5 replies to this topic

[eon fathom]

Abstract
Dr. Evil learns that a duplicate of Dr. Evil has been created. Upon
learning this, how seriously should he take the hypothesis that he
himself is that duplicate? I answer: very seriously. I defend a principle
of indifference for self-locating belief which entails that after
Dr. Evil learns that a duplicate has been created, he ought to have
exactly the same degree of belief that he is Dr. Evil as that he is the
duplicate. More generally, the principle shows that there is a sharp
distinction between ordinary skeptical hypotheses, and self-locating
skeptical hypotheses.

more from the paper:

Dear Sir,
(Forgive the impersonal nature of this communication—our purpose
prevents us from addressing you by name.) We have just created a
duplicate of Dr. Evil. The duplicate—call him “Dup”—is inhabiting
a replica of Dr. Evil’s battlestation that we have installed in our skepticism
lab. At each moment Dup has experiences indistinguishable
from those of Dr. Evil. For example, at this moment both Dr. Evil
and Dup are reading this message.
We are in control of Dup’s environment. If in the next ten
minutes Dup performs actions that correspond to deactivating the
battlestation and surrendering, we will treat him well. Otherwise
we will torture him.
Best regards,
The PDF


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so don't let duplicates fall into the wrong hands

[dr_chaos]

so don't let duplicates fall into the wrong hands

Since you can't find out whether the other party really has the duplicate of you, before the bad outcome they threaten you with happens to it(you?), you have to ignore their threat, because it is ridiculously easy to fake having a duplicate and everyone can claim to own one. Interestingly bostroms simulated reality argument covers this problem in some sort of way, too. If vr technology should become as cheap and as able that everyone can simulate real human beings and copies of "real" people without the need to ask them for allowance, then there will be a good chance, that you are copy of another instance of you, because since it is often helpful to practice social interactions and to predict the future or the behavior of people in different situations, many people will create simulations of you or your environment for business, marketing or political purposes.

[eon fathom]

sorry here's the link: philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001036/00/drevil.pdf

[John Schloendorn]

I think they are either underestimating the battlestation they have duplicated... If it's an accurate duplicate, then how can one of the Dr. Evils/battlestations be a problem for them, while they have perfect control over the other? On the other hand, if it's not a perfect duplicate, then Dr. Evil can tell whether he is in trouble by carefully examining the battlestation. Perhaps he can even disable the backdoor :-)

[soren]

Right now, I might write back to the manufacturers and ask them if they could furnish my sim with extra physics, that would allow me to take 10 years off, letting Sim Soren do the leg work for a bit.
So long as he doesn't make a damned hash of things in my name - One would have to keep an eye on quality control.
After that, I would find Sim Soren, thank him for his sterling work, kill him off, and resume normal service.