Stuart_Armstrong comments on Resetting Gandhi-Einstein - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 13 June 2011 10:02AM

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Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 13 June 2011 07:44:56PM 0 points [-]

I'm still very worried about the molarity of it, as I see it the resetting amounts to mass-murder.

So do I. I think it's a hideous immoral idea. Only because the lives of everyone else are in the balance would I consider it.

Comment author: Barry_Cotter 13 June 2011 08:51:14PM 1 point [-]

How about if you get saved at the end of the hour/week, not deleted?

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 14 June 2011 10:00:57AM 2 points [-]

That would be better. And then, after the dust settles, all the copies could be resurrected?

Comment author: benelliott 13 June 2011 08:12:07PM 1 point [-]

If it was determined that you were the best candidate to be Gandhi-Einstein, would you volunteer?

Comment author: Yasuo 14 June 2011 06:14:58AM *  2 points [-]

I would. I'd want to do some shorter test runs first though, to get used to the idea, and I'd want to be sure I was in a good mood for the main reset point.

It would probably be good to find a candidate who was enlightened in the buddhist sense, not only because they'd be generally calmer and more stable, but specifically because enlightenment involves confronting the incoherent naïve concept of self and understanding the nature of impermanence. From the enlightened perspective, the peculiar topology of the resetting subjective experience would not be a source of anxiety.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 14 June 2011 10:02:05AM 1 point [-]

Only if there were no other alternatives. And yes, that is a selfish sentiment.

Comment author: endoself 14 June 2011 01:28:17AM 1 point [-]

I'm not Stuart, but I would.

Comment author: Desrtopa 22 June 2011 05:00:26PM 0 points [-]

If it was determined that I was the best candidate, I would lose quite a bit of trust in the world. But if I thought it within my abilities to optimize the world an hour at a time, yes, I would volunteer.

Around the age of ten I made a precommitment that if I were ever offered an exchange of personal torment for saving the world, I should take it.