.
At the end of it I’m still dead, but my memories live on. I did not survive but some part of the hybrid entity I became is alive and I got the chance to be part of that.
Now I know the position you’d take is that speeding that process up is mathematically equivalent.
It isn’t from my perspective. I’m dead instantly and I don’t get the chance to transition my existence in a meaningful way to me.
Sidetracking a little:
I suspect you were comparing your unknown quantity X to some kind of “soul”. I don’t believe in souls. I value being alive and having experiencing and being able to think. To me, dying and then being resurrected on the last day by some superbeing who has rebuilt my atoms using other atoms and then copies my information content into some kind of magical “spirit being” is exactly identical to deconstructing me—killing me—and making a copy even if I took the position that the reconstructed being on “the last day” was me. Which I don’t. As soon as I die that’s me gone, regardless of whether some superbeing reconstructs me later using the same or different atoms (if that were possible).
You’re basically asking why I should value myself over a separate in space exact copy of myself (and by exact copy we mean as close as you can get) and then superimposing another question of “isn’t it the information that’s important?”
Not exactly.
I’m concerned that I will die and I’m examining the hyptheses as to why it’s not me that dies. Best as I can come up with the response is “you will die but it doesn’t matter because there’s another identical (or close as possible) copy still around.
As to what you value that I don’t I don’t have an answer. Perhaps a way to elicit the answer would be to ask you the question of why you only value the information and not the physical object also?
I’m not asking why you should value yourself over an exact copy, I’m asking why you do. I’m asking you (over and over) what you value. Which is a different question from why you value whatever that is.
I’ve told you what I value, in this context. I don’t know why I value it, particularly… I could tell various narratives, but I’m not sure I endorse any of them.
As to what you value that I don’t I don’t have an answer.
Is that a typo? What I’ve been trying to elicit is what xxd values here that TheOtherDave doesn’t, not the other way around. But evidently I’ve failed at that… ah well.
Thanks Dave. This has been a very interesting discussion and although I think we can’t close the gap on our positions I’ve really enjoyed it.
To answer your question “what do I value”? I think I answered it already, I valued not being killed.
The difference in our positions appears to be some version “but your information is still around” and my response is “but it’s not me” and your response is “how is it not you?”
I don’t know.
“What is it I value that you don’t?” I don’t know. Maybe I consider myself to be a higher resolution copy or a less lossy copy or something. I can’t put my finger on it because when it comes down to it why do just random quantum states make a difference to me when all the macro information is the same apart from position and perhaps momentum. I don’t really have an answer for that.
It matters to you if you’re the original and then you are killed.
You are right that they are both an instance of person X but my argument is that this is not the equivalent to them being the same person in fact or even in law (whatever that means).
Also when/if this comes about I bet the law will side with me and define them as two different people in the eyes of the law. (And I’m not using this to fallaciously argue from authority, just pointing out I strongly believe I am correct—though willing to concede if there is ultimately some logical way to prove they are the same person.)
The reason is obvious. If they are the same person and one of them kills someone are both of them guilty? If one fathers a child, is the child the offspring of both of them?
Because of this I cannot agree beyond saying that the two different people are copies of person x. Even you are prepared to concede that they are different people to each other after the mental states begin to diverge so I can’t close the logical gap why you say they are the same person and not copies of the same person one being the original. You come partway to saying they are different people. Why not come all the way?
I agree with TheOtherDave. If you imagine that we scan someone’s brain and then run one-thousand simulations of them walking around the same environment, all having exactly the same experiences, it doesn’t matter if we turn one of those simulations off. Nobody’s died. What I’m saying is that the person is the mental states, and what it means for two people to be different people is that they have different mental states. I’m not really sure about the morality of punishing them both for the crimes of one of them, though. On one hand, the one who didn’t do it isn’t the same person as the one who did—they didn’t actually experience committing the murder or whatever. On the other hand, they’re also someone who would have done it in the same circumstances—so they’re dangerous. I don’t know.
