On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > You should care to be able to answer the simple question: "what do you > expect to feel in the multiplication-movie experience" >
I would expect to feel exactly the same as if duplicating chambers and multiple copies of myself were not involved. If you perform whatever calculations you think are needed to produce your patented "1-view indeterminacy" I would not be one bit wiser than if I calculated probabilities using regular old conventional probability methods, you've added tons of bells and whistles but for all the complex convolutions you have not added one single bit of additional information about what is likely to happen. > You said you favor Everett's QM. > Yes, but the universe will be the way is and doesn't care if I favor it or not, so it may or may not be true. And if Everett is right then there is a 100% probability that anything that can happen will happen, but using statistics in this way would not produce anything we could use, just as the "1-view probability" of something can not tell me anything I didn't already know. > You did not answer Quentin when he commented that with Everett the > Universe is a "duplicating chamber", so that your charge again the > coimp-1-indeterminacy applies to Everett QM too. > In the first place I like Many Worlds for esthetic reasons but I'm far from certain it's true. More important, in the thought experiment about the cities we have access to all the branches and can see what all the copies are doing, but that is not the case with Everett. If Everett is correct then probability is not inherent in the event itself but is just a measure of our ignorance. As you point out Many Worlds is a deterministic theory so if we had a bird's eye view of everything probability would be a useless tool because everything would have a probability of 100% or 0%. But I can hear you scream "but you still wouldn't know for certain if "you" will see Washington". I say the probability is 100% you say it is 50%, how can we tell who is correct? I say that after the experiment if I find "you" and you says that he is in Washington and only Washington then my prediction was proven correct, and I can do exactly that. If after the experiment if you find "you" and he says that he is 50% in Washington then your prediction was proven correct, but you can't find anybody like that. You concede that you will indeed say you are in Washington and only Washington, but you correctly point out that you will also say you are in Moscow and only Moscow. I agree and say that means the probability you will see Moscow and only Moscow is also 100%, but you disagree and say it is 50%. I say the fact that you say you are in Washington and only Washington in no way weakens the claim that you are in Moscow and only Moscow. I predict there is a 100% chance there is a 100% chance you will feel like you are in one city and one city only, and it's not a problem for me to have two yous with 100% because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED. But exactly what does your 50% really mean? You're treating it not as a measure of ignorance but as if it's part of the thing itself even though it's a deterministic process, as if there is a 100% chance you will feel like you are 50% in Moscow and a 100% chance you will feel like you are 50% in Washington. And that does not correspond to the experimental results. >> My complaint is that the diaries add nothing, it's obvious that if the >> diaries the people remember writing are identical then the people are too, >> and if they aren't then the people aren't either. >> > > > But the you contradict your statement > Did I? I hate it when that happens. > that both the guy in W and in M have the right to say that they are the > guy who was at Helsinki, which makes indeed sense with comp. > True it does make sense, the Washington guy is the Helsinki guy and the Moscow guy is the Helsinki guy and the Moscow guy is not the Washington guy and the Washington guy is not the Moscow guy. It's all very clear, but where did I contradict myself? >> And to add to the confusion sometimes you admit that they would feel the >> same, but then in your next breath you start talking about how it's >> identical in the "3-view" but not the "1-view". >> > > > Could you quote me and be more precise. > Bruno, "3-view" and "1-view" are your terms, you invented them not me, if you did not think things could be the same in one view but not the other, if you thought the two things were identical then why the hell did you go to all the trouble to give them different names? > In the step three experience we are talking about, they will give quite > different answer. > Then obviously they become different people and the thought experiment becomes rather dull. >> The third party does not know which one is you and you don't know either. >> > > > The W guy know that he is a the guy in Helsinki, now instantiated in W. > The M guy know that he is a the guy in Helsinki, now instantiated in M. > Yes, assuming they received information (sights sounds smells etc) from their respective cities, which in this context is all "instantiated" means. > They both know that they are not the guy in the other city. > Yes. > They can both acknowledge the first person indeterminacy: they could not > know in advance the city in which they feel now having been reconstituted. > I know with 100% certainty that I will feel to be in one city and one city only and I know with 100% certainty that the Moscow man will see Moscow because seeing Moscow is what makes the Moscow man be the Moscow man, and I know there is a 0% chance the Moscow Man will see Washington because then he'd be the Washington man not the Moscow man. > he would not be able to predict that he will end up in M, (resp in W), > although he can predict that he will end up with certainty in M or W. This > shows also that when you duplicate yourself you get one bit of information. > That bit of information is part of both first person experience 1p. On the > contrary the 3p view does not create, or receive, one bit of information. > He will predict with absolute certainty that after the experiment is completed he will receive one bit of information indicating he is in Moscow and he will receive one bit of information indicating he is in Washington. If he can predict that now before anything was duplicated then no new information was produced or destroyed in the process and the procedure was completely reversible, and that is just what you'd expect to happen in a deterministic process like this. >> YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED. >> > > > I will ask you to do the "hairsplitting" about that "YOU", that you are > using here, > OK, the duplication of "you" means that this instant in time is special because this is a potential branching point, from now on if the new copy and the original body of Bruno Marchal receive different environmental input they will evolve differently, perhaps very differently, so that they become different people; but one can not say that one is more you than the other. So it is NOT a contradiction to say they are not each other but they are both you. Why is it not a contradiction? Because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED. > I will ask to give us an algorithm predicting the result of the future > self-localization experience. > You agreed with me that to speak of the position of a consciousness is not productive, so all "self-localization experience" means is receiving information from Washington and Moscow, so the probability of you becoming the Moscow man are exactly the same as the probability you will receive information from Moscow. You're adding needless complications that add nothing. > Please, don't answer me again "W and M", because we already know that a > machine cannot perceive a distant environment, and that she will describe, > as a result of self-localization, > I don't know what that means. > after the duplication and when opening the box, a precise city. I predict she will see 100% of one city, you predict she will see 50% of two cities. I bet I win. 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