Re: language, cloning and thought experiments

From: Wei Dai <weidai.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:57:26 -0700

Jack Mallah wrote:
> They might not, but I'm sure most would; maybe not exactly that U, but a
> lot closer to it.

Can you explain why you believe that?

> No. In U = Sum_i M_i Q_i, you sum over all the i's, not just the ones
> that are similar to you. Of course your Q_i (which is _your_ utility per
> unit measure for the observer i) might be highly peaked around those that
> are similar to you, but there's no need for a precise cutoff in
> similarity. And it's even very likely that it will have even higher peaks
> around people that are not very much like you at all (these are the people
> that you would sacrifice yourself for).
>
> By contrast, in your proposal for U, you do need a precise cutoff, for
> which there is no justification.

Ok, I see what you're saying, and it is a good point. But most people
already have a personal identity that is sufficiently well-defined in the
current environment where mind copying is not possible, so in practice
deciding which i's to sum over isn't a serious problem (yet).
 


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Received on Tue Mar 10 2009 - 20:58:40 PDT

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