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RichardKennaway comments on Open Thread, August 2010 - Less Wrong
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Infinite torture is too big to think about. Try this:
"Imagine yourself naked and shut up in an iron coffin, that is put into the furnace and heated to a fiery red heat. You know what it is like to burn a finger -- how much more awful will it be to find yourself in that coffin, burning all over, and yet God in His power will not let you be consumed. You suffocate but cannot expire. You cannot endure it -- but you will, for a thousand years, and a thousand thousand, and that is less than a moment compared with the eternity of suffering that lies before you."
That is a reconstruction of a recollection of something I once read of a Christian preacher of former times saying. For more along these lines, just try this Google search. "Terror of hell" was a recognised psychological malady back in the day.
Will you blithely say, as you fall into the AI's clutches, "it won't be me experiencing it"?
What would your answer be to this conundrum?
Ming would not ask this, but - Are you sure you want to be tortured? Finding third options in bad scenarios is cool, but not if they're strictly worse than the options already presented. This is like choosing suicide in Newcomb's problem.