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Simulation_Brain comments on MWI, copies and probability - Less Wrong
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Comments (127)
I think the point is that not valuing non-interacting copies of oneself might be inconsistent. I suspect it's true; that consistency requires valuing parallel copies of ourselves just as we value future variants of ourselves and so preserve our lives. Our future selves also can't "interact" with our current self.
The poll in the previous post had to do with a hypothetical guarantee to create "extra" (non-interacting) copies.
In the situation presented here there is nothing justifying the use of the word "extra", and it seems analogous to quantum-lottery situations that have been discussed previously. I clearly have a reason to want the world to be such that (assuming MWI) as many of my future selves as possible experience a future that I would want to experience.
As I have argued previously, the term "copy" is misleading anyway, on top of which the word "extra" was reinforcing the connotations linked to copy-as-backup, where in MWI nothing of the sort is happening.
So, I'm still perplexed. Possibly a clack on my part, mind you.
I value having a future that accords with my preferences. I am in no way indifferent to your tossing a grenade my way, with a subjective 1/2 probability of dying. (Or non-subjectively, "forcing half of the future into a state where all my plans, ambitions and expectations come to a grievous end.")
I am, however, indifferent to your taking an action (creating an "extra" non-interacting copy) which has no influence on what future I will experience.
I wouldn't be happy to experience waking up and realizing that I was a copy about to be snuffed (or even wondering whether I was). So I would prefer not to inflict that on any future selves.
It doesn't really seem to matter, in that case, that you wake them up at all.
And no, I wouldn't get very worked up about the fate of such patterns (except insofar as I would like them to be preserved for backup purposes).
As cousin_it has argued, "selectively killing most of my future selves" is something that I subjectively experience as "having a sizeable probability of dying". That doesn't appeal.
Yup.