On 1/24/07, Stathis Papaioannou <stathispapaioannou.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>
> > Jason Resch writes:
> >
> >My appologies to those on this list, this is how I should have worded
> >my conclusion:
>
> >Positive spared lives = Take replication
> >Neutral spared lives = Take coin flip
> >Negative spared lives = Take coin flip
>
> This is an analysis from an altruistic viewpoint, i.e. which choice will
> increase
> the net happiness in the world. What I am asking is the selfish question,
> what
> should I do to avoid being tortured? If I choose the replication it won't
> worry
> me from a selfish point of view if one person will definitely be tortured
> because
> I am unlikely to be that person. Indeed, after the replication it won't
> affect me
> if *all* the other copies are tortured, because despite sharing the same
> psychology
> up to the point of replication, I am not going to experience their pain.
I think our disagreement stems from our different conceptions of
consciousness. You seem to believe that once you experience an observer
moment, that you are destined to experience all future observer moments of
that observer. While this is the way most people see the world, I consider
that to be an illusion caused by memory. i.e
. "We remember past observer moments so we must be moving into the future."
I believe that its is just as beneficial to do something that will
improve someone else's observer moments as it is to improve one's
future observer moments.
Just think: your current observer moment never gets to experience the fruits
of its current labors, it remains in that observer moment for all
time. Yet we still go to work. That is why altruism is indistinguishable
from selfish behavior in my philosophy. There is no consciousness outside
of brain states, brain states are consciousness, since they exist they are
experienced, no one can say by who or by what, their existance is
experience. Therefore it is in everyone's interest to improve reality's
first person, of which every observer moment is a part.
It's easy to see how evolution taught us to work for one individual's
future observer moments, we defer gratification all time in order to
increase
the average quality of all future observer moments.
I'm not advocating we all become like Mother
Teresa, but I think we should understand that we are no more (or less)
our future observer moments than we are other individual's observer
moments.
If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of argument we
> should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every moment
> terrible things
> are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we should be
> constantly
> be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we *will* be
> struck by lightning.
> But normally we don't worry about this because being struck by lightning
> in 1/million
> actual worlds is subjectively equivalent to being struck by lightning in a
> single world
> with probability 1/million.
I wouldn't worry about things we have no control over. But I often
consider, whenever I get into a car
or a
plane, there are copies of me that never make it home but by the same
measure there are also always copies that
do. Just do what you can to make things better for yourself and others and
you will be improving reality's first person perspective. When you help
others, it is not necessarily a zero sum game. We, as humans, often feel
positive emotions when we
do something good for others, so in a way when you help someone as
opposed to yourself, your net effect on all observer moments is more
positive than if you had
simply helped yourself.
Jason
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Received on Wed Jan 24 2007 - 12:17:04 PST