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Comment by udo on How do I back-up myself? · 2013-10-16T19:45:28.946Z · LW · GW

The goals of current-you are the result of your current situation and your current cognitive state. I'm not sure it makes sense to make a backup of those goals (except maybe to use the process of writing them down as a tool to determine what's important to you and why). Your future-self amnesiac is not likely to identify with them anymore than a random person on the street.

I believe the central mistake here is to assume that goals in of themselves have more value than the thought processes that went into deriving them.

That said, if you want to convince your future self of something, it's probably a good idea to go about it in exactly the same way you would as if you were going to convince other random people. Write a book, record videos - basically make your case by illustrating the rationale for your proposals.

All in all, the amnesiac version of yourself - if this can even be called "you" anymore - is pretty unlikely to be a good receptacle for your goals. It would have to share a lot with your current self in order to provide a fertile ground for your current ideas, and if it did you probably wouldn't have to backup your goals explicitly anyway.

Chances are that after a coma, you'll either be sufficiently yourself eventually or you'll have some form of brain trauma that results in permanent impairment. In both cases, a condensed goal import is neither feasible nor needed.

Fully functional, permanent amnesiacs with the ability to understand new information are very rare.

Comment by udo on Ben Goertzel: The Singularity Institute's Scary Idea (and Why I Don't Buy It) · 2010-10-31T12:00:58.721Z · LW · GW

The underlying disorders of what is commonly referred to as psychopathy are indeed detectable. I also find it comforting that they are in fact disorders and that being evil in this fashion is not an attribute of an otherwise high-functioning mind. Psychopaths can be high-functioning in some areas, but a short interaction with them almost always makes it clear that there is something is.wrong.