I agree completely that there are two bunches of matter in this scenario. There are also (from what you’re labeling the compsci perspective) two data structures. This is true.
My question is, why should I care? What value does the one on the left have, that the one on the right doesn’t have, such that having them both is more valuable than having just one of them? Why is destroying one of them a bad thing? What you seem to be saying is that they are valuable because they are different people… but what makes that a source of value?
For example: to my way of thinking, what’s valuable about a person is the data associated with them, and the patterns of interaction between that data and its surroundings. Therefore, I conclude that if I have that data and those interactions then I have preserved what’s valuable about the person. There are other things associated with them—for example, a particular set of atoms—but from my perspective that’s pretty valueless. If I lose the atoms while preserving the data, I don’t care. I can always find more atoms; I can always construct a new body. But if I lose the data, that’s the ball game—I can’t reconstruct it.
In the same sense, what I care about in a book is the data, not the individual pieces of paper. If I shred the paper while digitizing the book, I don’t care… I’ve kept what’s valuable. If I keep the paper while allowing the patterns of ink on the pages t o be randomized, I do care… I’ve lost what’s valuable.
So when I look at a system to determine how many people are present in that system, what I’m counting is unique patterns of data, not pounds of biomass, or digestive systems, or bodies. All of those things are certainly present, but they aren’t what’s valuable to me. And if the system comprises two bodies, or five, or fifty, or a million, and they all embody precisely the same data, then I can preserve what’s valuable about them with one copy of that data… I don’t need to lug a million bundles of atoms around.
So, as I say, that’s me… that’s what I value, and consequently what I think is important to preserve. You think it’s important to preserve the individual bundles, so I assume you value something different.
I understand that you value the information content and I’m OK with your position.
Let’s do another tought experiment then: Say we’re some unknown X number of years in the future and some foreign entity/government/whatever decided it wanted the territory of the United States (could be any country, just using the USA as an example) but didn’t want the people. It did, however, value the ideas, opinions, memories etc of the American people. If said entity then destructively scanned the landmass but painstakingly copied all of the ideas, opinions, memories etc into some kind of data store which it could access at it’s leisure later then would that be the same thing as the original living people?
I’d argue that from a comp sci perspective what you have just done is built a static class which describes the people, their ideas, memories etc but this is not the original people it’s just a model of them.
Now don’t get me wrong, a model like that would be very valuable, it just wouldn’t be the original.
And yes, of course some people value originals otherwise you wouldn’t have to pay millions of dollars for postage stamps printed in the 1800s even though I’d guess that scanning that stamp and printing out a copy of it should to all intents and purposes be the same.
In the thought experiment you describe, they’ve preserved the data and not the patterns of interaction (that is, they’ve replaced a dynamic system with a static snapshot of that system), and something of value is therefore missing, although they have preserved the ability to restore the missing component at their will.
If they execute the model and allow the resulting patterns of interaction to evolve in an artificial environment they control, then yes, that would be just as valuable to me as taking the original living people and putting them into an artificial environment they control.
I understand that there’s something else in the original that you value, which I don’t… or at least, which I haven’t thought about. I’m trying to understand what it is. Is it the atoms? Is it the uninterrupted continuous existence (e.g., if you were displaced forward in time by two seconds, such that for a two-second period you didn’t exist, would that be better or worse or the same as destroying you and creating an identical copy two seconds later?) Is it something else?
Similarly, if you valued a postage stamp printed in the 1800s more than the result of destructively scanning such a stamp and creating an atom-by-atom replica of it, I would want to understand what about the original stamp you valued, such that the value was lost in that process.
Thus far, the only answer I can infer from your responses is that you value being the original… or perhaps being the original, if that’s different… and the value of that doesn’t derive from anything, it’s just a primitive. Is that it?
If so, a thought experiment for you in return: if I convince you that last night I scanned xxd and created an identical duplicate, and that you are that duplicate, do you consequently become convinced that your existence is less valuable than you’d previously thought?
I guess from your perspective you could say that the value of being the original doesn’t derive from anything and it’s just a primitive because the macro information is the same except for position (thought the quantum states are all different even at point of copy). But yes I value the original more than the copy because I consider the original to be me and the others to be just copies, even if they would legally and in fact be sentient beings in their own right.
Yes, if I woke up tomorrow and you could convince me I was just a copy then this is something I have already modeled/daydreamed about and my answer would be: I’d be disappointed that I wasn’t the original but glad that I had existence.
I agree completely that there are two bunches of matter in this scenario. There are also (from what you’re labeling the compsci perspective) two data structures. This is true.