You are decreasing the amount of that person that exists.
Suppose the multiple words interpretation is true. Now I flip a fair quantum coin, and kill you if it comes up heads. Then in 50% of the worlds you still live, so by your reasoning, nobody has died. All that changes is the amplitude of your existence.
Well, maybe. But there is a whole universe full of people who will never speak to you again and are left to grieve over your body.
Good point.
There is of course a difference between death and non-existence.
Yes, there is a measure of that person’s existence (number of perfect copies) which I’m reducing by deleting a perfect copy of that person. What I’m saying is precisely that I don’t care, because that is not a measure of people I value.
Similarly, if I gain 10 pounds, there’s a measure of my existence (mass) which I thereby increase. I don’t care, because that’s not a measure of people I value.
Neither of those statements is quite true, admittedly. For example, I care about gaining 10 pounds because of knock-on effects—health, vanity, comfort, etc. I care about gaining an identical backup because of knock-on effects—reduced risk of my total destruction, for example. Similarly, I care about gaining a million dollars, I care about gaining the ability to fly, there’s all kinds of things that I care about. But I assume that your point here is not that identical copies are valuable in some sense, but that they are valuable in some special sense, and I just don’t see it.
As far as MWI goes, yes… if you posit a version of many-worlds where the various branches are identical, then I don’t care if you delete half of those identical branches. I do care if you delete me from half of them, because that causes my loved ones in those branches to suffer… or half-suffer, if you like. Also, because the fact that those branches have suddenly become non-identical (since I’m in some and not the others) makes me question the premise that they are identical branches.
And this “amount” is measured by the number of simulations? What if one simulation is using double the amount of atoms (e.g. by having thicker transistors), does it count twice as much? What if one simulation double checks each result, and another does not, does it count as two?
The equivalence between copies spreads across the many-worlds and identical simulations running in the same world, is yet to be proven or disproven—and I expect it won’t be proven or disproven until we have some better understanding about the hard problem of consciousness.
Can’t speak for APMason, but I say it because what matters to me is the information.
If the information is different, and the information constitutes people, then it constitutes different people. If the information is the same, then it’s the same person. If a person doesn’t contain any unique information, whether they live or die doesn’t matter nearly as much to me as if they do.
And to my mind, what the law decides to do is an unrelated issue. The law might decide to hold me accountable for the actions of my 6-month-old, but that doesn’t make us the same person. The law might decide not to hold me accountable for what I did ten years ago, but that doesn’t mean I’m a different person than I was. The law might decide to hold me accountable for what I did ten years ago, but that doesn’t mean I’m the same person I was.
“If the information is different, and the information constitutes people, then it constitutes different people.”
True and therein lies the problem. Let’s do two comparisons: You have two copies. One the original, the other the copy.
Compare them on the macro scale (i.e. non quantum). They are identical except for position and momentum.
Now let’s compare them on the quantum scale: Even at the point where they are identical on the macro scale, they are not identical on the quantum scale. All the quantum states are different. Just the simple act of observing the states (either by scanning it or by rebuilding it) changes it and thus on the quantum scale we have two different entities even though they are identical on the macro scale except for position and momentum.
Using your argument that it’s the information content that’s important, they don’t really have any useful differences from an information content especially not on the macro scale but they have significant differences in all of their non useful quantum states. They are physically different entities.
Basically what you’re talking about is using a lossy algorithm to copy the individuals. At the level of detail you care about they are the same. At a higher level of detail they are distinct.
I’m thus uncomfortable with killing one of them and then saying the person still exists.
So, what you value is the information lost during the copy process? That is, we’ve been saying “a perfect copy,” but your concern is that no copy that actually exists could actually be a perfect copy, and the imperfect copies we could actually create aren’t good enough?
Again, just to be clear, what I’m trying to understand is what you value that I don’t. If data at these high levels of granularity is what you value, then I understand your objection. Is it?
