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Lumifer comments on Thought experiment: The transhuman pedophile - Less Wrong
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What would be the reaction of your social circle if you told your friends that in private you dream about kidnapping young girls and then raping and torturing them, about their hoarse screams of horror as you slowly strangle them...
Just fantasy life, of course :-/
Mostly, I expect, gratitude that I'd chosen to trust them with that disclosure.
Probably some would respond badly, and they would be invited to leave my circle of friends.
But then, I choose my friends carefully, and I am gloriously blessed with abundance in this area.
That said, I do appreciate that the typical real world setting isn't like that.
I just find myself wondering, in that case, what all of this "transhuman" stuff is doing in the example. If we're just positing an exchange in a typical real-world setting, the example would be simpler if we talk about someone whose fantasy life is publicly disclosed today, and jettison the rest of it.
Well, if we want to get back to the OP, the whole disclosing-fantasies-in-public thread is just a distraction. The real question in the OP is about identity.
What is part of your identity, what makes you you? What can be taken away from you with you remaining you and what, if taken from you, will create someone else in your place?
Geez, if that's the question, then pretty much the entire OP is a distraction.
But, OK.
My earlier response to CoffeeStain is relevant here as well. There is a large set of possible future entities that include me in their history, and which subset is "really me" is a judgment each judge makes based on what that judge values most about me, and there simply is no fact of the matter.
That said, if you're asking what I personally happen to value most about myself... mostly my role in various social networks, I think. If I were confident that some other system could preserve those roles as well as I can, I would be content to be replaced by that system. (Do you really think that's what the OP is asking about, though? I don't see it, myself.)
Well, to each his own, of course, and to me this is the interesting question.
If you'll excuse me, I'm not going to believe that.
Thinking about this some more, I'm curious... what's your prior for my statement being true of a randomly chosen person, and what's your prior for a randomly chosen statement I make about my preferences being true?
Sufficiently close to zero.
Depends on the meaning of "true". In the meaning of "you believe that at the moment", my prior is fairly high -- that is, I don't think you're playing games here. In the meaning of "you will choose that when you will actually have to choose" my prior is noticeably lower -- I'm not willing to assume your picture of yourself is correct.
(nods) cool, that's what I figured initially, but it seemed worth confirming.
Well, there's "what's interesting to me?", and there's "what is that person over there trying to express?"
We're certainly free to prioritize thinking about the former over the latter, but I find it helpful not to confuse one with the other. If you're just saying that's what you want to talk about, regardless of what the OP was trying to express, that's fine.
That's your perogative, of course.
Can we rephrase that so as to avoid Ship of Theseus issues?
Which future do you prefer? The future which contains a being which is very similar to the one you are presently, or the future which contains a being which is very similar to what you are presently +/- some specific pieces?
If you answered the latter, what is the content of "+/- some specific pieces"? Why? And which changes would you be sorry to make, even if you make them anyway due to the positive consequences of making those changes? (for example, OPs pedophile might delete his pedophilia simply for the social consequences, but might rather have positive social consequences and not alter himself)
Weirded out at the oversharing, obviously.
Assuming the context was one where sharing this somehow fit ... somewhat squicked, but I would probably be squicked by some of their fantasies. That's fantasies.
Oh, and some of the less rational ones might worry that this was an indicator that I was a dangerous psychopath. Probably the same ones who equate "pedophile" with "pedophile who fantasises about kidnap, rape, torture and murder" ,':-. I dunno.
Why is this irrational? Having a fantasy of doing X means your more likely to do X.
Taking it as Bayesian evidence: arguably rational, although it's so small your brain might round it up just to keep track of it, so it's risky; and it may actually be negative (because psychopaths might be less likely to tell you something that might give them away.)
Worrying about said evidence: definitely irrational. Understandable, of course, with the low sanity waterline and all...
Why?