On 02 Jul 2012, at 16:06, John Clark wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 1:17 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
> You are, by definition asked to predict which one.
If the person asking the question demands one and only one
prediction then he has made the very silly logical assumption that
there can only be one Bruno Marchal.
Not at all. It uses only the fact that from the point of view of the
subject he will feel only one unique experience.
> Your two predictions:
1)I Bruno Marchal will write in my diary "I Bruno Marchal am now in
Washington and only Washington".
2)I Bruno Marchal will write in my diary "I Bruno Marchal am now in
Moscow and only Moscow".
cannot work for this, because "1)" and "2)" are simply incompatible
Yes they are incompatible, but only if you make a very silly
assumption, but I have not done so.
No? They are justifiably (if not evidently) incompatible from the
point of view of the subject or subjects. Both will only *live* only
one of the two possibilities.
> Each "bruno marchal" will see that only one of the two has been
realized,
Yes, from his point of view he will only have proof that half of the
prediction is true and it will remain that way until he receives a
fax from the other Bruno Marchal definitively proving in black and
white that the entire prediction was 100% correct.
Yes. The half. The question was bearing on the experience only. Yes,
he learn later intellectually that the other has been successfully
reconstituted, but that fact will not change the P=1/2.
Likewise, in the 1/2^n iterated self-duplication, the fact that you
hear about the John Clark who saw the Monty Python movie, will change
anything in the way the vast majority of John Clarks will predict the
next outcomes if repeated.
> When the W-John Clark and the M-John Clark will look at their
diaries and see the two predictions,
Yes.
>They will understand that only one of the two prediction has been
verified, from their first person point of view,
No. I've read my diary and I've read the fax
OK. By the very definition I gave, the diary relate the first person
experience, and the fax make available a third person datum only.
Learning that the other is there will not make you suddenly being that
one. In dependence with your psychology you can treat the other as a
stranger, or as a brother, but not as you in the first person sense,
that <here-and-now>. Unless you bring non Turing emulable telepathy,
but then we go out of our working hypothesis.
from the other John and from my first person point of view I know
that all the predictions made have been verified, and the other John
agrees, and so does any third party.
Because you have restricted your prediction on the third person view
on the 1-views. But that is just not answering the question asked.
> If they redo the experience, they know that the prediction bears
on the future unique first person experience. Which one cannot be
predicted in advance for obvious logical reason.
In physics we say there is indeterminacy and the meaning of that is
clear,
This meaning is terribly debated since its inception. You contradict
the whole literature. The collapse of the wave is still in the
curriculum. Everett is still not really read. And I just put Everett
logics one (logical) step further.
in this universe we can't know the position and momentum of
something with unlimited accuracy, perhaps in another universe you
can but not in this one. I can imagine a experiment that would prove
physical indeterminacy is untrue, that's why it's meaningful, but
when you talk about "first person indeterminacy" I don't understand
what would satisfy you that it is untrue.
Even a zombie can fake to not understand the difference between the 1-
view and the 3-view. If you want to see that all this leads to
verifiable statement, read more cautiously the definition and go to
step 4, etc.
It seems to me you are trying to find something profound from the
fact that the Washington man will not see Moscow because if he did
then he would not be the Washington man, he'd be the Moscow man.
The profound thing is that in Helsinki he does not know which one he
will feel to be, so he is confronted with an indeterminacy, and he can
try to quantify it, by using computer science, for example. See the
other steps for more and more interesting protocols.
Even if it's not possible I can imagine what the desire to have a
magic way to know the exact momentum and position of something would
mean, but I don't know what overcoming "first person indeterminacy"
would look like in this universe or any other. I don't know what you
think is missing in the prediction.
You did not predict the relative first person experience that you can
live. You described the correct 3-view of the experiences, including
charitably the 1-views, but still not listening to them.
Comp makes indeterminacy of the subjective experience, in those
protocols, a matter of fact. You cannot make that untrue like you
cannot make "17 is prime" untrue.
No program can localize which backup he results from, after an
equivalent duplication. What I say follows from elementary logic, and
precise (enough) definition.
> Just after the experience is done, they will each know for sure
which one among 1) and 2) has been realized,
They can't very well do it before the experience because before then
neither the Washington man nor the Moscow man exists and only the
experience of living in those cities creates them. I don't
understand what exactly the prediction is lacking that illustrates
this "first person indeterminacy" that you think is so very deep.
It lacks choosing between the two future incompatible first person
experience that you describe in 1) and 2).
> In case you have not yet grasp the question,
And I most certainly have not grasped the question!
OK. No problem. It is hard to grasp what you don't grasp. It just
seems that you don't take the experiences of the copies into account.
I don't understand what more you expect a successful prediction to do.
In the iterated case, to predict "white noise" is better than to
predict "Monty Python".
"Monty Python" is an "Harry Potter"-like experience, in that protocols.
If the evidence in the diaries is not good enough exactly what would
convince you that "first person indeterminacy" has been overcome.
The evidence in the diaries are that for both, only one outcome among
"1)" and "2)" has been realized from the first person pov.
I can tell you exactly what would convince me that physical
indeterminacy has been overcome,
just the exact measurement of the momentum and position of
something; all I ask is that without getting all metaphysical give
me a concrete experiment that could actually be performed that would
convince you that "first person indeterminacy" has been overcome. If
you can't do that it's not science.
You need making comp false, or even more generally to make us non
duplicable.
If you can imagine comp true, and if you have a way to predict which
one among "1)" and "2) you will live, then give us the algorithm.
> I insist that the question bears only on that future first person
experience.
Like the first person experience of writing and reading a diary, a
experience which fortunately can be shared with a third party
outside observer;
Share but not unified. Once you wake up in W, it is irreversibly part
of your life. You did got a bit of information because you transformed
the 1) or 2) into either 1), or 2).
Unless you are using sophisticated amnesy, but that is nice to explain
later in the comp theory a notion "quantum erasing in the Everett
theory".
I say fortunately because otherwise we'd be talking about mystical
metaphysics not science.
> Not on a third person description of bodies nor on a third person
description of first person experiences, only on the first person
experience.
The only first person experience I know directly is my own, and
science is not good at making grand universal conclusions from only
one example.
OK. But with comp we can attribute it to all self-referential machine,
and it is technically very easy to proof that no machine can predict
which one she will be among two reconstitutions.
> Or give me the algorithm which will choose among 1) and 2)
OK, but First give me a algorithm that produces one unique answer to
the question "Is 3 greater than 2 OR is 4 greater than 2?".
If you can not produce a single answer then the question is
indeterminate, and it's also silly.
When I ask you where you will wake up after the duplication, you did
understand that after the duplication, the first view is different
from the 3-view. In the 3-view we have "1)" and "2)". In the "1)"
views you have only "1) or "2)".
Your question does not involve the 1-3 distinction, and so is not
relevant in this context.
bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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