On 10 Mar 2012, at 06:22, John Clark wrote:
On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 1:47 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
> You persist in ignoring the difference between the 1-view from the
1-view pov, which is what I usually mean by 1-views, and the 1-views
that an outsider can attribute to other people
So after you have been duplicated there is still a difference
between "1-view pov" and "1-views that an outsider can attribute to
other people". However you never make clear exactly why it can not
be duplicated,
You are supposed to do the thought experiment, and this by assuming
comp, and it is just very simple, for all people up to now, that the 1-
views on their own 1-view is not duplicated. If the 3p description are
numerically identical, like in your symmetrical room thought
experiment, then there is only one 1-view, and once they
differentiate, there are two different 1-view, but they feel like not
having been duplicated (they know only intellectually the possible
existence of the other), and that feeling is the 1-view.
and in my symmetrical room thought experiment I make it crystal
clear that the first person personal subjective perspective CAN be
duplicated just like everything else can be.
Crystal clear? It only shows that the 1-view is duplicated from a 3-
view pov, not from the 1-view perspective.
>> I think there is a thought experiment that can resolve this
issue: You are a copy of Bruno Marshal made as precisely as
Heisenberg's law allows and you are now facing the original Bruno
Marshal in a symmetrical room, thus the two of you are receiving
identical sensory input and thus act identically. I now use a Star
Trek brand transporter to instantly exchange your position with the
original, or if you prefer I leave your bodies alone and just
exchange the two brains. There is no way subjectively you or the
original Bruno Marshal would notice that anything had happened, and
objective outside observers would not notice anything had happened
either. There would not even be a way to tell if the machine was
actually working, I could even be lying about having a transporter.
Who knows who cares?
> OK. And?
And I'm delighted you said "OK", so you agree that subjectively it
makes no difference which one is the copy and which one is the
original, and objectively it makes no difference which one is the
copy and which one is the original; and being a man of logic you
must therefore conclude that there is simply no difference between
the two in any way whatsoever, including the point of view.
Yes, and that is why before the differentiation, there is only one 1-
view-on-the 1-view. This just means that the duplication/
differentiation did not yet occur. But the probability/uncertainty
question bears on the output of the self--localization experience
after the differentiation has occurred from a 3p view.
>> Of course if there were a unsymmetrical change in the
environment or there was a random quantum fluctuation that made the
people different then things would evolve, well, differently, but at
the instant of duplication they would still be identical. So if
subjectively it makes no difference and objectively it makes no
difference and even the very universe itself isn't sure if a switch
had actually been made or not then I make the very reasonable
assumption that it just makes no difference, and although there are
two bodies and two brains in that symmetrical room there is only one
intelligence and only one consciousness and only one point of view.
> OK. And?
No "and" is necessary this time because that pretty much covers it
all. I'm delighted you said "OK", so you agree the point of view can
be duplicated just like anything else,
The 1-view attributed by an outsider, not the 1-view from its own pov.
You continue to talk like if that was the same thing.
you agree that it does not matter how many bodies or brains there
are in that symmetrical room because there is only one mind,
... which mean there have not been duplicated. So you contradict what
you say yourself above.
there is only one intelligence and only one consciousness and only
one point of view. If we agree on all that I don't see why more
needs to be said, but apparently you do.
It is just the beginning of a long reasoning. You have to come back to
the original thought experiment.
> You tell me "you are duplicated" without precising if you talk on
the 1-view, 3-view, 3-view of 1-view".
Yes, if subjectively and objectively there is no difference between
various points of view then I refuse to pretend that there is a
distinction.
But there will be a difference after the copies diverge, and the
probability question bears on the future 1-views once they have
differentiated.
> That would be like aa duplication W W, or M M, not W, M.
Bruno, tell the truth, when you wrote the above cryptic sentence did
you honestly think it would make anything clear to any conscious
entity on this planet?
It was only a way to described concisely the duplication before a
differentiation is made, like in your thought experiment.