My question is, why should I care? What value does the one on the left have, that the one on the right doesn’t have, such that having them both is more valuable than having just one of them? Why is destroying one of them a bad thing? What you seem to be saying is that they are valuable because they are different people… but what makes that a source of value?
For example: to my way of thinking, what’s valuable about a person is the data associated with them, and the patterns of interaction between that data and its surroundings. Therefore, I conclude that if I have that data and those interactions then I have preserved what’s valuable about the person. There are other things associated with them—for example, a particular set of atoms—but from my perspective that’s pretty valueless. If I lose the atoms while preserving the data, I don’t care. I can always find more atoms; I can always construct a new body. But if I lose the data, that’s the ball game—I can’t reconstruct it.
In the same sense, what I care about in a book is the data, not the individual pieces of paper. If I shred the paper while digitizing the book, I don’t care… I’ve kept what’s valuable. If I keep the paper while allowing the patterns of ink on the pages t o be randomized, I do care… I’ve lost what’s valuable.
So when I look at a system to determine how many people are present in that system, what I’m counting is unique patterns of data, not pounds of biomass, or digestive systems, or bodies. All of those things are certainly present, but they aren’t what’s valuable to me. And if the system comprises two bodies, or five, or fifty, or a million, and they all embody precisely the same data, then I can preserve what’s valuable about them with one copy of that data… I don’t need to lug a million bundles of atoms around.
So, as I say, that’s me… that’s what I value, and consequently what I think is important to preserve. You think it’s important to preserve the individual bundles, so I assume you value something different.
What do you value?
More particularly, you regularly change out your atoms.
That turns out to be true, but I suspect everything I say above would be just as true if I kept the same set of atoms in perpetuity.
I agree that it would still be true, but our existence would be less strong an example of it.
I understand that you value the information content and I’m OK with your position.
Let’s do another tought experiment then: Say we’re some unknown X number of years in the future and some foreign entity/government/whatever decided it wanted the territory of the United States (could be any country, just using the USA as an example) but didn’t want the people. It did, however, value the ideas, opinions, memories etc of the American people. If said entity then destructively scanned the landmass but painstakingly copied all of the ideas, opinions, memories etc into some kind of data store which it could access at it’s leisure later then would that be the same thing as the original living people?
I’d argue that from a comp sci perspective what you have just done is built a static class which describes the people, their ideas, memories etc but this is not the original people it’s just a model of them.
Now don’t get me wrong, a model like that would be very valuable, it just wouldn’t be the original.
And yes, of course some people value originals otherwise you wouldn’t have to pay millions of dollars for postage stamps printed in the 1800s even though I’d guess that scanning that stamp and printing out a copy of it should to all intents and purposes be the same.
In the thought experiment you describe, they’ve preserved the data and not the patterns of interaction (that is, they’ve replaced a dynamic system with a static snapshot of that system), and something of value is therefore missing, although they have preserved the ability to restore the missing component at their will.
If they execute the model and allow the resulting patterns of interaction to evolve in an artificial environment they control, then yes, that would be just as valuable to me as taking the original living people and putting them into an artificial environment they control.
I understand that there’s something else in the original that you value, which I don’t… or at least, which I haven’t thought about. I’m trying to understand what it is. Is it the atoms? Is it the uninterrupted continuous existence (e.g., if you were displaced forward in time by two seconds, such that for a two-second period you didn’t exist, would that be better or worse or the same as destroying you and creating an identical copy two seconds later?) Is it something else?
Similarly, if you valued a postage stamp printed in the 1800s more than the result of destructively scanning such a stamp and creating an atom-by-atom replica of it, I would want to understand what about the original stamp you valued, such that the value was lost in that process.
Thus far, the only answer I can infer from your responses is that you value being the original… or perhaps being the original, if that’s different… and the value of that doesn’t derive from anything, it’s just a primitive. Is that it?
If so, a thought experiment for you in return: if I convince you that last night I scanned xxd and created an identical duplicate, and that you are that duplicate, do you consequently become convinced that your existence is less valuable than you’d previously thought?
I guess from your perspective you could say that the value of being the original doesn’t derive from anything and it’s just a primitive because the macro information is the same except for position (thought the quantum states are all different even at point of copy). But yes I value the original more than the copy because I consider the original to be me and the others to be just copies, even if they would legally and in fact be sentient beings in their own right.
Yes, if I woke up tomorrow and you could convince me I was just a copy then this is something I have already modeled/daydreamed about and my answer would be: I’d be disappointed that I wasn’t the original but glad that I had existence.
OK.