LESSWRONG
LW

All of le4fy's Comments + Replies

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le4fy10

I don't agree that the indexical uncertainty argument works in this case. If you assume there are a million copies of you in the same situation, then every copy's posterior must be that their leg will be cut off.

If you know that only one copy's leg will be cut, however, then I agree that you may hold a posterior of experiencing pain 1/1000000. But that seems to me a different situation where the original question is no longer interesting. It's not interesting because for that situation to arise would mean confirmation of many-worlds theories and the ability to communicate across them, which seems like adding way too much complexity to your original setup.

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0turchin
Look, it will work if it will done in several stages. 1) I am alone and I know that my leg will be cut 2) A friend of mine created 1 000 000 copies, all of them think that their leg will be cut 3) He informs all copies and me about his action, everybody is excited. I don't see it as confirmation to MW, as it assumed to be done via some kind of scanner in one world, but yes it is similar to MW and may be useful example to estimate subjective probabilities in some thought experiments like quantum suicide with external conditions (and also copies).
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le4fy00

Another way to think about it may be in terms of conservation of experience. You cannot really be comforted by the fact that many copies of you exist in other places, because one of those copies must experience and retain the memory of this horrible event.

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0turchin
But it result in even more complex moral problems. 1) I am really uncomforted with the fact that other people had suffered unbearable suffering (true about me). 2) In the infinite universe should exist infinite number of my copies which experience all types of sufferings. F... :(
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le4fy10

I'm reading Robin Hanson's Age of Em right now, and some of his analysis of mind emulations might help here. He explains that emulations have the ability to copy themselves into other ems that will from the moment of copying onward have different experiences and therefore act and think differently. That is to say, even if you are aware of many copies of yourself existing in other worlds, they are effectively different people from the moment of copying onward. The fact remains that you are the one that will experience the pain and have to live with that mem... (read more)

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1turchin
There is a way to escape the cutting leg experiment. It is named create indexical uncertainty. Lets create million your copies all of which will have the exactly same information as you: than their leg will be cut, but their leg will not be cut after all. Them everybody is informed about the situation, including original, and all of them are still in the same state of mind, that is they are identical copies. But each of them could conclude that they have 1 in 1 000 000 chance of leg cut, which is negligible. Original could have the same logic. And he will be surprised when his leg will be cut. So the question is how properly calculate probabilities from the point of vies of original in this situation. One line of reasoning gives 1 in million probability and another 100 per cent.
2turchin
There is a problem with idea of continuity as a nature of identity, as some people suggested different meaning of it: 1. "Informational continuity" is when I remember in the moment N+1 my state of consciousness in the moment N. The problem: Every morning when I suddenly get up I have discontinuity in my memory stream as I loose memory of my dreams. Am I dead every morning? 2. Causal continuity. The main question here is continuity of what - of element of stream of conscuisness which creates next element in the next moment even if they are not remembered (so here arise difference with informational continuity idea), or causal continuity of underlying mechanism of brain. The main problem here will be that I will be not able (probably) feel if my causal stream was stopped and when restarted. (or i could feel it as one moment blackout which i will not remember?)
0le4fy
Another way to think about it may be in terms of conservation of experience. You cannot really be comforted by the fact that many copies of you exist in other places, because one of those copies must experience and retain the memory of this horrible event.