Vladimir_Golovin comments on Poll: What value extra copies? - Less Wrong

5 [deleted] 22 June 2010 12:15PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Golovin 22 June 2010 02:48:09PM 0 points [-]

A contract denying specifically the right to contribute man-hours towards my share of pickaxing and no other rights would be fine with me. I'd have to watch the wording though. As for missing anything when reading it, such a contract will get very, very serious examination by myself and the best lawyers I can get.

Comment author: JenniferRM 22 June 2010 04:33:57PM *  6 points [-]

That would be an pretty big "original privilege" :-)

Generally, when I think about making copies, I assume that the status of being "original" would be washed away and I would find myself existing with some amount of certainty (say 50% to 100%) that I was the copy. They I try to think about how I'd feel about having been created by someone who has all my memories/skills/tendencies/defects but has a metaphysically arbitrary (though perhaps emotionally or legally endorsed) claim to being "more authentic" than me by virtue of some historical fact of "mere physical continuity".

I would only expect a copy to cooperate with my visions for what my copy "should do" if I'm excited by the prospect of getting to do that - if I'm kinda hoping that after the copy process I wake up as the copy because the copy is going to have a really interesting life.

In practice, I would expect that what I'd really have to do is write up two "divergence plans" for each future version of me, that seem equally desirable, then copy, then re-negotiate with my copy over the details of the divergence plans (because I imagine the practicalities of two of us existing might reveal some false assumptions in the first draft of the plans), and finally we'd flip a coin to find out which plan each of us is assigned to.

I guess... If only one of us gets the "right of making more copies" I'd want the original contact to make "copyright" re-assignable after the copying event, so I could figure out whether "copyright" is more of a privilege or a burden, and what the appropriate compensation is for taking up the burden or losing the privilege.

ETA:: Perhaps our preferences would diverge during negotiation? That actually seems like something to hope for because then a simple cake cutting algorithm could probably be used to ensure the assignment to a divergence plan was actually a positive sum interaction :-)