[extropy-chat] I keep asking myself...

[Robert Bradbury]

On 4/4/06, A B <austriaaugust at yahoo.com> (Jeffrey Herrlich?) wrote:

As a living, conscious being, I'm not sure it is ethically correct to
> force specific decisions and lifestyles on these "copies" as if they were
> simply toys - devoid of basic rights that an "original" version would
> presumably have.
>

Why?   Why can't a "conscious being" create copies of itself and treat them
as toys?  Where precisely do "basic rights" come from? [1] As spike points
out there are all sorts of fun things you can do with the copies.

Jeffrey, I'm not sure you were around but this has been discussed (long ago
and far far away(?)...) under the topic of "Can you kill your copies?"  I
sorted ended up as being cast as the "bad boy" of the list for asserting
that there is little "wrong" with killing your copies (once they have served
the purpose they were created for).  This position can probably be put into
the same bucket with my consideration of nuking Mecca for the purpose of
eliminating the icons which form the fundamental supports for one of the
world's religions.  [Because that religion is based upon an irrational
foundation and is one whose belief systems currently serves to justify the
elimination of significant numbers of "copies.]  (The only alternative to
such "proactive" action (i.e. the "proactionary principle") is to *wait* and
slowly watch as more copies are killed in the faint hope that these
meme-washed people will slowly come to their senses [2].  (Where is the
moral basis for justifying that sins of ommission occupy higher ground than
sins of commission?)

One has to realize that the basis for most of current ethics is centered
around the idea that one should "do unto others as you would have them do
unto you".  Of course if one realizes that their are such things as copies
and luck of the draw might end up making one a member of that class, then
one would have no reason to expect not being treated "badly" as a copy since
were the roles reversed you would probably be the one responsible for the
bad treatment.

Getting back to the topic of copies -- someone please show me where there is
a fundamental "right" for copies to engage in independent execution.  If
that exists I'm being an extremely immoral person because I've got several
CDs sitting on my desk with copies of Linux on them that aren't running at
all.  I need to go find a stick quick and beat myself for being so "bad"...

Robert

1. One might argue that it is immoral to treat ones copies cruelly,
particularly to cause them physical pain, this can easily be worked around
by engineering the copies with the inability to feel pain (there are humans
who are born with gene defects which have this property).

2. Daniel Dennet gave a talk at Harvard on his book "Breaking the Spell" (of
religion) last night.  He pointed out the concept that "Religions being in
their death throes" was but one of five(!) possible outcomes for the ongoing
religious tsunami humanity has been embroiled in during the last few
thousand years.  By not taking proactive positions with respect to the
elimination of what he refered to as "toxic" religious ideas [3] one is
implicitly accepting the position that killing ones (imperfect) copies is
acceptable.

3. So as to not misrepresent Dennet, he primarily classed "toxic" religions
are those in which certain ideas serve as a basis for killing people.  (If
one can't promote the survival and replication of ones meme set through a
simple (or complex) sales pitch and endless repetition one can eliminate the
existance of competing meme sets by eliminating the carriers of those
memes.)
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