On 13 Feb 2013, at 04:09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Consider the following thought experiment, called "The Duplicators":
At 1:00 PM tomorrow, you will be abducted by aliens. The aliens
will tell
you not to worry, that you won't be harmed but they wish to conduct
some
experiments on the subject of pain, which is unknown to them. These
aliens
possess technology far in advance of our own. They have the ability
to scan
and replicate objects down to the atomic level and the aliens use
this
technology to create an atom-for-atom duplicate of yourself, which
they call
you2. The aliens thank you for your assistance and return you
unharmed back
to your home by 5:00 PM. You ask them "What about the pain
experiments?" and
they hand you an informational pamphlet and quickly fly off. You
read the
pamphlet which explains that a duplicate of you (you2) was created
and
subjected to some rather terrible pain experiments, akin to what
humans call
torture and at the end of the experiment you2 was euthanized. You
consider
this awful, but are nonetheless glad that they tortured your
duplicate
rather than you.
Now consider the slightly different thought experiment, called "The
Restorers":
At 1:00 PM tomorrow, you will be abducted by aliens. Unlike the
aliens with
the duplication technology (the duplicators), these aliens possess a
restorative technology. They can perfectly erase memories and all
other
physical traces to perfectly restore you to a previous state. The
aliens
will tell you not to worry, that you won't be harmed but they wish to
conduct some experiments on the subject of pain, which is unknown
to them.
They then proceed to brutually torture you for many hours,
conducting test
after test on pain. Afterwards, they erase your memory of the
torture and
all traces of injury and stress from your body. When they are
finished, you
are atom-for-atom identical to how you were before the torture
began. The
aliens thank you for your assistance and return you unharmed back
to your
home by 5:00 PM. You ask them "What about the pain experiments?"
and they
hand you an informational pamphlet and quickly fly off. You read the
pamphlet which explains that a duplicate of you (you2) was created
and
subjected to some rather terrible pain experiments, akin to what
humans call
torture and at the end of the experiment you2 was euthenized. You
consider
this awful, but are nonetheless glad that they tortured your
duplicate
rather than you.
My questions for the list:
1. Do you consider yourself to have experienced the torture in the
case of
the Restorers, even though you no longer remember it? If not, why
not.
2. If yes, do you consider yourself to have experienced the torture
in the
case of the Duplicators? If yes, please explain, if not, please
explain.
3. If you could choose which aliens would abduct you, is there one
you would
prefer? If you have a preference, please provide some justification.
The two experiments are equivalent. Rationally, you should not have a
preference for either - though both are bad in that you experience
pain but then forget it.
OK, same answer (assuming comp).
If we assume non-comp, then the answer will be dependent on the theory
of mind that we might propose.
Bruno
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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