On 25 Oct 2012, at 03:27, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 11:04 AM, John Clark <[email protected]>
wrote:
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 6:25 PM, Jason Resch <[email protected]>
wrote
> I think you are missing something. It is a problem that I noticed
after watching the movie "The Prestige"
In my opinion "The Prestige" is the best movie made in the last 10
years, and this is one of those rare instances where the movie was
better than the book. Before the movie back in 1996 I wrote a short
scenario that had somewhat similar themes, this is part of it:
" About a year ago I started building a matter duplicating machine.
It could find the position and velocity of every atom in a human
being to the limit imposed by Heisenberg's law. It then used this
information to construct a copy and it does it all in a fraction of
a second and without harming the original in any way. You may be
surprised that I was able to build such a complicated machine, but
you wouldn't be if you knew how good I am with my hands. The
birdhouse I made is simply lovely and I have all the latest tools
from Sears.
I was a little nervous but I decided to test the machine by
duplicating myself. The day before yesterday I walked into the
chamber, it filled with smoke (damn those radio shack transformers)
there was a flash of light, and then 3 feet to my left was a man who
looked exactly like me. It was at that instant that the full
realization of the terrible thing I did hit me. I yelled "This is
monstrous, there can only be one of me", my copy yelled exactly the
same thing. I thought he was trying to mock me, so I reached for my
44 magnum that I always carry with me (I wonder why people think I'm
strange) and pointed it at my double. I noted with alarm that the
double also had a gun and he was pointing it at me. I shouted "you
don't have the guts to pull the trigger, but I do". Again he
mimicked my words and did so in perfect synchronization, this made
me even more angry and I pulled the trigger, he did too. My gun went
off but due to a random quantum fluctuation his gun jammed. I buried
him in my back yard.
Now that my anger has cooled and I can think more clearly I've had
some pangs of guilt about killing a living creature, but that's not
what really torments me. How do I know I'm not the copy? I feel
exactly the same as before, but would a copy feel different?
Actually there is a way to be certain, I have a video tape of the
entire experiment. My memory is that the copy first appeared 3 feet
to my LEFT, (if I had arranged things so he appeared 3 feet in front
of me face to face things would have been more symmetrical, like
looking in a mirror), if the tape shows the original walking into
the chamber and the copy materializing 3 feet to his RIGHT, then I
would know that I am the copy. But I'm afraid to look at the tape,
should I be? If I found out I was the copy what should I do? I
suppose I should morn the death of John Clark, but how can I, I'm
not dead. If I am the copy would that mean that I have no real past
and my life is meaningless? Is it important, or should I just burn
the tape and forget all about it?"
Nice story. It reminds me of this little puzzle (I forgot where I
heard it):
You will be placed into a room with an exact clone of yourself and
you will be given a gun. If you shoot your clone you can leave that
room and everything will be fine. Or, if you shoot yourself your
clone will be allowed to leave the room and will be given
$1,000,000. What do you do? If you value the money and ascribe to
certain philosophical schools, the logical decision would be to
shoot yourself rather than shooting the clone.
Logical? Only with comp + betting on some bactracking à-la-Saibal.
The one taking the money will never memorize "his" decision to kill
"himself". He might strongly identify himself as the owner of that
memory, at that moment.
A strong Everettian might just avoid trying to kill himself with a
bullet, as he might think that the probability to survive by quantum
tunneling might be greater than the probability to backtrack, or get
amnesia.
Hard to say without the solution of the measure problem. It might even
depend to who you want to identify with. Dreams remembering,
concussions, and drugs might add evidence that backtracking could be
more probable than quantum tunneling, though.
Bruno
> you probably believe there is some stream of thoughts/
consciousness that you identify with.
I can't conceive of anyone disagreeing with that.
> You further believe that these thoughts and consciousness are
produced by some activity of your brain.
Yes.
> Unlike Craig, you believe that whatever horrible injury you
suffered, even if every atom in your body were separated from every
other atom, in principle you could be put back together, and if the
atoms are put back just right, you will be removed and alive and
well, and conscious again.
Yes.
> Further, you probably believe it doesn't matter if we even re-use
the same atoms or not, since atoms of the same elements and isotopes
are functionally equivalent.
Yes.
> We could take apart your current atoms, then put you back together
with atoms from a different pile and your consciousness would
continue right where it left off (from before you were obliterated).
Yes.
It would be as if a simulation of your brain were running on a VM,
we paused the VM, moved it to a different physical computer and then
resumed it. From your perspective inside, there was no
interruption, yet your physical incarnation and location has changed.
Yes.
> what happens to your consciousness when duplicated?
When what is duplicated? Adjectives, like consciousness or Jason
Resch, do not duplicate in the same way that nouns, like brains, do.
