The analogy breaks down when you consider that a married couple can define property rights in case of a divorce (and create a legally binding contract) before even marrying, and in fact, can divorce. Whereas the relationship between copies of a person exists for the entire duration of their coexistence.
It seems unfair to preallocate property among otherwise identical copies of a person, but it’s certainly physically possible—and I can’t think of any reason why we’d want to prevent copies from negotiating their own ownership of property once their state vectors have diverged. Seems like a reasonable analogy to the economic side of divorce.
That is, I’d support a pair of copies legally filing for the equivalent of divorce. And just as with divorce, the couple needs to work out a division of assets at that point, perhaps with the “assistance” of a court of law, or a professional arbitrator.
Of course, if they signed a pre-duplication contract, that’s fine too, just as with divorcing couples today.
Incidentally, as a matter of law I’d expect a pre-duplication contract to be binding on both parties X and Y if and only if the law recognizes both X and Y as the original. If copy X is not the original, legally speaking, then copy X was not a signatory to that contract and is not bound by it.
The analogy breaks down when you consider that a married couple can define property rights in case of a divorce (and create a legally binding contract) before even marrying, and in fact, can divorce. Whereas the relationship between copies of a person exists for the entire duration of their coexistence.
It seems unfair to preallocate property among otherwise identical copies of a person, but it’s certainly physically possible—and I can’t think of any reason why we’d want to prevent copies from negotiating their own ownership of property once their state vectors have diverged. Seems like a reasonable analogy to the economic side of divorce.
This is a pretty science-fictional aside, though.
The legal relationship needn’t last forever.
That is, I’d support a pair of copies legally filing for the equivalent of divorce. And just as with divorce, the couple needs to work out a division of assets at that point, perhaps with the “assistance” of a court of law, or a professional arbitrator.
Of course, if they signed a pre-duplication contract, that’s fine too, just as with divorcing couples today.
Incidentally, as a matter of law I’d expect a pre-duplication contract to be binding on both parties X and Y if and only if the law recognizes both X and Y as the original. If copy X is not the original, legally speaking, then copy X was not a signatory to that contract and is not bound by it.