But that doesn't just reduce to a will of survival? I know that extracting certain salts from my blood is essential to my survival, so I want that my parts that do exactly that continue to do so. But I do not have any specific attachment to that functions just because a sub-part of me executes this. If I were in a simulation, say, even if I knew that my simulated kidneys worked in the same way I know I could continue to exist even without that function.
From the wording of your previous comments, it seemed that an AI conscious of its parts should have isomorphic desires, but the problem is that there could be many different isomorphisms, some of which are ridiculous.
We do in fact feel many desires like that, e.g. the desire to remove certain unneeded materials from our bodies, and other such things. The reason you don't have a specific desire to extract ammonia is that you don't have a specific feeling for that; if you did have a specific feeling, it would be a desire specifically to extract ammonia, just like you specifically desire the actions I mentioned in the first part of this comment, and just as you can have the specific desire for sex.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.
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