I’m against any irreversible destruction of knowledge, thoughts, perspectives, adaptations, or ideas, except possibly by their owner.
Deleting the last copy of an em in existence should be prosecuted as murder, not because doing so snuffs out some inner light of consciousness (who is anyone else to know?), but rather because it deprives the rest of society of a unique, irreplaceable store of knowledge and experiences, precisely as murdering a human would.
The first paragraph of the quote is about pattern identity theory. Unfortunately the second paragraph is actually something of a muddling of pattern identity with the separate issue of basing moral/ethical/legal considerations only on the externalities experienced by the survivors. Specifically, making it about ‘depriving the rest of society’ distracts from the (hopefully) primary point that it is the pattern that matters more so than spooky stuff about an instance.
Re pattern identity theory:
Scott Aaronson in The Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine.
The first paragraph of the quote is about pattern identity theory. Unfortunately the second paragraph is actually something of a muddling of pattern identity with the separate issue of basing moral/ethical/legal considerations only on the externalities experienced by the survivors. Specifically, making it about ‘depriving the rest of society’ distracts from the (hopefully) primary point that it is the pattern that matters more so than spooky stuff about an instance.