On the one hand, I do expect a society after a positive Singularity to be interested in, say, reconstructing Feynman from the evidence he left, and of course the result would be indistinguishable from the original recipe to anyone who knew him or knew his writings, etc. It goes without saying that I expect this to be awesome, and look forward to talking with reconstructed historical figures as if they were the originals.
However, I do suspect that there’s a deep structure to an individual human’s experience and thinking which might be essential to the continuation of subjective experience, and which might be underspecified by the records left by a dead person. Thus the most probable reconstruction may not be a continuation of the original person’s experience. And I think I have a much stronger preference for “seeing the future myself” than “having someone very like me see the future”.
To make this concrete, let’s say that we had access to both a nondestructive brain scanner and to a superintelligence capable of doing such reconstructions, and that I’ll either be scanned and uploaded, or else a reconstruction of me from my writings (and other relevant data of the sort accessible today, leading up to the point of entering the chamber) will be uploaded. In the first case, upon walking into the chamber I’d anticipate a 50% chance of suddenly finding myself an upload. In the second case, I’d expect a much smaller chance of that being the case.
I know that we don’t have the relevant data yet on the variance between human mind-states, but given this uncertainty, I find I’d much prefer cryonics to reconstruction.
I agree, provided “the future myself” is understood as a particular concept describing the structure of the future, and not magical carrier of subjective experience. The terminology of continuation of subjective experience can be decoded through this concept, whenever its instance is found in the environment, but the terminological connection starts to break down when it’s not, for example when there are multiple copies. Such cases reveal the problems with subjective experience ontology, its limited applicability.
It’s really interesting to read an argument that uses subjective experience terminology, through this lens. For example, take this phrase:
Thus the most probable reconstruction may not be a continuation of the original person’s experience. And I think I have a much stronger preference for “seeing the future myself” than “having someone very like me see the future”.
This translates thusly: “The most probable reconstruction may not have the property of having the structure of “original person”. And I have a much stronger preference for the future containing “future myself” than for the future containing “someone very like me but still significantly different”″.
On the one hand, I do expect a society after a positive Singularity to be interested in, say, reconstructing Feynman from the evidence he left, and of course the result would be indistinguishable from the original recipe to anyone who knew him or knew his writings, etc. It goes without saying that I expect this to be awesome, and look forward to talking with reconstructed historical figures as if they were the originals.
However, I do suspect that there’s a deep structure to an individual human’s experience and thinking which might be essential to the continuation of subjective experience, and which might be underspecified by the records left by a dead person. Thus the most probable reconstruction may not be a continuation of the original person’s experience. And I think I have a much stronger preference for “seeing the future myself” than “having someone very like me see the future”.
To make this concrete, let’s say that we had access to both a nondestructive brain scanner and to a superintelligence capable of doing such reconstructions, and that I’ll either be scanned and uploaded, or else a reconstruction of me from my writings (and other relevant data of the sort accessible today, leading up to the point of entering the chamber) will be uploaded. In the first case, upon walking into the chamber I’d anticipate a 50% chance of suddenly finding myself an upload. In the second case, I’d expect a much smaller chance of that being the case.
I know that we don’t have the relevant data yet on the variance between human mind-states, but given this uncertainty, I find I’d much prefer cryonics to reconstruction.
I agree, provided “the future myself” is understood as a particular concept describing the structure of the future, and not magical carrier of subjective experience. The terminology of continuation of subjective experience can be decoded through this concept, whenever its instance is found in the environment, but the terminological connection starts to break down when it’s not, for example when there are multiple copies. Such cases reveal the problems with subjective experience ontology, its limited applicability.
It’s really interesting to read an argument that uses subjective experience terminology, through this lens. For example, take this phrase:
This translates thusly: “The most probable reconstruction may not have the property of having the structure of “original person”. And I have a much stronger preference for the future containing “future myself” than for the future containing “someone very like me but still significantly different”″.
I agree with your expansion of the concept.