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CAE_Jones comments on Continuity in Uploading - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: Error 17 January 2014 10:57PM

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Comment author: CAE_Jones 24 January 2014 09:42:05AM 0 points [-]

Because I want to be alive. I don't just want humanity to have the benefit of my skills and knowledge.

When I read this in the recent comments list, I at first thought it was a position against uploading. Then I read the other recent comments and realized it was probably a reply to me.

I get the impression that no one has a functional definition of what continuity of identity means, yet destructive copies (uploads, teleports, etc) appear to be overwhelmingly considered as preserving it at least as much as sleep. I find this confusing, but the only argument that seemed to support it that I've found is Eliezer's "Identity is not in individual atoms", which is a bit disingenuous, in that uploads are almost certainly not going to be precise quantum state replicators.

(I'd make a pole, here, but my last attempt went poorly and it doesn't appear to be standard markup, so I don't know where I'd test it.)

What probability would you assign to each of these as continuing personal identity?

  1. Sleep.
  2. puberty
  3. The typical human experience over 1-5 years.
  4. Gradual replacement of biological brain matter with artificial substitutes.
  5. Brain-state copying (uploads, teleportation)
  6. Brain-state melding (Brain Omega = Brain A | Brain B | Brain n )
Comment author: jpaulson 25 January 2014 02:35:39AM 0 points [-]

1) 1.0 2) 1.0 3) 1.0 4) It depends on the artificial substitutes :) If they faithfully replicate brain function (whatever that means), 1.0 5) Again, if the process is faithful, 1.0 6) It really depends. For example, if you drop all my memories, 0.0. If you keep an electronic copy of my brain on the same network as several other brains, 1.0. in-between: in-between

(Yes, I know 1.0 probabilities are silly. I don't have enough sig-figs of accuracy for the true value :)

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