Russell Standish <r.standish.domain.name.hidden> writes:
> If computationalism is true, then a person is instantiated by all
> equivalent computations. If you change one instantiation to something
> inequivalent, then that instantiation no longer "instantiates" the
> person. The person continues to exist, as long as there remain valid
> computations somewhere in the universe. And in almost any of the many
> worlds variants we consider in this list, that will be true.
That's true, but even with the MWI, making an instantiation cease to
exist decreases the measure of that person. Around here we call that
"murder". The moral question still exists. I don't see the MWI as
rescuing functionalism and computationalism.
What, after all, do these principles mean? They say that the
implementation substrate doesn't matter. You can implement a person
using neurons or tinkertoys, it's all the same. But if there is no way
in principle to tell whether a system implements a person, then this
philosophy is meaningless since its basic assumption has no meaning.
The MWI doesn't change that.
Hal Finney
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Received on Wed Jun 21 2006 - 14:34:58 PDT