If I exactly duplicate a iPod playing loud music the iPod is
duplicated but the adjective "loud" is not duplicated, but if I then
change the loudness level on one of them but not the other then the
two differentiate. In the same way If I exactly duplicate you and a
cat as you consciously look at the cat then your body and brain are
duplicated but the adjective describing what the brain is doing,
consciousness, is not duplicated; however if I then change one cat
but not the other then the conscious experience and memories formed
by observing the cat will be different and the two of you will no
longer be each other but both will be Jason Resch.
To clarify, I mean if the substrate of your consciousness is
duplicated, then the singular mind "John Clark" will have multiple
manifestations. Destroying one of the manifestations will not
destroy John Clark so long as there is at least one surviving
manifestation. What numerous scientific theories suggest (Eternal
Inflation, Many Worlds, Mathematical Realism, String Theory
Landscape to name a few) is that each of us has an infinite number
of manifestations, in whatever possible state we might enter.
Thus we are all immortal, survive everything, consciousness never
ends, our states are interlinked and can intersect, thus we
reincarnate, we resurrect to afterlives in far away places and
different universes and realms, we also sometimes awaken and find
ourselves to be an omega point mind with the memories of 10^10^10
life times, exploring all possibilities of reality and consciousness
before jumping in to the next life. Seeing the unity in two
manifestations of the same minds leads to seeing unity among all
minds. Wait long enough and you will experience the lives of every
person you ever meet, and all the ones you haven't met too.
> Initially, the sensory input to the two duplicates could be the
same, and in a sense they are still the same mind, just with two
instances
Two identical minds are not "in a sense" the same mind they ARE the
same mind period.
Yes.
> but then something interesting happens once different input is fed
to the two instances: they split.
Yes, now let me tell you of a thought experiment of my own.
An exact duplicate of the earth, and it's entire ecosystem, is
created a billion light years away. The duplicate world would need
some sort of feedback mechanism to keep the worlds in
synchronization, non linear effects would amplify tiny variations,
even quantum fluctuations, into big differences, but this is a
thought experiment so who cares.
(If the universe is infinitely big, then there is no need to worry
about keeping the two worlds in sync, as there will an infinite
number of worlds intersecting that same quantum state of the entire
planet and even galaxy. QM already suggests that this is the kind
of world we inhabit.)
In the first two cases below the results would vary according to
personalities, remember there's a lot of illogic even in the best of
us.
1) I know all about the duplicate world and you put a 44 magnum to
my head and tell me that in ten seconds you will blow my brains out.
Am I concerned? You bet I am because I know that your double is
holding an identical gun to the head of my double and making an
identical threat.
2) I find out that for the first time since the Big Bang the worlds
will diverge, in 10 seconds you will put a bullet in my head but my
double will be spared. Am I concerned? Yes, and angry as well, in
times of intense stress nobody is very logical.
Also, even if we always survive from a first-person perspective,
there are things that might decrease our measure and thus it could
be said that the "universal soul" who experiences everything will
experience being "John Clark" less frequently.
My double is no longer exact because I am going through a traumatic
experience and my double is not. I'd be looking at that huge gun and
wondering what it will be like when it goes off and if death will
really be instantaneous. I'd be wondering if my philosophy was
really as sound as I thought it was and I'd also be wondering why I
get the bullet and not my double and cursing the unfairness of it
all. My (semi) double would be thinking "it's a shame about that
other fellow but I'm glad it's not me".
Imagine if you and your double drew straws and one would be tortured
and the other released. The released one might conclude "I sure am
glad I wasn't tortured", but is the one who was tortured any better
off than if he himself had been tortured, but then had the memories
and all traces of that punishment erased from his body? The
experience still happened, that you don't remember it from your
current perspective does not mean it didn't happen. We can make
similar problems with duplicates and committing crimes. If you had
a perfectly identical twin (same memories and everything) but your
twin committed murder, most would say only the twin who committed
that murder should be punished, but what if after committing the
murder both you and your twin have your brains reset to the period
right before your minds diverged, now you and your twin are
perfectly identical again, does that wash away his guilt? Should he
still be punished? If so, why punish one and not the other when
they are both identical? Are you not in a sense, also punishing the
innocent one (who now has a 50/50% of finding himself diverging to
experience the life in prison).
3) I know nothing about the duplicate world, a gun is at both our
heads and we both are convinced we're going to die. One gun goes
off, making a hell of a mess, but the other gun, for inexplicable
reasons misfires. In this case NOBODY died and except for undergoing
a terrifying experience I am completely unharmed. The real beauty
part is that I don't even have to clean up the mess.
The bottom line is we don't have thoughts and emotions, we are
thoughts and emotions, and the idea that the particular hardware
that is rendering them changes their meaning is as crazy as my
computer making the meaning of your post different from what it was
on yours.
What will your next thought or emotion be? Answering that question
depends on the goings on of things a trillion light years away, a
million years in the future, and even things outside this physical
universe.
Jason
--
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
.
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.
