[ExI] The Upload Game

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2008/4/26 ben <benboc at lineone.net>:

>  It's very (very!) simple. In your scenario, there are 2 people. One is
>  the uploaded continuation of the original person. The other is the
>  non-uploaded continuation. The very instant that their experiences
>  become different, they become 2 different people. If the upload process
>  had been destructive, then there would continue to be only one person.
>  There can be no such thing as 'delayed destructive uploading'. Either
>  the person is transferred from one substrate to another, or there is a
>  copy made, and now there are two. The instant that their experiences
>  differ, you have two distinct people, neither of whom could be expected
>  to be any happier to sacrifice their life than they were before.

Most people would not mind a few minutes of memory loss while they
would mind if they faced destruction of the original a few minutes
after a backup copy was made. This is inconsistent, because the two
situations are equivalent. Lee would say that it should be acceptable
if you are destroyed with a short delay after your backup is made,
provided that this is in exchange for some large enough benefit for
the backup. This does restore consistency, but at the cost of what I
consider the whole point of survival: anticipation of future
experiences. If I can convince myself that anticipation of future
experiences doesn't matter, then I would have convinced myself that
death doesn't matter.




-- 
Stathis Papaioannou