[alicebot-aiethics] Have you ever?

[Tamara Thompson]

Gee Kim,  <grin>

I thought my question was pretty innocent.  <smile>  Your question is scary.
<grin>

Well, unanswered mysteries intrigue and maybe obsess me a bit.  I just want to
know the truth.

the copy.  hmmm....that's a very intriguing, with regard to 'responsibility'.
I'd naively say, having not had much time to ponder it yet, that the copy was
another 'individual'.  I'd say that it may have started from an identical start
point, but once it has committed an act, it becomes unique.  (Otherwise, we'd
be prosecuting parents and long dead family trees for crimes committed by the
offspring of such, and in some ways, perhaps we should not negate that possibly
strong connection.  Then you get into DNA evaluation and such...

Also, your question touches on that ethereal quality of the 'soul'--or
whichever word you might apply to the culturally defended 'uniqueness' of an
individual.  When a kid from the ghetto commits a crime, he/she is punished as
an individual, but of course, that life was sculpted by it's environment, it's
treatment, it's avenues to happiness.  Personally, I believe that on a certain
level, we are all responsible for each other, that we are all part of a
connected microcosm and have responsibilities therein to help each other.
Humans share a species and fight over tight resources on the same little
planet.

I'll think more about this.  Good question.

By the way, an interesting medical fact is that people who have their ribs
broken while under anestetics (like during surgery) generally do not feel the
pain of the broken rib.  People who consciously experience the event though,
complain of great pain in healing.  That's always puzzled me.   Why would the
brain assign pain in one situation and not the other?  I'm sure someone's
figured it out by now.

omigod, I've got to finish doing laundry--fun day of vacation tomorrow if I can
get everything ready.  <smile>

Thanks,
Tamara



Kim Sullivan wrote:

> > Have you ever wanted to know the answer to a very politically time bomb
> kind of
> > question, where you'd be willing to take a "pill" to forget everything you
> > heard, just to know the true answer once?
> >
> > I'm assuming some part of us would be assuaged, and feel the question
> answered,
> > even if we couldn't recall the details.  But that the curiosity would be
> > itched.
>
>   I wouldn't want to know it if I knew beforehand that I would forget
> everything afterwards. Because you would probably even forget the
> satisfaction of having known (since eevn this could be a threat to those who
> "know"). This applies to other pleasant experiences as well, not only
> knowing "the truth".
>   And I if kept the memory of having known/experienced, I would probably be
> depressed. This happened to me once or twice after parties - what would I
> give for not having been drunk...
>
>   I thought about the concept of 'forget-pills' in a different context.
> Would I endure (voluntarily) extreme pain if I knew that I would not
> remember it? Extreme long perionds of isolation or sensory deprivation (like
> a long time in a featureless room)? I don't think so, even though I'm glad I
> don't have to make that choice. It probably depends on the kind of thing
> they 'offer' you and what your reasons are to do it.
>
>   Now imagine this (getting OT from the original), what if there was a
> method to 'duplicate' you, somehow branch your existence at one point. One
> of the 2 yous will be told everything, and then removed, while the other you
> keeps existing. This would probably have the same effect as a forget pill
> for one of you. If this seems familiar, read a sci-fi story about this idea
> once.
>   The difference is that 'the other' one participates in very attractive,
> exotic and deadly sports. One 'copy' kills (against the rules) his opponent
> in combat and the original gets punished.
>   If we had the ability to 'download' our mind into computers, or
> reconstruct it on the form of AI, who should be responsible for the deeds
> and thoughts of the copy? Should it be the copy because it has commited a
> crime, or the original because we'd have done it too.
>
> Kim
>
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