Zack_M_Davis comments on What makes you YOU? For non-deists only. - Less Wrong

2 Post author: cleonid 10 November 2009 07:59PM

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Comment author: DanArmak 10 November 2009 11:08:17PM 5 points [-]

A challenge to all doubters.

Omega comes to you with a proposition - heck, I may be able to do it myself in a few decades. I offer to create N atomically precise clones of yourself on the other side of the planet, and give each one the dollar value of all your assets. You can set N as high as you like, provided there's a value that will make you accept the bargain. The price is that I'll kill you ten seconds later.

I assure you that, from past experience, you will not notice the creation of these clones during the ten seconds you have to live. Your extreme similarity will not cause any magical sharing of experiences. And the clones will not notice anything when, ten seconds from their creation, you die; no empirically measurable (including self-reported) consciousness transfers from you to them.

Do you accept the offer?

If you do, and you don't care about your own death, and you don't give as the reason the accomplishment of some external goals that are more important to you than life - then there's a fundamental disconnect between me and you. Indeed, between you and what I naively consider to be universal human ways of thinking. (Of course, if this is the case, the fault lies in my understanding; I'm not trying to denigrate anyone who responds.)

If someone thinks the external goals thingy is a problem (e.g., that all decisions are ultimately taken to satisfy external goals, because you believe a continuous self does not exist) then I can try to formulate a version of the scenario where this is not a consideration.

Comment author: Zack_M_Davis 10 November 2009 11:41:20PM 3 points [-]

I assure you that, from past experience, you will not notice the creation of these clones during the ten seconds you have to live.

Of course, and neither will they; that's the point. From the duplicate's perspective (I'm going to avoid the word clone, which I usually take to mean something else), it just seems like being magically teleported to the other side of the world.

Do you accept the offer?

Eagerly! Say N equals, oh, I don't know, nine. There's a lot of stuff I want to do with my life, and if I don't get the chance to do it all sequentially, then I might as well do it in parallel.

Comment author: DanArmak 10 November 2009 11:46:17PM 1 point [-]

But why exactly do you apply your I to these duplicates?

Comment author: GuySrinivasan 11 November 2009 01:57:11AM 2 points [-]

Because I anticipate that 15 seconds from now, if I reject then there will be 1 thing with the subjective experience I anticipate I will have 15 seconds from now, and if I accept then there will be 9 things with the subjective experience I anticipate I will have 15 seconds from now.

That's not exactly why, but I think it's not bad for the amount of time I spent thinking about how to phrase it...

Comment author: DanArmak 11 November 2009 09:31:15AM 3 points [-]

But each separate person will only experience one subjective experience. Why does it matter how many persons there will be?