= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
shminux comments on Timeless Identity - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (234)
Ah, hopefully I'm slowly getting what you mean. So, there was the original you, Mark 2013, whose algorithm was terminated soon after it processed the inputs “HONK Screeeech, bam”, and the new you, Mark 2063, whose experience is “HONK Screeeech, bam” then "wake up in a computer". You are concerned with... I'm having trouble articulated what exactly... something about the lack of experiences of Mark 2013? But, say, if Mark 2013 was restored to life in mostly the same physical body after a 50-year "oblivion", you wouldn't be?
Pretty much correct. To be specific, if computational continuity is what matters, then Mark!2063 has my memories, but was in fact “born” the moment the simulation started, 50 years in the future. That's when his identity began, whereas mine ended when I died in 2013.
This seems a little more intuitive when you consider switching on 100 different emulations of me at the same time. Did I somehow split into 100 different persons? Or was there in fact 101 separate subjective identities, 1 of which terminated in 2013 and 100 new ones created for the simulations? The latter is a more straight forward explanation, IMHO.
No, that would make little difference as it's pretty clear that physical continuity is an illusion. If pattern or causal continuity were correct, then it'd be fine, but both theories introduce other problems. If computational continuity is correct, then a reconstructed brain wouldn't be me any more than a simulation would. However it's possible that my cryogenically vitrified brain would preserve identity, if it were slowly brought back online without interruption.
I'd have to learn more about how general anesthesia works to decide if personal identity would be preserved across on the operating table (until then, it scares the crap out of me). Likewise, a AI or emulation running on a computer that is powered off and then later resumed would also break identity, but depending on the underlying nature of computation & subjective experience, task switching and online suspend/resume may or may not result in cycling identity.
I'll stop there because I'm trying to formulate all these thoughts into a longer post, or maybe a sequence of posts.
Hmm, what about across dreamless sleep? Or fainting? Or falling and hitting your head and losing consciousness for an instant? Would these count as killing one person and creating another? And so be morally net-negative?
If computational continuity is what matters, then no. Just because you have no memory doesn't mean you didn't experience it. There is in fact a continuous experience throughout all of the examples you gave, just no new memories being formed. But from the last point you remember (going to sleep, fainting, hitting your head) to when you wake up, you did exist and were running a computational process. From our understanding of neurology you can be certain that there was no interruption of subjective experience of identity, even if you can't remember what actually happened.
Whether this is also true of general anesthesia depends very much on the biochemistry going on. I admit ignorance here.
OK, I guess I should give up, too. I am utterly unable to relate to whatever it is you mean by "because you have no memory doesn't mean you didn't experience it" or "subjective experience of identity, even if you can't remember what actually happened".