[extropy-chat] What should survive and why?

[Lee Corbin]

Stathis replied a while ago to Heartland and said:

Stathis wrote :
>> >> If I-now think I've survived as a continuation of I-before,
>> >> then that's what matters in survival.

Heartland replied:
>> That doesn't matter at all. Why should it matter? Is there an argument for 
>> why this
>> should matter? If it exists, I would love to read it.

Stathis now says
> Because that's how people define survival, as in not dying. If someone
> did claim that sleep was death, the response would be, "No, I went to
> sleep last night, and I don't feel dead; so whatever evidence you show
> suggesting that everyone does die when they fall asleep, that just means
> your definition of death is wrong,

Here is where I agree with those who say that "day-persons" (e.g. see
Mike Perry's "Forever For All") are *conceivable* though they aren't
(as yet) real.

To me it is a question of objective truth whether I am the same person
as the Lee Corbin of yesterday.  It is possible that I remember being
him, and function just dandy in society because I have (just barely)
enough of his memories (like stuff at work) to get by.  Now this could
have happened every day of my life, exactly as in the thought experiments
we inflict on Heartland.

Namely, Lee is replaced each night by a copy whose memories have been
vastly changed from from the Lee's of the day before (though just enough
to evade being exposed as an imposter). If I found out that this was going
on, then I would be most alarmed, and would insist that this nightly process
be terminated (however glad I was that it had happened the previous night).
I would realize, with some sadness, that I really had lived only one day.

This is what Heartland and Damien and all of them are afraid of when it
comes to teleportation, and what Heartland is afraid of when it comes
to process interruption.  Now for you and I, however,  it is just like you
*did* just write in an email to me:

Stathis to Lee just now:

> It would have to be more than just a belief, of course. It would have to
> include all the memories, thought patterns, abilities etc. that we would
> normally require for a person to qualify as the same person from day
> to day.

Er, you mean that you and I and John Clark require from day to day.
The mensheviks on this list do not believe in our criteria of identity. 

> It would be impossible in practice for one person to emulate another
> with the required fidelity, although I don't see why there should be a
> problem with it in principle.

Right. In principle I could be imitated by someone who would fool
everyone I know, though it would take God-like powers to know
what to include in the ersatz Lee and what to leave out.  As I 
reiterate, who is known as Lee would not be the same person
from day to day, alas.

> After all, mind uploading involves teaching a computer to believe
> it is you, and the computer ostensibly has less in common with
> you than you have in common with a madman. 

Well---if that is going to be the case, I do not want to be uploaded,
because it would not constitute survival.  An upload machine would
not need God-like knowledge of what to fiendishly include (just 
enough to fool people) and what to omit. I would settle for a fairly
mechanical process that made an electronic version of me that 
passed insofar as everyone I know.

To summarize, I disagree with your extra or alternative criterion
expressed in your remarks to Heartland:

> Because that's how people define survival, as in not dying. If someone
> did claim that sleep was death, the response would be, "No, I went to
> sleep last night, and I don't feel dead; so whatever evidence you show
> suggesting that everyone does die when they fall asleep, that just means
> your definition of death is wrong,

Don't you agree that in truth that would be an inadequate response?
Would it not---as you wrote to me later---have to be accompanied
by better evidence than that, namely objective knowledge that the
memories of the yesterday person were incredibly similar to the
today person (as in actual fact in daily life they really are)?

Lee