Now, if I understand the "two particles of the same type are identical" argument in the context of uploading/copying, it shouldn't be relevant because two huge multi-particle configurations are not going to be identical. You cannot measure the state of each particle in the original and you cannot precisely force each particle in the copy into that state. And no amount of similar is enough, the two of you have to be identical in the sense that two electrons are identical if we're talking about being Feynman paths that your amplitude would be summed over. And that rules out digital simulations altogether.
But I didn't really expect any patternists to defend the first way you could be right in my post. Whereas, the second way you might be right amounts to, by my definition, proving to me that I am already dead or that I die all the time. If that's the case, all bets are off, everything I care about is due for a major reassessment.
I'd still want to know the truth of course. But the strong form of that argument (that I already experience on a recurring basis the same level of death as you would if you were destructively scanned) is not yet proven to be the truth. Only a plausible for which (or against which) I have not yet seen much evidence.
But the strong form of that argument (that I already experience on a recurring basis the same level of death as you would if you were destructively scanned) is not yet proven to be the truth.
Can you taboo "level of death" for me? Also, what sorts of experiences would count as evidence for or against the proposition?
In June 2012, Robin Hanson wrote a post promoting plastination as a superior to cryopreservation as an approach to preserving people for later uploading. His post included a paragraph which said:
This left me with the impression that the chances of the average cryopreserved person today of being later revived aren't great, even when you conditionalize on no existential catastrophe. More recently, I did a systematic read-through of the sequences for the first time (about a month 1/2 ago), and Eliezer's post You Only Live Twice convinced me to finally sign up for cryonics for three reasons:
I don't find that terribly encouraging. So now I'm back to being pessimistic about current cryopreservation techniques (though I'm still signing up for cryonics because the cost is low enough even given my current estimate of my chances). But I'd very much be curious to know if anyone knows what, say, Nick Bostrom or Anders Sandberg think about the issue. Anyone?
Edit: I'm aware of estimates given by LessWrong folks in the census of the chances of revival, but I don't know how much of that is people taking things like existential risk into account. There are lots of different ways you could arrive at a ~10% chance of revival overall:
is one way. But:
is a very similar conclusion from very different premises. Gwern has more on this sort of reasoning in Plastination versus cryonics, but I don't know who most of the people he links to are so I'm not sure whether to trust them. He does link to a breakdown of probabilities by Robin, but I don't fully understand the way Robin is breaking the issue down.