X-Message-Number: 25532
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 09:43:18 -0600
From: Jeff Dee <>
Subject: Re: More of the Duplicates Paradox
References: <>

I hope you guys don't mind me cutting in; I've made my peace with 
the "duplicates paradox", and it looks like I don't agree with 
either of you ;-)

Richard B. R. wrote:

> 1. Suppose I fall asleep, am destructively scanned, and two 
> duplicates of me are created, one looking at the sun, and the other 
> looking at the moon. While you may be able to say, neither one of 
> them remains me for very long (as you said in your last message), 
> you still have yet to answer the question, when I fall asleep, and 
> wake up, what do I see? The moon or the sun? I cannot possibly see 
> both. 

> The correct answer to this question is that I will see neither, 
> because I was destroyed. However, I would like you to answer this 
> question in your own view, and provide a justification for your 
> answer.

I submit that the "correct answer" to this is like the "correct 
answer" to the question, "when does a person's life begin?". There 
are so many different criteria which can reasonably be applied that 
there is no single objectively "correct" answer.

With the question, "when does a person's life begin", the best 
we've been able to come up with is a legal definition that 
satisfies enough people to keep it on the books. I think the 
resolution to this dilemma, assuming we ever actually have to face 
it, will be something like that.

> 2. Imagine someone making a duplicate of you while you are awake. 
> The duplication process takes only 1 hour. After the duplicate is 
> made, you talk with him for a few hours, recounting childhood 
> memories, and then take him to dinner and a movie. Then, after you 
> have concluded your day, I come to you, take out my pocket knife 
> and plunge it into your chest repeatedly, until your writhing body 
> moves no more.

> Here is my question for you: assuming I let your duplicate live, 
> would you consider the survival of your duplicate to be your own 
> survival?

From my perspective, the thing we're really trying to decide when we
discuss this paradox is, "who gets what rights"? I tend to agree 
with you that, under this scenario, the physical original is likely 
to get legal status as the actual original. That is to say, the 
physical original will probably be the one that gets the car, the 
kids, the marriage, the job, and so on.

At the same time, I'm pretty sure our society will recognize the 
duplicate as *a* person, entitled to all the same basic human rights. 

But that's not what you're really getting at. Why should Mike have 
any *particular* interest in the fate of his original, since (given 
his claim that they are in fact identical), the death of either one 
is not a loss? I have two responses to this.

First, I disagree with your basic premise that duplicate things are 
necessarily expendable. Do you own two of anything that are (for all 
practical purposes) identical? I have two effectively identical 
Dilbert mugs. Does that mean I shouldn't mind at all if you took a 
sledgehammer to one of them? Of course not.

Second, our tendency to see extra value in friends and loved ones - 
the people we know we have things in common with, and who we feel we 
can rely on, is well known. I submit that this would automatically 
extend to duplicates who we know for a fact share all of our likes 
and dislikes.

So even if a duplicate isn't *legally* me, I don't want either of us 
killed because a) we're human beings with rights, b) it would be a
completely pointless waste of something that has value, and c) we're
the closest allies we could ever hope to have. At least for a while.

> The survival of the 
> duplicate cannot be considered your survival in any useful way.

That depends on how one defines "useful".

Most people seem to like the idea of doing or creating something in 
their lifetime that will contine after they're gone. Of course if I 
have the option, I'd rather not go in the first place. But given a 
choice between leaving behind a statue or a book or even an 
organization for others to remember me by, or leaving behind a 
duplicate to carry on my actual work, I'd definitely prefer the 
duplicate.

-Jeff Dee

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