Re: The role of consciousness.

From: Jeff L Jones (jeff@spoonless.net)
Date: Wed Apr 16 2008 - 12:55:44 MDT


On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 9:44 PM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin@rawbw.com> wrote:
> No, eventually my copy will turn into a different person, as in the
> example you provided (omitted). I figure it's the same rate that
> I become someone else anyway, i.e., I'd say that at about age
> 19 I was 50% the person I am today, and I would expect that
> at the rate I change, I'll won't become 50% different again for
> many, many more decades. (Of course these numbers are pure
> guesswork, but they convey my attitude: no sacrifice---supposing
> I'm a Most Selfish Individual---for a copy unless it's recent (i.e.
> a few years or so).

Then it looks like we agree entirely in terms of actual real-world
behavior. We just disagree in terms of the explanation. And perhaps
a little bit on the actual timeframe. For instance, I would only be
willing to sacrifice myself entirely for copies that were within an
hour or so. After that, I would slowly become more reluctant as we
began to have different experiences. Keep in mind that if you wait a
month before you kill yourself, then you're permanently killing all of
the memories for that month... no backup, no extra copy. I wouldn't
want to do that for my home desktop computer, let alone my
consciousness!

Also, even if the time were only a minute... there are some situations
where I would be unwilling to do it. Namely, if there was something
really important to me that happened in that minute.

Jeff



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