Re: Memory Addition and The Clock/Torture Experiment

From: Stuart Armstrong (dragondreaming@googlemail.com)
Date: Wed Apr 02 2008 - 05:11:53 MDT


> I completely agree. But consider the hideous Clock/Torture
> Experiment:

> What does it then seem like happened to you? It seems to you
> that by choosing A, the clock hand suddenly jumped from 0 to
> 40, and you avoided (you intuit) anything unpleasant. Despite
> seeing your friends and family in tears, and despite your own
> best knowledge of the entire setup, you gradually come to choose
> A all of the time. Dreadful, but true. Perhaps some readers are
> shocked. I was.

Hum, very interesting experiment. A few weeks ago, I could have
answered it simply - "choose B. Option A which erases a bit of you, is
more akin to killing you than option B, which merely adds memories.
Thus by choosing A, you die a little. Of course, in the end, you'll
choose A - but that is akin to being tortured to the point where you
no longer want to live..."

Now I'm not so sure of the equivalence between memory erasure and
death... I'll have to think more of this example.



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