JohnGreer

This is cross-posted from my blog and is written more for a general audience rather than LessWrong people who will be more familiar with some of the relevant concepts. Robert McIntrye is an all-around smart and interesting dude, and he’s the CEO of Nectome, a startup devoted to preserving the human brain. Last year, I wrote a summary of Robert’s brain preservation talk at the Long Now Foundation: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/N7j4xHkyjKbimmF6A/notes-on-robert-mcintyre-s-brain-preservation-talk-at-the-1 He later read it and reached out to me about discussing our thoughts. I asked if I could record it as an interview and here we are! We dive into topics such as brain preservation, personal identity, life extension, AGI, Rick and Morty, and why he’s worried about the current state of cryonics. Our interview went for over three hours and we weren’t anywhere close to exhausting our conversation (but we did exhaust my bladder capacity). A lot of time was spent on personal identity and the teletransportation paradox. We talked a lot about things we don’t actually disagree on, but I’m glad we did because it will help clear up confusion for listeners who aren’t on the same page. The crux of our actual disagreement is as follows: I wouldn’t destructively copy myself, as in the case of the teletransportation paradox, and he would. If you’ve read the Three Buckets, you know that I care about my own utility and the utility of my loved ones. Imagine someone made a perfect copy of me. If my copy’s hand was pricked, he would feel the pain but I wouldn’t. If that copy was eating a double-double animal style from In-N-Out, he would be enjoying the taste of that goodness but I wouldn’t be. While I’d prefer for my copy to be feeling pleasure rather than pain, if I had to choose, I’d prefer to be the one eating In-N-Out and not getting his hand pricked. It’s not that I don’t care if my copy is enjoying life. It’s that I don’t care as much because I’m not experiencing it.