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RowanE comments on Open Thread April 8 - April 14 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Thought experiment. Imagine a machine that can create an identical set of atoms to the atoms that comprise a human's body. This machine is used to create a copy of you, and a copy of a second person, whom you have never met and know nothing about.
After the creation of the copy, 'you' will have no interaction with it. In fact, it's going to be placed into a space ship and fired into outer space, as is the copy of Person 2. Unfortunately, one spaceship is going to be very painful to be in. The other is going to be very pleasant. So a copy of you will experience pain or pleasure, and a copy of someone else will experience the other sensation.
To what extent do you care which copy receives which treatment? Zero? As much as you would care if it was you who was to be placed into the spaceship? Or something in between?
Quite a lot, but mostly out of fear of being wrong; I believe that identity is such that I will not wake up in the spaceship, and given that I'm correct I would care very little about the fate of that copy of me, but my beliefs about identity are based on strong intuitions that aren't soundly philosophically based and merely seem "obvious". I'd guess I care about 5% as much as I would care if I were to be placed in the spaceship, although "5% as much as if I was to be put in a torture-can and shot into space" is really abstract and I have no idea how to convert that to actual amounts of caring.