Are multiple uploads equivilant to extra life?

MileyCyrus

Suppose I have choice between the following:

A) One simulation of me is run for me 100 years, before being deleted.

B) Two identical simulations of me are run for 100 years, before being deleted.

Is the second choice preferable to the first? Should I be willing to pay more to have multiple copies of me simulated, even if those copies will have the exact same experiences?

Forgive me if this question has been answered before. I have Googled to no avail.

Suppose I have choice between the following:

A) One simulation of me is run for me 100 years, before being deleted.

B) Two identical simulations of me are run for 100 years, before being deleted.

Is the second choice preferable to the first? Should I be willing to pay more to have multiple copies of me simulated, even if those copies will have the exact same experiences?

Forgive me if this question has been answered before. I have Googled to no avail.

This whole simulation same as living thing seems like a cargo cult to me. I simulate cell phones and position determination systems all the time, and no calls are made or data sent, no positions actually determined. There is massive code to simulate relativeistic hydrodynamics in order to help understand star formation and the workings of the sun. No heat is actually generated, no fusion actually takes place. I used to build and bulldoze city blocks in sim city. I have killed thousands of hookers and police men in Grand Theft Auto. I would bet dollars to donuts (for you fans of prediction markets) that these are morally irrelevant killings.

What makes you think that running a simulation of yourself has any relevance to your actual self at all?

Seems to me that it's a question of what counts as a person. If you accept the idea that whatever your mind is doing is Turing reducible (or more generally accept the strong Church-Turing thesis, although this isn't quite required), then you can model minds as stateful computational operations on a set of inputs without loss of functionality. If you then accept the idea that properties of minds -- that is, a certain set of mental traits -- are necessary and sufficient for personhood, it follows that minds emulated to sufficient precision (perhaps satisfy... (read more)

1TheOtherDave14y

(shrug) If I continue to dismiss a cargo cult even when they actually does cause gifts to appear from the heavens, simply because it pattern-matches to earlier cargo cults that didn't, my reasoning is flawed. Similarly, if I dismiss a black box that claims to be a recording of person X's identity and is capable of interacting with me the way I expect person X to, simply because it superficially pattern-matches to "police men" in GTA, my reasoning is flawed. The star formation:heat example is a better objection. No amount of information will be the equivalent of the Sun for me, because I value things about the Sun other than its information (e.g., its heat and light). It might be the same way for people... I might value things about people other than their information (e.g., their proteins and carbohydrates), in which case no amount of information will be the equivalent of a person for me. I don't think I actually do, though. For example, I don't think I care about the proteins and carbohydrates that much. More generally, I think I'm inclined to consider a person anything that's capable of carrying on a conversation with me of a certain level of sophistication (which is why, for example, I consider you a person rather than just a bunch of words on a screen). And a simulation of me sufficiently detailed for me to consider it a person is relevant to my actual self for at least the same reasons that other people are relevant to my actual self.