> Do you agree with this principle: if today I can be sure that
tomorrow I will be uncertain about the outcome of some experience,
then I am today uncertain about the outcome of that future experience.
Obviously I agree. The future is not predictable in theory and even
less so in practice, but I don't think that fact tells us much about
personal identity.
> Let consider again the guy in Helsinki. He will be read and
annihilate [...]
I'm sorry but before I can get any further in your thought
experiment, you're going to have to explain just what you mean by
"annihilated". I'm confused because you go on to say that just
before he was "annihilated" the information on the position and
momentum of all the atoms in his body was measured and that
information and generic atoms were used to make the bodies and
brains of the Helsinki man in Washington and in Moscow; but all that
is just equivalent to saying that the source of his external stimuli
was switched from Helsinki to Washington and Moscow. Information was
not annihilated, matter was not annihilated, energy was not
annihilated, so just what was "annihilated" in Helsinki?
Its body. If your prefer, the local information which was available in
Helsinki is erased after having been read and sent to W and to M. In
step 5 we will see that if he is not erased in Helsinki, the it is a
multiplication by three, and the probability related to the 1-
indeterminacy, have to be 1/3, if we accept 1/2 for the duplication.
> The guy in Helsinky knew this in advance, and can apply the
principle above to say that he is uncertain today, before the split,
what he will see when opening
Yeah but you don't need elaborate thought experiments involving
duplicating chambers to realize that you can never know for sure
what you will see when you open a door, surprises are always possible.
We are in the course of a reasoning. As you illustrate, nothing is
obvious, so in this case we have to explain why this particular form
of "surprise" is guarantied by the comp hypothesis.
And the comp explanation is trivial. This duplication is really the
Colomb-Egg of indeterminacy, because it shows that the comp 3-
determinacy is the reason of a necessary comp 1-indeterminacy. And
here you illustrate that you get the point, so we should go to step 4.
> when both realize that there are in the reconstitution boxes, they
can't know yet if they are in W or in M.
Right, they will not know if their external stimuli will come from
Washington or Moscow, but there is nothing unusual or exotic about
that, we can never totally predict our environment.
That is the reason why I decompose the reasoning in simple steps, to
make them as usual and non exotic as possible.
If not, it will be like I am asserting directly the conclusion, which
you have already described as delirious or self-contradictory. But
that's unclear because you did not mentioned what was self-
contradictory.
> In this case, betting with the banker that they will see "Flying
Circus" makes the vast majority of diary containing the sentence
"shit I lost the bet".
The bet was not that "they" would see anything, the bet was that
John K Clark would see Flying Circus, so the vast majority of the
diaries will be "Hurray I won the bet and now I'm rich! I John K
Clark saw nothing but white noise but John K Clark saw Flying Circus
so I get the money". The one fellow who saw Flying Circus had every
bit as much right to call himself John K Clark as the many who saw
white noise. However if the bet had stipulated that only the fellow
who saw Flying Circus would get the money then the vast majority of
the diaries would read " I won the bet, John K Clark saw Flying
Circus, but shit, I John K Clark didn't get any money because I John
K Clark just saw white noise.".
If the prediction is "I will see Flying Circus", then only one
exemplar of John K Clark will say "I win the bet", and the majority of
all other examplars will lost it. You can use this to define the 1-
indeterminacy in a 3p way, by making voting all the examplars on the
best theory to predict they future 1-view in case the experience
continue. The majority have seen white noise, so the majority will bet
that they cannot predict their next movie-image.
>> he's the Washington guy because he received sensory information
from Washington not Moscow, if he had not he would not be the
Washington guy.
> The fact that he is in Washington explains this.
No, by itself it explains nothing. If his brain was in Washington
but all his external stimuli came from Moscow then he'd be identical
to the Moscow guy, that is to say he'd be the Moscow guy. Except
when things are very far apart and signal transmission time becomes
a factor the position of the brain is not important.
