My first instinct is that I would take C over D, on the grounds that if I think they’re dead, I’ll eventually be able to move on, whereas vague but somehow persuasive reports that they’re alive and well but out of my reach would constitute a slow and inescapable form of torture that I’m altogether too familiar with already. Besides, until the amnesia sets in I’d be happy for them.
Complications? Well, there’s more than just warm fuzzies I get from being near these people. I’ve got plans, and honorable obligations which would cost me utility to violate. But, dammit, permanent separation means breaking those promises—for real and in my own mind—no matter which option I take, so that changes nothing. Further efforts to extract the intended distinction are equally fruitless.
I don’t think I would wirehead, since that would de-instantiate my current utility function just as surely as death would. On the contrary, I scrupulously avoid mind-altering drugs, including painkillers, unless the alternative is incapacitation.
Think about it this way: if my utility function isn’t instantiated at any given time, why should it be given special treatment over any other possible but nonexistent utility function? Should the (slightly different) utility function I had a year ago be able to dictate my actions today, beyond the degree to which it influenced my environment and ongoing personal development?
If something was hidden from me, even something big (like being trapped in a virtual world), and hidden so thoroughly that I never suspected it enough for the suspicion to alter my actions in any measurable way, I wouldn’t care, because there would be no me which knew well enough to be able to care. Ideally, yes, the me that can see such hypotheticals from outside would prefer a map to match the territory, but at some point that meta-desire has to give way to practical concerns.
My first instinct is that I would take C over D, on the grounds that if I think they’re dead, I’ll eventually be able to move on, whereas vague but somehow persuasive reports that they’re alive and well but out of my reach would constitute a slow and inescapable form of torture that I’m altogether too familiar with already. Besides, until the amnesia sets in I’d be happy for them.
Complications? Well, there’s more than just warm fuzzies I get from being near these people. I’ve got plans, and honorable obligations which would cost me utility to violate. But, dammit, permanent separation means breaking those promises—for real and in my own mind—no matter which option I take, so that changes nothing. Further efforts to extract the intended distinction are equally fruitless.
I don’t think I would wirehead, since that would de-instantiate my current utility function just as surely as death would. On the contrary, I scrupulously avoid mind-altering drugs, including painkillers, unless the alternative is incapacitation.
Think about it this way: if my utility function isn’t instantiated at any given time, why should it be given special treatment over any other possible but nonexistent utility function? Should the (slightly different) utility function I had a year ago be able to dictate my actions today, beyond the degree to which it influenced my environment and ongoing personal development?
If something was hidden from me, even something big (like being trapped in a virtual world), and hidden so thoroughly that I never suspected it enough for the suspicion to alter my actions in any measurable way, I wouldn’t care, because there would be no me which knew well enough to be able to care. Ideally, yes, the me that can see such hypotheticals from outside would prefer a map to match the territory, but at some point that meta-desire has to give way to practical concerns.