On 07 Feb 2017, at 04:09, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 7:25 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
>> I am right here in Helsinki right now,
> OK.
>> in the future what one and only one city will I see after
the experiment is over?
> That is the question. OK.
Yes
> Notice that "I" refers to the 1p-experience.
That "I" refers to the 1p-experience of the person in Helsinki RIGHT
NOW, and there is only one person who fits that description RIGHT
NOW. In our world that "I" will have a unique successor
tomorrow, but our world doesn't have matter duplicating machines. At
least not yet.
>> In the real world, and in any world that doesn't have people
duplicating machines, that question makes perfect sense and the
personal pronouns in it cause no problems. And you're right, a ten
year old can understand the question, even a five year old could.
That's because the person who wrote "I am right here in Helsinki
right now" has one and only one successor in the future and thus
there is a unique answer to the question. However if people
duplicating machines are introduced, as is done in the thought
experiment, then the person who wrote "I am right here in
Helsinki right now" does NOT have a unique successor,
> Indeed. But the person "in Helsinki right now" believes or
assumes digital mechanism (computationalism). So he can do some
reasoning.
If he can reason then he knows that the assumption that has
served him well for every day of his life, the assumption that he
will have only one successor tomorrow, fails him now because for the
first time in his life right here in Helsinki right now "he" will
encounter a people duplicating machine. At that point "he" needs to
make 2 changes to make sense of the strange new situation:
1) Abandon the assumption that "he" will have a unique successor
because it's just not true anymore.
Right, from the third person points of view that he can have about
himself, or better himselves. OK. No problem.
2) Stop using personal pronouns, all of them, because they only
create ambiguity and confusion. English and all languages will need
major revisions after such machines are invented, particularly in
regard to personal pronouns.
The problem is a problem of possible first person outcomes of the
experience. We could ask a guy to do the experience, without giving
him the protocols. By definition of the first person experiences
(cointent of the personal diary), if we ask each guy having done an
iteration of the experience, they will, in majority say that it looks
like a random sequence.
In fact, we did abandon the use of I and he, to make precise if we are
talking of the 1-I and 3-I, distinguishes by their diary contents.
>> and so the question does NOT have a unique answer,
> That is weird.
Yes, in a world with people duplicating machines things would
be very weird indeed!
Amoebas duplicate all the time, and somehow, we continue that too. If
you think the W-JC and the M-JC is the same guy, then we are already
all the same universal person instantiated.
Then, we don't need people duplicating machines, as the quantum
universal wave did already the self-multiplication, and the
arithmetical reality too, and in each case, the 1-3 distinction is
enough to clean the reasoning of any confusion.
Nobody understands the complexification that you add by obliterating
the 1-3 distinction each time you want to replace an indeterminacy by
an ambiguity.
Your deny of evidence seems transparent.
But they wouldn't be illogical or self contradictory, they'd just be
weird; and anybody who has studied modern physics, or even modern
mathematics, knows that there is no law that says things can't be
weird.
Indeed. That's the point. The 1p indeterminacy might be weird, but is
consistent, and follows from computationalism. You are the one saying
that we should stop reasoning, and who do stop reasoning, actually, at
step 3.
> So the guy right now in Helsinki can predict with certainty
that he will [...]
That is exactly the problem, who is this "the guy that
will" fellow? I don't know but he's certainly not the guy
right now in Helsinki
Of course he is the guy in Helsinki. Not right now, because time has
passed of course, and a duplication, but we have agreed that the guy
survives (one en entire) in both places. Both can say: I was in
Helsinki, and now I am in this precise city.
Surviving applies to person. It makes no sense to ask a doctor to
survive in exactly the same state and time lived before the operation.
> (whoever he can become in that experience) will see only one
city.
"He" has a name, USE IT.
Than changes nothing. See my older posts, I have once given you a
complete version of the argument without pronouns. But it is useless
and looks more like jargon. Just take the 1-3 difference into account.
> What he cannot be sure is if it will be Moscow, or
Washington, due to the 3p duplication.
No NO NO! It's NOT 3p duplication, it's a 1p duplication;
No, that is logically impossible. You can only mean 3-1p duplication.
If there were a 1p-duplication, the diary would contain "Now I have
the feeling to see simultaneously the city of W and the city of M".
You would see the cat dead and alive simultaneously, etc.
you don't understand that and that's why you're so Confused.
!
Computationalism says that matter can duplicate EVERYTHING if it is
organized in the correct way, and that includes 1p.
That is your confusion between 1p and 3-1p. By definition of 1p, the
content of the diary, it cannot contain a self-duplication
description, which for him occurs only when knowing the protocols,
getting phone news by the copy. If the 1p could felt the duplication,
so as to describe it in the diary, you would need a telepathy link
between the copies. It is the equivalent of Everett that we don't feel
the split.
You can repeat this mistake many times. You will not make it truer.
Bruno
If you assume right at the start that a matter duplicating machine
can't do that then you're assuming that Computationalism is untrue.
And you can't assume the very thing you're trying to prove.
> There is absolutely no problem at all that I can see. All
questions are precise, and have precise answers.
If the precise answer to the question "who exactly is the referent
to that person pronoun?" was always clear then Bruno
Marchal would have simply stopped using personal pronouns in Bruno
Marchal's thought experiments and this controversy would have
ended back when George W Bush was still president. But that's not
what happened.
The mechanist duplication makes impossible to reduce the ignorance
in Helsinki,
Other than the referent of personal pronouns in questions about the
future in a world with matter duplicating machines what exactly is
Mr. Helsinki ignorant of?
> and makes impossible a definite answers leading to the first
person indeterminacy.
Is it really surprising that blurry ambiguous questions have
blurry ambiguous answers?
John K Clark
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