By “selfish” I mean how each human (apparently) cares about himself more than others, which needs an explanation because there can’t be a description of himself embedded in his brain at birth.
It’s hardly a mystery: you’re only plumbed into your own nervous system , so you only feel your own pleasures and pains. That creates a tendency to be only concerned about them as well. It’s more mysterious that you would be concerned about pains you can’t feel
Yes, I gave this explanation as #1 in the list in the OP, however as I tried to explain in the rest of the post, this explanation leads to other problems (that I don’t know how to solve).
Here’s a related objection that may be easier to see as a valid objection than counterfactual mugging: Suppose you’re about to be copied, then one of the copies will be given a choice, “A) 1 unit of pleasure to me, or B) 2 units of pleasure to the other copy.” An egoist (with perception-determined utility function) before being copied would prefer that their future self/copy choose B, but if that future self/copy is an egoist (with perception-determined utility function) it would choose A instead. So before being copied, the egoist would want to self-modify to become some other kind of agent.
It’s hardly a mystery: you’re only plumbed into your own nervous system , so you only feel your own pleasures and pains. That creates a tendency to be only concerned about them as well. It’s more mysterious that you would be concerned about pains you can’t feel
Yes, I gave this explanation as #1 in the list in the OP, however as I tried to explain in the rest of the post, this explanation leads to other problems (that I don’t know how to solve).
There doesn’t seem to be a right answer to counterfactual mugging. Is it the only objection to #1?
Here’s a related objection that may be easier to see as a valid objection than counterfactual mugging: Suppose you’re about to be copied, then one of the copies will be given a choice, “A) 1 unit of pleasure to me, or B) 2 units of pleasure to the other copy.” An egoist (with perception-determined utility function) before being copied would prefer that their future self/copy choose B, but if that future self/copy is an egoist (with perception-determined utility function) it would choose A instead. So before being copied, the egoist would want to self-modify to become some other kind of agent.