On 28 Mar 2012, at 19:29, John Clark wrote:
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 4:40 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
>> If 2 different consciousnesses can not be distinguished in my
symmetrical room from the first person point of view or from the
third person point of view then it seems pointless to insist that
there are really 2 and not just one mind involved.
> We agree on this since the beginning.
Then why why why do you keep talking about things being the same
from the "3-view" but not from the "1-view".
You confuse F(x) = F(y) => x = y, with
F(x) = x.
Identical bodies have identical minds, but identical minds can have
different bodies.
> It seems to me that you are playing with words.
Words are the only means we have to communicate with and I need to
know what they mean and that is not always obvious in very extreme
and unusual (but not illogical) situations.
>> But you can see there are 2 bodies of Bruno Marchal just as well
as the outside observer, and you can not tell which one is you any
better than the outside observer can!
> No. The outsider can see both necks for example. The insider
cannot be sure that he is not in front of some mirror, according to
your own analysis.
No, you can touch the other fellow and he does not feel like a glass
mirror, you can shake his hand, punch him in the jaw, do whatever 2
people can do when they meet each other, but if I instantly
exchanged the position of the 2 bodies you would not notice the
slightest difference, not from the 1-view or 2-view or 3-view or any
view, the very universe itself would notice no difference. If
subjectively it makes no difference and objectively it makes no
difference then call me crazy but I say it makes no difference.
> So you fail to distinguish the 1-view and the 3-view.
Yes, the universe itself can't distinguish between them and I'm not
better than the universe.
The universe does not know you are John Clark. You do.
It seems you are eliminating the 1-view, which contradicts your
agreement on the existence of consciousness. Consciousness is not part
of any 3p description of the universe, yet it exists. I begin to think
your problem is not with comp, but with the general issue of the mind-
body problem. Your acknowledged difficulties to see Nagel points on
the bat corroborates this.
The difference between the 1-view and the 3-view is as big as the
difference between the diary of the W-man, and the diary of the M-man.
> OK. So what is new with comp is a form of indeterminacy which even
in theory we cannot predict, and which does not rely on physical
experimentation and extrapolation, nor on the same anti-
diagonalization used by Gödel or Turing.
So in this hypothetical non quantum mechanical non Godel-Turing
universe I could know at least in theory with 100% certainty that I
will see Washington provided the universe was also simple enough for
me to know the initial conditions and simple enough for me to
calculate with them to obtain a outcome. And because I'd know I
would see Washington I would know with 100% certainty that I will be
the Washington man. I ask again what is new or deep here?
You are just wrong. If you predict that you will feel to see
Washington with 100% chance, the guy in Moscow will have all the
memories of that prediction, and will have to admit he was wrong.
> Never say "cannot be proven" without adding "by a specific machine
M"
There are true statements that cannot be proven by a machine that is
both consistent and complete, and any machine powerful enough to do
arithmetic can not be complete.
>> You want to know what is the probability you will become the
Moscow man, but the only way that can happen is if you see images of
Moscow, that's what being the Moscow man means.
> You can apply that argument to the throwing of a coin. That
contradicts the statement above that you can use probability for the
coin, so why can't you use it for the probability of feeling to be
the Moscow man?
In common usage when you say "what is the probability I will see
heads when I flip this coin?" there is not a 100% chance I will see
heads as there is in the thought experiment with the cities, but
even more important in everyday use it is not needed to make what
might seem like hairsplitting distinctions on who "I" is, but such
exactitude is needed if duplicating chambers are thrown into the mix.
I gave you the precise definition, with the diaries and their owners.
But you are the one saying that this was hairsplitting and ask me to
not come back with the diary stuff.
You seem unable to put yourself at the place of any of the resulting
copies. The 1-I of those copies is the usual 1-I, like in "can you
touch your nose". A third person can ask them where they are, or which
movies they saw, and get definite answers. If you make a definite
specific prediction of which movie you will see in the movie-
multiplication experience, only one among the 2^<many> will assess it,
and 2^<many> will agree having been false. By comp, they are all
genuine survivors and so have to be all listened. And comp explains
why the guy making the specific claims is compelled in his delusion.
And if there is any mystery and indeterminacy in this thing you call
"first person indeterminacy" it quickly reduces out to types of
indeterminacy we've already known about, some for many thousands of
years and others for only about 80.
You keep saying this, but don't reply to the many debunking of that
idea that I have provided (and others too).
> Given that the probability concerns the 1-views (that is the 1-
view from the 1-person Pov), saying 100% for Moscow and 100% for
Washington entails that you predict that you will *feel* to be in
the two places at once.
"You" would feel to be in two places at once ...
You believe in some form of telepathy. No one can *feel* to be in two
places at once with comp and the protocol of those thought
experiences. It is just nonsense.
...except for one thing, "you" has been duplicated.
Indeed. So, if you take this into account, you get the 1-
indeterminacy. It is different from all previous indeterminacy because
it does not invoke ignorance of initial conditions (because the copies
are numerically identical at the relevant substitution level), nor
quantum superposition, nor anti-diagonalization trick.
It is also a much stronger form of indeterminacy, because the previous
one can be eliminated.
The classical one can be eliminated with the given of the initial
conditions, and the quantum one can be eliminated with non local
hidden variables (à-la Bohm). Nothing can do that for the
indeterminacy brought by self-duplication (like in comp and Everett),
so those indeterminacies have different reason and nature, as you
might suspect better by studying the reasoning, and seeing where the 1-
comp indeterminacy leads us, as opposed to the other forms.
The comp-1-indeterminacy is also different from the unsolvability
issue, which does not bring any form of indeterminacy, given that a
"little god" like arithmetical truth, or just P1-complete oracle, can
determine the outcome. The comp-1-indeterminacy is, I think, the first
form of indeterminacy that no notion of Gods nor Oracle or hidden
variables can be used to eliminate it. People having no notion in
either mathematical logic, classical physics, chaos or quantum
mechanics can grasp it without problem once they got the simple
approximate definition of 1-view and 3-view through the diaries.
You keep saying that you can predict which movie you will see in the
movie-multiplication experiment, notably by saying that you will saw
all of them, which is directly contradicts by the interview of the
vast majority of the copies, and which by definition of the 1-you, are
the one we have to listen to.
In conclusion: you have failed to convince me of any reason to stop at
step 3.
If any one else can help you to sort out your misunderstanding, I
encourage them to do so, because you repeat yourself a lot, by
avoiding systematically the rather obvious definition of 1-view and 3-
view I have given. As I said, John Clark seems to avoid the listening
to the copies: they know that nothing can help them to predict their
specific future, and this in a situation which is 100% deterministic
from a 3p pov.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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