“Again, just to be clear, what I’m trying to understand is what you value that I don’t. If data at these high levels of granularity is what you value, then I understand your objection. Is it?”
OK I’ve mulled your question over and I think I have the subtley of what you are asking down as distinct from the slight variation I answered.
Since I value my own life I want to be sure that it’s actually me that’s alive if you plan to kill me. Because we’re basically creating an additional copy really quickly and then disposing of the original I have a hard time believing that we’re doing something equivalent to a single copy walking through a gate.
I don’t believe that just the information by itself is enough to answer the question “Is it the original me?” in affirmative. And given that it’s not even all of the information (though is all of the information on the macro scale) I know for a fact we’re doing a lossy copy. The quantum states are possibly irrelevant on a macro scale for determing is (A == B) but since I knew from physics that they’re not exactly equivalent once you go down to the quantum level I just can’t buy into it though things would be murkier if the quantum states were provably identical.
Does that answer your question?
Maybe?
Here’s what I’ve understood; let me know if I’ve misunderstood anything.
Suppose P is a person who was created and preserved in the ordinary way, with no funky hypothetical copy/delete operations involved. There is consequently something about P that you value… call that “something” X for convenience.
If P’ is a duplicate of P, then P’ does not possess X, or at least cannot be demonstrated to possess X.
This only applies to people; non-person objects either do not possess X in the first place, or if they do, it is possible in principle for a duplication process to create a duplicate that also possesses X.
X is preserved for P from one moment/day/year to the next, even though P’s information content—at a macroscopic level, let alone a quantum one—changes over time. I conclude that X does not depend on P’s information content at all, even on a macroscopic level, and all this discussion of preserving quantum states is a red herring.
By similar reasoning, I conclude that X doesn’t depend on atoms, since the atoms of which P is comprised change over time. The same is true of energy levels.
I don’t have any idea of what that X might actually be; since we’ve eliminated from consideration everything about people I’m aware of.
I’m still interested in more details about X, beyond the definitional attribute of “X is that thing P has that P’ doesn’t”, but I no longer believe I can elicit those details through further discussion.
EDIT: Yes, you did understand though I can’t personally say that I’m willing to come out and say definitively that the X is a red herring though it sounds like you are willing to do this.
I think it’s an axiomatic difference Dave.
It appears from my side of the table that you’re starting from the axiom that all that’s important is information and that originality and/or physical existence including information means nothing.
And you’re dismissing the quantum states as if they are irrelevant. They may be irrelevant but since there is some difference between the two copies below the macro scale (and the position is different and the atoms are different—though unidentifiably so other than saying that the count is 2x rather than x of atoms) then it’s impossible to dismiss the question “Am I dying when I do this?” because your are making a lossy copy even from your standpoint. The only get-out clause is to say “it’s a close enough copy because the quantum states and position are irrelevant because we can’t measure the difference between atoms in two identical copies on the macro scale other than saying we’ve now got 2X the same atoms whereas before we had 1X).
It’s exactly analogous to a bacteria budding. The original cell dies and close to an exact copy is budded off a. If the daughter bacteria were an exact copy of the information content of the original bacteria then you’d have to say from your position that it’s the same bacteria and the original is not dead right? Or maybe you’d say that it doesn’t matter that the original died.
My response to that argument (if it were the line of reasoning you took—is it?) would be that “it matters volitionally—if the original didn’t want to die and it was forced to bud then it’s been killed).
I did not say the X is a red herring. If you believe I did, I recommend re-reading my comment.
The X is far from being a red herring; rather, the X is precisely what I was trying to elicit details about for a while. (As I said above, I no longer believe I can do so through further discussion.)
But I did say that identity of quantum states is a red herring.
As I said before, I conclude this from the fact that you believe you are the same person you were last year, even though your quantum states aren’t identical. If you believe that X can remain unchanged while Y changes, then you don’t believe that X depends on Y; if you believe that identity can remain unchanged while quantum states change, then you don’t believe that identity depends on quantum states.
