On 27 September 2013 12:18, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 9/26/2013 4:51 PM, chris peck wrote: > > *"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. > > Surely this is directly analogous to the situation in the MWI. If I measure a quantum event like a photon bouncing off / through a semi-silvered mirror, the chances of each result is 50%. In "classic" qnautum theory I say there is a 50% chance of seeing the photon reflect, say. In the MWI I do the same, but I am now aware that the probabilities work out as they do because I'm duplicated in the process (or two pre-existing but fungible versions of me have now become distinct - or perhaps 2 lots of infinite numbers of copies...)
Ignoring the teleporter and just looking at the MWI gives the same results but is perhaps a bit more intuitive. In the MWI "I" am also destroyed from moment to moment (or even in classical single-universe physics, if you attach me to a "brain state" it all gets very Heraclitean), and/or I am also duplicated from moment to moment (at least). But the probabilities still work - I have a 50-50 chance of seeing the photon bouncing or transmitting, and equivalently I have a 50-50 chance to end up in Moscow or Washington. It just seems less obvious when I'm the particle in the experiment. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
