From: Frank Adamek (f.adamek@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 01 2009 - 18:57:15 MST
I think a better way to phrase the concern than "continuity" is expectation of experience. I fully expect an upload to "be me" in basically every way. My concern is that I would not experience what they experience, just as I don't taste an apple when you bite it. Assuming I don't taste it when they bite it either, if I'm shot after (or before) that version is made, I don't expect to experience anything. I really like experiencing things, on inspection I care considerably more about that than if it can be said that "I exist". I consider myself an all right fellow, but there are plenty of other bright altruists who could do the things I want done just as well.
If it's discovered that we are routinely duplicated and one of us destroyed, I would be willing to give quite a lot to stop this process, and in so doing increase the chances that I will actually experience any of the future.
--- On Tue, 12/1/09, Johnicholas Hines <johnicholas.hines@gmail.com> wrote:Suppose that (unbeknownst to all of us), we are routinely duplicated
and one copy is destroyed - some unknown physical process that has
been operating for a long time.
Do you have any desire to change the situation, to eliminate this
duplication-and-destruction? How much desire - what would you give up
in order obtain "continuity" (whatever that means)? If continuity was
actually very preferable to "duplication-and-destruction", then you
would have some intuition that you would be willing to give up
something in order to obtain continuity.
I personally experience almost no desire to eliminate this physical
phenomenon, which leads me to believe that my gut reaction against
duplication-and-destruction is actually irrational, and explainable in
terms of the status quo bias, and maybe an aversion to violence or
suicide.
Johnicholas
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