On 9/26/2013 4:51 PM, chris peck wrote:
Hi
Well Im sure that I am missing something important, but I can't see it so far...
/>>The diary is the one that you have with you. You will not have two
diaries, since you cannot experience being in Moscow and Wsahington at
the same time with contradicting the "survivability" axiom of
COMP. Therefore the probability of the diary containing 'I am in
Washington not Moscow' is decidedly less than 1. That it is precisely
0.5 is a little more debatable, however, particularly in the later steps./
ISTM you are thinking about things after the teleportation has occurred. If one of the
'me's is asked after teleportation but before the doors are opened what are the chances
of being in moscow, then I can see that there is indeterminacy.
But the way the step is formulated is that I am asked prior to teleportation:
/"Giving the built-in symmetry of this experiment, if asked before the experiment about
his personal future location, the experiencer must confess he cannot predict with
certainty the personal outcome of the experiment. He is confronted to an unavoidable
uncertainty."/
And the situations are very different because prior to teleportation there is one me,
waiting to be duplicated and sent to both locations. After teleportation there are two
'me's, one at either location. That effects the probabilities, surely?
Mainly because it makes "I" ambiguous. One answer would be the probability of me being in
Moscow is zero and the probability of me being in Washington is zero, because I am going
to be destroyed.
Another answer would be the probability of me being in Moscow is one and the probability
of me being in Washington is one, because there are going to be two of me.
If I am sufficiently described by the reading process to maintain 'I'ness then this
'I'ness goes to washington and moscow. Given I am supposed to be a 'comp practitioner'
and therefore believe that nothing over and above the data read constitutes 'I' then,
when I am asked what chance there is of me experiencing moscow in the future, the
probability must be 1. No 1-p indeterminacy.
The indeterminacy of the situation after teleportation is dependent on an absence of
knowledge concerning which 'me' is being asked the question: 'moscow me' or 'washington
me'. But the situation prior to teleportation is certain because I know I will be both
'moscow me' and 'washington me'. If you like, both diaries will be identical up to the
point of teleportation.
/>> "I disagree that the 'I' concept is illicit in this argument. It is
upfront with the "folk" concept of surviving an artificial brain
transplant. The 'I' is what survives."/
No, I assume comp and assume that comp is sufficient. Them are the rules of the game. I
am not arguing that the comp 'I' is illicit. The illicit 'I' is something I feel has to
be smuggled in (subconsciously?) to get the feeling of indeterminacy. An intuition, if
you will, that despite trying to assume comp and that this description is being sent to
both places, 'I' (an illicit I) only ends up at one.
What's "illicit" is the implication forced by language that "I" and "me" are necessarily
singular. If you were the Borg, you would answer the probability that we will be in
Moscow is one and the probability we will be in Washington is one.
/>>That's one of the troubles with intuition pumps. To be quite honest,
that intuition pump fails me/
Perhaps you don't, but it isn't important. I think it is generally accepted, perhaps not
on this list, that one would be banging at the walls of the teleporter, screaming to be
released, certain of impending death. That kind of intuition. The kind it has been
fruitful not to ignore in our evolutionary past. ;)
Probably not if you really believed in the teleporter. Suppose you had teleported many
times before?
Brent
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