Tuesday, December 11, 2012

EVE online and transhumanist confusions?

I raised an issue I have with Eve online in a forum recently, in that when your guy dies, the clone replacement is not him. He's dead.

I wouldn't mind if the fiction was like Anarchy online, with some dualist mumbo jumbo where the soul herp derps over to the new clone. Or some gruesome fiction where a brain canister decapitates the person before death and flies the brain through space to the empty skulled clone, for implantation.

But as is, no, it's just the same guy, for Eve and apparently it's players.

I don't know if you're shouting at the screen right now how much it's still the same person. Let's look at the replies from the forum and if you can find yourself amongst them...

It's not really that difficult a concept; the idea of someone grabbing a mind recording and broadcasting it wirelessly isn't exactly a cutting edge sci-fi concept. Hell, the idea of forking a backup that you keep updated every so often is right in Eclipse Phase.
 There's some esoteric issues with this - exactly why does a recording of you constitute you? As I said in the thread, if someone uploaded your clone early and it stood over you, you could see it, as you felt your life drifting away - how does that constitute being you?

Not. That. Difficult. A Concept?

My gosh. It's not rocket science, after all. Just brain surgery. I like how it sort of talks down the granny glasses - unless I'm wrong somehow (funny how the responce makes me think that), it's really not the position to take.

This is a much less cut and dried situation than you're making it.
What are the terms of death? And I'm the one who decides them?

 Not to mention the 'army of me' - just upload 'yourself' to multiple clones. And the responce - I dunno, a strange theory of mind...

As far as an army of me goes: One, it's illegal. Two, some people do it to an extent, but fully cognizant duplicates of yourself don't like being sent on suicide missions, and you don't have any capacity to force them to do whatever you want, so it's a limited tactic. You could make a hundred of yourself to mine, but they'd still want a cut of the profit and if they get bored, they can just hare off. Also, they have all your intel, with all the risks that implies. Better to just work with non-duplicate individuals.
I get the idea that one might not cooperate perfectly with duplicates of oneself. But if they get bored, they'll just hare off? Am I right that this is a failure of theory of mind, or he knows his own mind and he would hare off from himself, bored with himself? Hell, people often make friends with people who are like them. What about someone who essentially IS you? I'm currently betting on a theory of mind failure as part of a 'make the situation fit the conclusion' rationalisation. If that's not too many 'ions' in a row!

Okay, so damn - it's hard to know there's such a need for philosphy or neuroscience education or whatever, until these amazing potholes show themselves!

Still, writing it as Eve fanfiction might bring traffic to it, which is a handy upside. Only prob is, I don't play Eve (I did a trial and as said, the death thing put me off worse than a corpse run). Still, people often write stories about things they haven't done! This would just be...writing about something I have done, which is something where people play a game about stuff they aren't doing! Not. That. Complicated!

Anyway, speaking of simple things, like the phantom of the opera's mask, Scott Bakker has a new web page to keep the world a front, as he plays a pipe organ deep in the underground of France. I think. With Canadians, who knows, eh?

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