I wouldn’t have problems copying myself as long as I could merge the copies afterwards. However, it might not be possible to have a merge operation for human level systems that both preserves information and preserves sanity. E.g. if one copy started studying philosophy and radically changed its world views from the original, how do you merge this copy back into the original without losing information?
David Brin’s novel Kiln People has this “merging back” idea, with cheap copies, using clay for a lot of the material and running on a hydrogen based metabolism so they are very short lived (hours to weeks, depending on $$) and have to merge back relatively soon in order to keep continuity of consciousness through their long lived original. Lots of fascinating practical economic, ethical, social, military, and political details are explored while a noir detective story happens in the foreground.
If you don’t have the ability to merge, would the copies get equal rights as the original? Or would the original control all the resources and the copies get treated as second class citizens? If the copies were second class citizens, I would probably not fork because this would result in slavery.
If the copies do get equal rights, how do you plan to allocate resources that you had before forking such as wealth and friends? If I split the wealth down the middle, I would probably be OK with the lack of merging. However, I’m not sure how I would divide up social relationships between the copy and the original. If both the original and the copy had to reduce their financial and social capital by half, this might have a net negative utility.
If the goal is to just learn a new skill such as drawing, a more efficient solution might involving uploading yourself without copying yourself and then running the upload faster than realtime. I.e. the upload thinks it has spent a year learning a new skill but only a day has gone by in the real world. However, this trick won’t work if the goal involves interacting with others unless they are also willing to run faster than realtime.
Do what e.g. Mercurial does: report that the copies are too different for automatic merge, and punt the problem back to the user.
In other words, you are right that there is no solution in the general case, but that should not necessarily deter us from looking for a solution that works in 90% of cases.
I wouldn’t have problems copying myself as long as I could merge the copies afterwards. However, it might not be possible to have a merge operation for human level systems that both preserves information and preserves sanity. E.g. if one copy started studying philosophy and radically changed its world views from the original, how do you merge this copy back into the original without losing information?
David Brin’s novel Kiln People has this “merging back” idea, with cheap copies, using clay for a lot of the material and running on a hydrogen based metabolism so they are very short lived (hours to weeks, depending on $$) and have to merge back relatively soon in order to keep continuity of consciousness through their long lived original. Lots of fascinating practical economic, ethical, social, military, and political details are explored while a noir detective story happens in the foreground.
I recommend it :-)
I agree, I don’t think merge is possible in this scenario. I still see some gains, though (especially when communication is possible):
I (the copy that does X) am happy because I do what I wanted.
I (the other copies) am happy because I partly identify with the other copy (as I would be proud of my child/student?)
I (all copies) get results I wanted (research, creative, or even personal insights if the first copy is able to communicate them)
If you don’t have the ability to merge, would the copies get equal rights as the original? Or would the original control all the resources and the copies get treated as second class citizens? If the copies were second class citizens, I would probably not fork because this would result in slavery.
If the copies do get equal rights, how do you plan to allocate resources that you had before forking such as wealth and friends? If I split the wealth down the middle, I would probably be OK with the lack of merging. However, I’m not sure how I would divide up social relationships between the copy and the original. If both the original and the copy had to reduce their financial and social capital by half, this might have a net negative utility.
If the goal is to just learn a new skill such as drawing, a more efficient solution might involving uploading yourself without copying yourself and then running the upload faster than realtime. I.e. the upload thinks it has spent a year learning a new skill but only a day has gone by in the real world. However, this trick won’t work if the goal involves interacting with others unless they are also willing to run faster than realtime.
Tentatively—there’s be a central uberperson which wouldn’t be that much like a single human being.
If I had reason to think it was safe, I’d really like to live that way.
Do what e.g. Mercurial does: report that the copies are too different for automatic merge, and punt the problem back to the user.
In other words, you are right that there is no solution in the general case, but that should not necessarily deter us from looking for a solution that works in 90% of cases.