From: Stathis Papaioannou (stathisp@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Oct 27 2008 - 16:28:34 MDT
2008/10/27 Matt Mahoney <matmahoney@yahoo.com>:
> --- On Sun, 10/26/08, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > Let's say you believe in many worlds and you are
>> offered the chance to run a simulation of your brain in a
>> plausible, deterministic simulated world such that the
>> simulation would predict your behavior in the real world in
>> every case where the model agrees with reality. You know
>> that the model is not entirely accurate because your
>> simulation will be immortal, although the details of what
>> that entails have not been specified. At the instant you
>> flip the switch to start the simulation, you will be
>> vaporized. Will you (not should you) flip the switch?
>>
>> Yes: it's the same as ordinary life, when your previous
>> self disappears utterly from the universe as soon as the moment
>> passes.
>
> That's not the question. The question is what *will* a brain that has evolved to fear death do? I suppose that some brains could override instinct and be convinced that their consciousness transfers to the simulation, but they won't pass on their DNA.
A brain that has evolved to fear death needs to have a notion of what
death is. Questions about personal identity are questions about the
definition of death. We can say that *either* destructive copying is
not death *or* ordinary life where your previous self disappears
utterly from the universe as soon as the moment passes is death.
-- Stathis Papaioannou
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:01:03 MDT