To put this another way: if changes in my quantum states are equivalent to my death, then I die constantly and am constantly replaced by new people who aren’t me. This has happened many times in the course of writing this comment. If this is already happening anyway, I don’t see any particular reason to avoid having the new person appear instantaneously in my mom’s house, rather than having it appear in an airplane seat an incremental distance closer to my mom’s house.
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.
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 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.)
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.)
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.
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.
What if you were in a situation where you had a near 100% chance of a seemingly successful destructive upload on the one hand, and a 5% chance of survival without upload on the other? Which would you pick, and how does your answer generalize as the 5% goes up or down?
Of course I would do it because it would be better than nothing. My memories would survive. But I would still be dead.
Here’s a thought experiment for you to outline the difference (whether you think it makes sense from your position whether you only value the information or not): Let’s say you could slowly transfer a person into an upload by the following method: You cut out a part of the brain. That part of the brain is now dead. You replace it with a new part, a silicon part (or some computational substrate) that can interface directly with the remaining neurons.
Am I dead? Yes but not all of me is and we’re now left with a hybrid being. It’s not completely me, but I’ve not yet been killed by the process and I get to continue to live and think thoughts (even though part of my thoughts are now happening inside something that isn’t me).
Gradually over a process of time (let’s say years rather than days or minutes or seconds) all of the parts of the brain are replaced.
At the end of it I’m still dead, but my memories live on. I did not survive but some part of the hybrid entity I became is alive and I got the chance to be part of that.
Now I know the position you’d take is that speeding that process up is mathematically equivalent.
It isn’t from my perspective. I’m dead instantly and I don’t get the chance to transition my existence in a meaningful way to me.
Sidetracking a little: I suspect you were comparing your unknown quantity X to some kind of “soul”. I don’t believe in souls. I value being alive and having experiencing and being able to think. To me, dying and then being resurrected on the last day by some superbeing who has rebuilt my atoms using other atoms and then copies my information content into some kind of magical “spirit being” is exactly identical to deconstructing me—killing me—and making a copy even if I took the position that the reconstructed being on “the last day” was me. Which I don’t. As soon as I die that’s me gone, regardless of whether some superbeing reconstructs me later using the same or different atoms (if that were possible).
You’re basically asking why I should value myself over a separate in space exact copy of myself (and by exact copy we mean as close as you can get) and then superimposing another question of “isn’t it the information that’s important?”
Not exactly.
I’m concerned that I will die and I’m examining the hyptheses as to why it’s not me that dies. Best as I can come up with the response is “you will die but it doesn’t matter because there’s another identical (or close as possible) copy still around.
As to what you value that I don’t I don’t have an answer. Perhaps a way to elicit the answer would be to ask you the question of why you only value the information and not the physical object also?
I’m not asking why you should value yourself over an exact copy, I’m asking why you do. I’m asking you (over and over) what you value. Which is a different question from why you value whatever that is.
I’ve told you what I value, in this context. I don’t know why I value it, particularly… I could tell various narratives, but I’m not sure I endorse any of them.
Is that a typo? What I’ve been trying to elicit is what xxd values here that TheOtherDave doesn’t, not the other way around. But evidently I’ve failed at that… ah well.
Thanks Dave. This has been a very interesting discussion and although I think we can’t close the gap on our positions I’ve really enjoyed it.
To answer your question “what do I value”? I think I answered it already, I valued not being killed.
The difference in our positions appears to be some version “but your information is still around” and my response is “but it’s not me” and your response is “how is it not you?”
I don’t know.
“What is it I value that you don’t?” I don’t know. Maybe I consider myself to be a higher resolution copy or a less lossy copy or something. I can’t put my finger on it because when it comes down to it why do just random quantum states make a difference to me when all the macro information is the same apart from position and perhaps momentum. I don’t really have an answer for that.