You add something which is just not relevant for the point into
consideration. We assume the protocol is given to the guy in Helsinki,
and that he trust the protocol and that the protocol is rigorously
followed. You are changing the experiment.
> The guy in washington is singular. he is not even sure the guy in
Moscow has been reconstituted.
That's OK, If they are identical then another way of stating the
above that is exactly the same would be saying "The guy in Moscow is
not even sure he is the guy in Moscow"; when one of them figures out
he is the Moscow guy and the other figures out he is the Washington
guy then the two are different and will have diverged. And it does
not even matter if the process used to reach these conclusions were
erroneous or not because it doesn't matter who if anybody is right,
it only matters that the Washington guy and the Moscow guy are now
no longer identical. Right or wrong the two now have different
beliefs and so are different people.
Right. The point is that they were not able to predict in advance the
precise localization where they feel now (after the duplication and
opening the door).
> You seem to deny the very experience of each of the duplicates,
when walking in their new environment.
If they wake in different environments then they immediately start
generating new memories that are different from each other so
obviously they differentiate from that point on,
OK.
but in my thought experiment about the symmetrical room the external
stimuli are identical so you and the original Bruno Marshal are
identical, so until random quantum fluctuations become significant
you will not diverge, and from NOBODY'S point of view is there any
difference between the original and the copy.
Sure. But the probability question bears on the self-localization
result after they open the door.
> Which self-contradictory nonsense? You betray that you are not
willing to change your opinion, before reading the argument,
apparently.
Before reading the argument? Bruno I am not new to this, this ain't
my first time at the rodeo, I have been arguing this point
Which point?
for 20 years and I always get ridiculous stuff like: There is no
difference subjectively and there is no difference objectively but
there is still a enormous difference,
?
or, the difference is not in matter or energy or information but the
difference is still there, or, we don't do things for a reason and
we don't not do things for a reason either. And all of that, every
bit of it, is self-contradictory nonsense.
You are quite unclear. I have no idea what you are talking about. What
are the precise self-contradictory statements? Are you saying that
comp is self-contradictory, which would contradict your point that
comp is obviously true.
> If you can predict the personally felt outcome of a duplication
experience, give me the algorithm.
OK, the algorithm is not complex: I predict that if a mind is
receiving external stimuli that originated in Washington then the
personally felt outcome will be a feeling of being in Washington,
and if a mind is receiving external stimuli that originated in
Moscow then the personally felt outcome will be a feeling of being
in Moscow.
Here it seems you miss again, or abstract from, the 1-views on the 1-
views, which will exist in all case, for all people, in all
situations, and the probability bears on 'next 1-views, as seen from
the 1-view perspective".
You were just not answering the question asked.
In the W-M duplication experience, you can predict with certainty
(assuming comp) that
1) you will feel to survive, and you will survive as one integral,
entire, non duplicated person, from the 1-view on the 1-view.
2) you will feel having survived in either W or in M, and not in both
(the symmetry is broken, because from the 1-view on itself, the
consciousness of the doppelganger has to be attributed intellectually)
3) Neither the guy in W, or in M, could have predicted with certainty
that he would have feel that precise W, or M self-localization result.
4) that all this remains the case for the iterated WM duplication, so
that most resulting 1-view will have algorithmic incompressible
stories (of the kind WMWMMWWMWWWWMM ...), but all remember surviving
each time as an entire person, and so they will admit being unable to
predict the next self-localization, from the 1-view points on the 1-
view. The duplications give numerically identical copies, so all
people are totally ignorant about their next 1-experience, but they
all believe that they will have one. The winning bet, (with a banker
duplicated with him) would be P = 1/2. That's the first person
indeterminacy (with this protocol).
OK? Can we move on to step 4? If not I will wait for your answer to
David, and others. It is not clear if you have seen the point, and
notably the difference between the 1-view as seen by the 1-view, and
the 1-views that we can attribute to all copies (= the 3-views on the
1-views).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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