| Title |
Searle’s wager
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
AI & SOCIETY, March 2011
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s00146-011-0317-7 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Neil Levy |
| Abstract |
Nicholas Agar has recently argued that it would be irrational for future human beings to choose to radically enhance themselves by uploading their minds onto computers. Utilizing Searle's argument that machines cannot think, he claims that uploading might entail death. He grants that Searle's argument is controversial, but he claims, so long as there is a non-zero probability that uploading entails death, uploading is irrational. I argue that Agar's argument, like Pascal's wager on which it is modelled, fails, because the principle that we (or future agents) ought to avoid actions that might entail death is not action guiding. Too many actions fall under its scope for the principle to be plausible. I also argue that the probability that uploading entails death is likely to be lower than Agar recognizes. |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 18 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Belgium | 1 | 6% |
| Unknown | 17 | 94% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 4 | 22% |
| Student > Bachelor | 2 | 11% |
| Researcher | 2 | 11% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 2 | 11% |
| Professor | 1 | 6% |
| Other | 3 | 17% |
| Unknown | 4 | 22% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Philosophy | 4 | 22% |
| Arts and Humanities | 3 | 17% |
| Computer Science | 3 | 17% |
| Psychology | 3 | 17% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 1 | 6% |
| Other | 1 | 6% |
| Unknown | 3 | 17% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 9. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 January 2014.
All research outputs
#3,909,092
of 24,217,893 outputs
Outputs from AI & SOCIETY
#165
of 760 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#18,760
of 111,869 outputs
Outputs of similar age from AI & SOCIETY
#1
of 2 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,217,893 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 83rd percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 760 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.2. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 111,869 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 2 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them