wedrifid comments on The non-painless upload - Less Wrong Discussion
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As situations become harder to imagine in an tangible sense it becomes harder extrapolate from intuitions meaningfully. But I can give some response in this case.
Utility functions operate over entire configuration states of the universe - values of objects or beings in the universe can not by default be added or subtracted. Crudely speaking W1 undergoes a utility change of value(universe has W1, O) - value(universe has W1, W2). The change would be significant - clones have value. And this is the first clone. Transforming a hypothetical W534 into orgasmium would be a far, far lesser loss.
It is worth elaborating here that the states of the universe that utility is evaluated on are timeless. The entire wave equation gets thrown in, not just a state at a specific time. This means [W1, hydrogen -> W1, W2 -> W1, O] can be preferred over [W1, hydrogen -> W1, O], or anti-preferred as appropriate without it being an exceptional case. This is matches the intuitions most people have in everyday use - it just formulates it coherently.
In this case W1 does not seem to care all that much about what happened at T2. Maybe a little. Orgasmium sounds kind of more interesting to have around than hydrogen.
Also note that the transition at T1 leaves W2's utility function at a high percentage of W1's - although W2 definitely doesn't know about it!
Huh.
I'm not sure I even followed that. I'll have to stare at it a while longer. Thanks again for a thoughtful reply.