At 11:07 PM 6/26/2005, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
R. Miller writes:
"Stathis Papaioannou" writes: Of course you are right: there is no way to
distinguish the original from the copy, given that the copying process works
as intended. And if you believe that everything possible exists, then there
will always be at least one version of you who will definitely experience
whatever outcome you are leaving to chance. Probability is just a first
person experience of a universe which is in fact completely deterministic,
because we cannot access the parallel worlds where our copies live, and
because even if we could, we can only experience being one person at a time.
RM Comments: (1) I'll have to disagree with Stathis' (apparent) statement
that "probability is just a first person experience of a universe."
No proper foundation. (2) Additionally, Stathis assumes that we cannot
access the parallel worlds where our copies live. Since no one
can even define consciousness, or isolate precisely where memory is
located (or even what it is), there is no way we can preclude simultaneous
experience. The best we can say is, "we simply don't know." And, (3),
for the same reasons, we cannot say that we "experience being one person
at a time." There are numerous psychological models---neodissociationism
being just one---that posit a personality made up of multiple modules,
all interacting (somewhat) under the guidance of an executive, Hilgard's
"hidden observer." Unless and until we fully understand how
consciousness is linked to personality, we probably shouldn't preclude
multiple or simultaneous experience.
1. I'm not saying that definitely there are all these other universes out
there, but if there are, then like the copying experiments, it will seem
probabilistic from a first person perspective because you don't know which
copy you are going to be. It *does* look probabilistic, doesn't it? When
you toss a coin, you only see one result. This could be explained equally
well by saying there is only one universe, or multiple universes which do
not interact at the level of people and coins.
RM: Okay. I see what you mean. Thanks for the clarification.
2. & 3. I can only experience being one person at a time. At least, it
seems that way: when I toss a coin, I have never observed both heads and
tails simultaneously. This tells me there is only one of me, or if there
are many versions of me, I can't experience what the other versions are
experiencing. Maybe under very unusual circumstances someone can peer into
one or more of the parallel universes, but it has never happened to me!
Only if you assume personality is defined (remains cohesive?) as a function
of the input amplitude---which seems to be a limited definition that
doesn't take such things as sensory deprivation (float tanks, ganzfeld
stimulation, sleep) into account. Shut down the outside stimulus and we
dream, but the personality--or the group of modules that represent the
personality cluster--seems to be the same throughout. As for the coin
flip---there's no reason to suggest that a single outcome has any impact on
our sense of "self"--it may be that we react simply because a single
outcome is considered normal and expected. On a larger scale, we
experience events that are often contradictory and we tend to accommodate
as well as any video gamer might---with no loss of self. At worse, it
comes down to the old joke:
Q. "Can you make up your mind?"
A. "Well, yes and no."
RM
