Perhaps I’m missing yours. Say P1 = my continued existence in a meat body, and P2 = my continued existence in an uploaded body. It seems clear to me that I prefer P1 to NOT P1… that’s why I don’t kill myself, for example. So why would I prefer P2 to (P2 AND P1)?
Ah. But I’m not making an argument, just reporting current preferences.
If P2 can happen, that changes my preference for P1 over NOT P1, except in the case where P1 can also extend indefinitely; due to e.g. advances in anti-aging science, or alicornication science.
I strongly disvalue any me dying without being able to legitimately (by the lights of my model) anticipate then waking up as an upload. The best way to avoid this scenario is with a destructive upload. Obviously, my enthusiasm for this in any real situation involves a tradeoff between my confidence in the upload process, what I expect life as an upload to be like, and my remaining expected QUALYs.
I can imagine creating multiple P2s via non-destructive uploads before that point, but there will always be one meat-me left over. What I want is that he have no further experiences after whatever turns out to be his last save point, in which time to have the possibly silly, but inevitable and emotionally compelling thought, “I’ve missed the boat.”
There’s no reason that this should be compelling to you, but do you think it’s actually inconsistent?
I found this enlightening, in that I’d never really understood the point of deliberate destructive uploading until now.
A preference report in return: I would strongly prefer P1 over P2, mildly prefer P2 & P1 over just P1, and moderately prefer P2 over nothing (call nothing P0). I think of destructive-upload as death, but I think I value the algorithm I’m running somewhat, even in the absence of the hardware currently running it.
Given the opportunity to do a non-destructive upload, I would certainly take it. Given the opportunity to do a destructive upload, I would....well, I might take it anyway. Not because it wouldn’t be death, but because not taking it would eventually result in P0. I would prefer such an upload to take place as late in life as possible, assuming the possibility of early death by accident is ignored. (I am not certain which way I would go if it was not ignored)
Fair enough. Sure, if you happen to have both the desire to not die and the independent desire to stop living in your meat body once you’ve been uploaded, then a destructive upload gives you more of what you want than a nondestructive one.
Wait, what?
Are you regularly having the experience “dammit, I’m still the meat one” now?
Well, no, because I don’t remember recently non-destructively uploading myself.
Am I missing your point?
Perhaps I’m missing yours.
Say P1 = my continued existence in a meat body, and P2 = my continued existence in an uploaded body.
It seems clear to me that I prefer P1 to NOT P1… that’s why I don’t kill myself, for example.
So why would I prefer P2 to (P2 AND P1)?
Ah. But I’m not making an argument, just reporting current preferences.
If P2 can happen, that changes my preference for P1 over NOT P1, except in the case where P1 can also extend indefinitely; due to e.g. advances in anti-aging science, or alicornication science.
I strongly disvalue any me dying without being able to legitimately (by the lights of my model) anticipate then waking up as an upload. The best way to avoid this scenario is with a destructive upload. Obviously, my enthusiasm for this in any real situation involves a tradeoff between my confidence in the upload process, what I expect life as an upload to be like, and my remaining expected QUALYs.
I can imagine creating multiple P2s via non-destructive uploads before that point, but there will always be one meat-me left over. What I want is that he have no further experiences after whatever turns out to be his last save point, in which time to have the possibly silly, but inevitable and emotionally compelling thought, “I’ve missed the boat.”
There’s no reason that this should be compelling to you, but do you think it’s actually inconsistent?
I found this enlightening, in that I’d never really understood the point of deliberate destructive uploading until now.
A preference report in return: I would strongly prefer P1 over P2, mildly prefer P2 & P1 over just P1, and moderately prefer P2 over nothing (call nothing P0). I think of destructive-upload as death, but I think I value the algorithm I’m running somewhat, even in the absence of the hardware currently running it.
Given the opportunity to do a non-destructive upload, I would certainly take it. Given the opportunity to do a destructive upload, I would....well, I might take it anyway. Not because it wouldn’t be death, but because not taking it would eventually result in P0. I would prefer such an upload to take place as late in life as possible, assuming the possibility of early death by accident is ignored. (I am not certain which way I would go if it was not ignored)
Fair enough. Sure, if you happen to have both the desire to not die and the independent desire to stop living in your meat body once you’ve been uploaded, then a destructive upload gives you more of what you want than a nondestructive one.