> >Stathis wrote: > > >When you press the button in the torture room, there is a > 50% chance > > >that your next moment will be in the same room and and a > 50% chance > > >that it will be somewhere else where you won't be > tortured. However, > > >this constraint has been added to the > > >experiment: suppose you end up the copy still in the torture room > > >whenever you press the button. After all, it is certain that there > > >will be a copy still in the room, however many times the button is > > >pressed. Should this unfortunate person choose the coin > toss instead? > > > >If he shares your beliefs about identity, then if he changes > his mind > >he will be be comitting the gambler's fallacy. > > > >However, after having pressed the button 100 times and with > nothing to > >show for it except 100 tortures, his faith that he is a > random observer > >might be shaken :). > > Yes, but do you agree it is the same for any probabilistic > experiment in a many worlds cosmology? If you sit down and > toss a coin 100 times in a row, there will definitely be one > version of you who has obtained 100 heads in a row, just as > there will definitely be one version of you (the one still in > the torture room) who has nothing to show after pushing the > button 100 times.
Yes, I agree. There are always going to be an unfortunate few. I think I know where this is going; if manyworlds is correct, there will be 10<sup>100 copies of me created in the next instant to which nothing bad happens, and a much smaller measure to whom something nasty happens, quite by chance. Presumably if I choose 50% over 10 copies, I should also choose 50% over 10<sup>100 copies, so if given the option between the status quo (assuming manyworlds) and a seemingly much higher chance of something nasty happening, I should choose the higher chance of nastiness (if I'm being consistent). There's not much answer to that; probably if I was convinced that manyworlds is correct, and something nasty *is* bound to happen to a small number of me in the next instant, I *would* choose the copies. In our thought experiment the subject knows he's getting tortured; unless we can prove manyworlds the nastiness is only conjecture. If that wasn't where you were heading, forgive the presumption... :) Jonathan Colvin
