(Treating this as a survey; I am not speaking for LW.)
What do you consider to be the “self”? Your physical body, your subconscious and conscious processes combined, consciousness, or something else?
I am currently implemented on many layered systems whose existence in those particular forms is not logically necessary, but we don’t know the details of those systems enough to know how much of “me” is in each of them.
Also, do you consider your “past selves” and “future selves” to be part of a whole with your “present self,” and to what extent?
For an example of why the distinction might be important, let’s say that one night, you sleepwalk and steal a thousand dollars. This is the first time something like this has happened. Of course, society will hold you accountable for your actions, but how will you assign the blame in your head? E.g. “I’m such a horrible person” vs. “That pesky subconscious! Always up to no good!”
“My implementation is buggy.”
Both of your examples are incorrect assignment, and the reality is somewhere in the middle. You-which-are-thinking-about-it did not choose the action, but that “you” is in the best position to affect the future behavior and are therefore responsible — insofar as there is any knowledge of how — for reducing the chance it will happen again.
You are offered a deal in which you will live in earthly paradise for 10 years, but at the end of that ten years, you will be tortured in way so that your future self will regret accepting. Do you accept the deal?
There is always a delay between cause and effect. I choose nothing except to have its effects later. Given the particular condition, “your future self will regret accepting”, I must reject it now.
(Treating this as a survey; I am not speaking for LW.)
I am currently implemented on many layered systems whose existence in those particular forms is not logically necessary, but we don’t know the details of those systems enough to know how much of “me” is in each of them.
Do I consider the tree falling with no one to hear it to make a sound?
“My implementation is buggy.”
Both of your examples are incorrect assignment, and the reality is somewhere in the middle. You-which-are-thinking-about-it did not choose the action, but that “you” is in the best position to affect the future behavior and are therefore responsible — insofar as there is any knowledge of how — for reducing the chance it will happen again.
There is always a delay between cause and effect. I choose nothing except to have its effects later. Given the particular condition, “your future self will regret accepting”, I must reject it now.