On 04 Jul 2012, at 18:29, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
>> if you duplicated the entire city of Washington and sent one
Bruno Marchal to Washington1 and the other Bruno Marchal to
Washington2 then there would only be one Bruno Marchal having a
Washington experience.
> No problem with that.
I'm glad to hear you say that but then it's even more mysterious
that you can't extrapolate that fact to its logical conclusion. When
the start button is pushed on that duplicating machine your brain
and body may have been instantly duplicated but "you", the first
person perspective, has not been and will not be until there is
something in the environment in Washington that makes a change to
one of your sense organs that is missing in the environment of
Moscow; only then, when there is a difference between the two, is
your first person perspective split and it's meaningless to ask
which one is "really" you.
There is no sense to ask who is "really" me, but this has never been
asked. On the contrary what is asked is the probability of the
specific events "seeing Washington ", or seeing "Moscow". I know in
advance that it will be only one of them from my future first person
perspective. This is confirmed in all experience, as your own " "1)"
and "2)" prediction illustrates.
So "first person indeterminacy" is entirely the result of the fact
that Washington and Moscow happen to be not identical, if they were
there would be no differentiation of perspective regardless of how
many brains and bodies there were.
Indeed. That is why W and M are used to make clear the presence of the
differentiation.
So "first person indeterminacy" is functionally equivalent to "the
environment is changeable and unpredictable" and the idea can bring
no enlightenment into the nature of personal identity or
consciousness.
The environment are not changeable, and have been chosen for their
stability. The indeterminacy comes from the differentiation only
between the identical first person (before going out of the boxes)
when the copies discover where they are. In the two room case, with a
one and a zero in some envelop in each room, the two rooms and the
envelop does not evolve at at all. Your argument that it is the
environment which evolve does not work, because it does not. That
would be testable by a third person, when the first person
indeterminacy is only something livable by the candidate themselves:
there is no 3-indeterminacy in this setting at all.
> I can duplicate you in two closed little rooms. In step 6 you are
duplicated on a chip. The unpredictable nature of the place where
the reconstitution are done is irrelevant
If the two closed rooms are identical then its irrelevant where the
rooms are, but if the rooms are identical then the first person
perspective that you're so concerned about (me too) has NOT been
duplicated.
Of course the two rooms contains a difference.
> With comp you know in advance that in the duplication experience,
your 1-pov will remain unique
Forget "comp", from simple logic you know that your first person
point of view will remain unique.
I am glad you agree with this. that has not been always clear.
If 2 things have the same first person point of view then there is
only one first person point of view
We agree on this since the start.
and so it remains unique; and if 2 things have a different first
person point of view then each one remains unique because it's
different from anything else. OK I admit that's not very profound,
but unlike most theories in philosophies tautologies do have the
virtue of being true.
And ... ?
>> No matter what diary entry I come up with you keep saying it
would not disprove your theory because of blah blah point of view
blah blah, so I want you to tell me exactly what diary entry WOULD
disprove your theory?
> I will feel to be in W. Confirmed by the guy in W, but disproved
by the guy in M.
I want to be certain I understand, you seem to be saying that if
before the experiment the subject had written in his diary "I will
feel like I'm in Washington and only Washington" and had written
nothing else, and then after the experiment you had interviewed the
subject in Moscow and he said "I feel like I'm in Moscow and only
Moscow" then you would concede that your theory of first person
indeterminacy is incorrect.
This is utterly ridiculous. First person indeterminacy indiscates that
the guy who understand the point will never
write "I will feel to be in W and in only in W", as he knows that this
will be disqualified by the guy in Moscow. The correct guy will
predict "W or M", never "W only", nor "M only".
The fact that some idiotic predict that he will win the lottery does
not lake false the probability that the he will win, which is very
small.
I could be wrong but I have a feeling if that had happened you would
not make such a concession, if so then please state precisely what
diary entry WOULD disprove your theory. If there is no hypothetical
experimental result that can disprove your theory then it predicts
nothing because it predicts everything and is not science.
The theory is P(W) = P(M) = 1/2. the confirmation and refutation of
this is isomorphic to any prediction in a Bernouilli experience
(throwing of a coin), both in the iterated and non iterated cases.
> The 1-indeterminacy is not a theory, it is a theorem in the theory
comp.
A theorem is a statement that has been proven from OTHER statements,
but in one important step in your proof of "1-indeterminacy" you
assume "1-indeterminacy".
Where?
The proof if by absurdo. Suppose there is an algorithm, or even just a
God capable of predicting the specific outcome among "1)" and "2)".
Suppose it is "1)", then the guy in Moscow refutes it, and comp
invites us to listen to him. If it is "2), then the guy in washington
refutes it, and comp invites us to listen to him.
Indeterminacy has not been assumed: it results from the trivial fact
that I am copied in the same state in two different place so that I
can't predict which differentation will occur from my first person
perspective.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
