Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

You can't meaningfully protect AI from being copied and still have functional AI anymore than you can protect people from death and still have functional people.

This is getting back into exactly how THS A.I.s are built.

Keeping people from intentionally killing themselves after only existing for days doesn't allow functional people?
Now you're just being silly, and so hyperbolic I lost what you're trying to say.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Why should anyone care that society is based on large numbers of citizens killing themselves and everyone pretending that copies are originals?

I don't know, you tell me. Your the one with the hang-up about it. Why should anybody care that every child that's born is doomed to die? Why is it still legal to have kids at all, when that means you are killing someone eventually? The alternative to infomorph's copying and deleting is either mandatory and unrestricted Xox'ing, or no infomorphs at all. Which do you prefer?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Keeping people from intentionally killing themselves after only existing for days doesn't allow functional people?

Why does the timeframe matter? Why is "days" bad but "four-score and ten" acceptable?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm unique. Copy me, and you just have a copy, not me. But as absurd as I find your beliefs, I find it even more absurd to imagine large groups believing as you. And therefore likely not to care about my death as long as some copy somewhere else is happy and fine.

Suppose you have bought a single (one, 1) Windows 8*. You install it. It's your W8. Then your Winchester fails (lots of corrupt sectors). You reinstall it, not knowing that it's a hardware problem. Then you do realise and replace the Winchester. And reinstall it again. Is it your Windows 8, or is it some other one?

* == Talking hypothetically here; I'm actually retelling events from my own life.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Suppose you have bought a single (one, 1) Windows 8*. You install it. It's your W8. Then your Winchester fails (lots of corrupt sectors). You reinstall it, not knowing that it's a hardware problem. Then you do realise and replace the Winchester. And reinstall it again. Is it your Windows 8, or is it some other one?

* == Talking hypothetically here; I'm actually retelling events from my own life.

There's a difference between functionally identical and the same object.
I don't care if the shirt I wear now is the same one I wore last week. It's a shirt; it does the job I use it for.
I sure as hell care if my life mate is the same one I met 15+ years ago, or some alien copy that just acts like her.
Your views are disturbing, but I believe you never the less loathe suffering. And wouldn't want societies to depend on creating diseased dying suffering babies.
Sir Pudding's views disgust me.
Bad things happen in the real world. But there's a difference between continuing the confused set up we have and adding more suffering to it for no real gain other than novelties, slaves, and hubris.

I hope it's clear that I'm not saying anything about S.P as a person. I normally like his posts. But his apparent views in this thread are abhorrent to me.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Why does the timeframe matter? Why is "days" bad but "four-score and ten" acceptable?

I'm going to give you asymptomatic cancer that will kill you tomorrow vs. I'm going to give you asymptomatic cancer that will kill you in 90 years.
You seriously, cannot understand the difference?
I cannot think anything other than that you are arguing just to argue.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

There's a difference between functionally identical and the same object.
I don't care if the shirt I wear now is the same one I wore last week. It's a shirt; it does the job I use it for.

Why do you care if Police Inspector Summerblue is the same one as it was the last time it interviewed you?

I sure as hell care if my life mate is the same one I met 15+ years ago, or some alien copy that just acts like her.

What if she undergoes anesthesia for a surgery? There's some evidence that when we regain consciousness after that it is more or less a "reboot" of the emergent entity we think of as our identity. Is she a copy?

Sir Pudding's views disgust me.

Wow.

Bad things happen in the real world. But there's a difference between
I hope it's clear that I'm not saying anything about S.P as a person. I normally like his posts. But his apparent views in this thread are abhorrent to me.

I'm sorry to hear that.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm going to give you asymptomatic cancer that will kill you tomorrow vs. I'm going to give you asymptomatic cancer that will kill you in 90 years.
You seriously, cannot understand the difference?

There's a difference because I expect to live for 90 years. Why would you suppose that Inspector Summerblue expects to keep the same instantiation for more than a few hours? They aren't human. Is it wrong to let mayflies breed?

I cannot think anything other than that you are arguing just to argue.

I'm not. I'm trying to express my thought that you are wrong that TS requires everyone to think like Vicky does.

Personally I think that consciousness and identity are emergent properties of human brain activity and that continuity is more or less illusionary anyway. Since we accept already that people are the same from moment to moment, I don't see it as all that weird that we could extend the same illusion to AI.

[Nelson Cunnington]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm unique. Copy me, and you just have a copy, not me.

They're not "just" a copy, any more than you're "just" the original. In every way that matters to human senses, they are you. They will even believe themselves to be you, unless confronted with irrefutable evidence that they are the copy. And even then — human psychology being what it is — they will quite likely deny that they are the copy, and seek to prove that you are, simply because they will believe that the copy is "just" a copy and only the original is "real" in some unsupportably fundamental way.

But as absurd as I find your beliefs, I find it even more absurd to imagine large groups believing as you. And therefore likely not to care about my death as long as some copy somewhere else is happy and fine.

And yet, we keep having these threads in which many people support similar beliefs about identity and xoxxing and so on. Why do you want to believe that there won't be large numbers of us in society if this ever becomes an issue?

Not, incidentally, that we don't care about your death (or your copy's). It's a death, whether violent or gentle, criminal, natural or accidental. But if everything that was you up to the point of recording still exists in another fork, then, yeah, it's not going to be as sad as losing all of you.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Nelson Cunnington

Not, incidentally, that we don't care about your death (or your copy's). It's a death, whether violent or gentle, criminal, natural or accidental. But if everything that was you up to the point of recording still exists in another fork, then, yeah, it's not going to be as sad as losing all of you.

That sounds like the bit in Job where God lets Satan kill all of Job's children—but after Job affirms his ultimate faith in God, God gives him another set of children, so it's all right. I always thought that was really creepy.

Bill Stoddard