I wasn’t involved in the editing process, so I don’t know if you address this in future chapters, but it seems as though most people who are commenting on Equestria Daily are rejecting the concept of uploading because it would be “like dying” (similar to the Star Trek transporter thought experiment). I hope that this fear is addressed comprehensively because it seems like a major deterrence for people who would otherwise be supportive of the idea.
Also, I think that the people who “know how the story ends” because they’ve read about robot apocalypse analogues before are entirely missing the point, and I hope that gets expressed in the story somewhere as well.
And (as a history and archiving dork), I hope that people don’t forget what came before the utopia. To lose that much human history would be devastating for me. Although I’m not sure if it goes against Celestia’s programming—people could know about the time before ponies and still have their values maximized through friendship and ponies.
(I haven’t submitted it to EQD, though I plan to once I’ve posted all the chapters. I’m going to assume you mean FIMFiction.)
It’s a bit frustrating because, to me, this came out of nowhere. The idea that “it wouldn’t be you” isn’t something I thought would be a problem, probably because I believe the exact opposite and assumed everyone else would. After reading so much LW, materialism and a computational theory of mind are just background assumptions.
So: ooops.
I started out thinking about making an edit to Lars and Celestia’s conversation where he’s asking if it’s legal to destroy a human body, but after discussing it with a few people, I decided against it. If I simply have Celestia say that it isn’t murder, that it’s obviously not a clone and is the same individual, I don’t think that’s going to convince anyone. Especially since it’d be a bad idea to put the audience’s complaints on Lars, who isn’t supposed to be sympathized with. I don’t really think there’s much I can do here.
The idea that “it wouldn’t be you” isn’t something I thought would be a problem
It probably doesn’t help that Celestia implies “it wouldn’t be you” when explaining why Hanna uploaded. If the shut-down authority was tied to her biological body, then Celestia fails to say so, and talks instead about identity. If it was tied to her name, then conflating that with the uploading is misleading. If the point of uploading was to protect her against coercion, then that would be sufficient even without any change in authority, and “Hanna no longer exists” / “Now that she is not Hanna” are misleading. Either way, I endorse the pattern theory of identity, but I don’t see any plausible way to interpret that exchange in support of it.
He’s right, you know? That “Hanna is dead” line is kind of counter-productive. Did you really need to have Celestia act like such a dick to keep conflict and ambiguity?
I wasn’t involved in the editing process, so I don’t know if you address this in future chapters, but it seems as though most people who are commenting on Equestria Daily are rejecting the concept of uploading because it would be “like dying” (similar to the Star Trek transporter thought experiment). I hope that this fear is addressed comprehensively because it seems like a major deterrence for people who would otherwise be supportive of the idea.
Also, I think that the people who “know how the story ends” because they’ve read about robot apocalypse analogues before are entirely missing the point, and I hope that gets expressed in the story somewhere as well.
And (as a history and archiving dork), I hope that people don’t forget what came before the utopia. To lose that much human history would be devastating for me. Although I’m not sure if it goes against Celestia’s programming—people could know about the time before ponies and still have their values maximized through friendship and ponies.
(I haven’t submitted it to EQD, though I plan to once I’ve posted all the chapters. I’m going to assume you mean FIMFiction.)
It’s a bit frustrating because, to me, this came out of nowhere. The idea that “it wouldn’t be you” isn’t something I thought would be a problem, probably because I believe the exact opposite and assumed everyone else would. After reading so much LW, materialism and a computational theory of mind are just background assumptions.
So: ooops.
I started out thinking about making an edit to Lars and Celestia’s conversation where he’s asking if it’s legal to destroy a human body, but after discussing it with a few people, I decided against it. If I simply have Celestia say that it isn’t murder, that it’s obviously not a clone and is the same individual, I don’t think that’s going to convince anyone. Especially since it’d be a bad idea to put the audience’s complaints on Lars, who isn’t supposed to be sympathized with. I don’t really think there’s much I can do here.
It probably doesn’t help that Celestia implies “it wouldn’t be you” when explaining why Hanna uploaded. If the shut-down authority was tied to her biological body, then Celestia fails to say so, and talks instead about identity. If it was tied to her name, then conflating that with the uploading is misleading. If the point of uploading was to protect her against coercion, then that would be sufficient even without any change in authority, and “Hanna no longer exists” / “Now that she is not Hanna” are misleading. Either way, I endorse the pattern theory of identity, but I don’t see any plausible way to interpret that exchange in support of it.
He’s right, you know? That “Hanna is dead” line is kind of counter-productive. Did you really need to have Celestia act like such a dick to keep conflict and ambiguity?
Possibly have Celestia tell him the Japanese government has legislated that its not murder?