On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 8:02 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 12/9/2013 1:35 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 08 Dec 2013, at 22:53, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 6:59 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Telmo Menezes
>>>>
>>>>>> you must also reject the MWI, because you live
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Who is "you"? Telmo's post was only 63 words long but the pronoun "you"
>>>> was
>>>> used 8 times, that's almost 13%. When it is necessary to hide behind
>>>> personal pronouns when a philosophical idea regarding duplicating
>>>> machines
>>>> and personal identity is discussed it's clear that something is wrong.
>>>>
>>>>>> in the first person,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Which first person? The first person of John Clark of one hour ago? The
>>>> first person of John Clark standing left of the duplicating machine? The
>>>> first person of John Clark standing right of the duplicating machine?
>>>
>>>
>>> You're avoiding my question. Why don't you also reject the MWI?
>>
>>
>>
>> I would like to know that too. Quentin has already asked this many times
>> to John, and we got unclear answer.
>>
>> John invoked the fact that with comp the duplication are done only in one
>> branch of the universe, but did not explain why would that change anything
>> (without adding some non Turing emulable magic in some place).
>>
>> I think Quentin is right, and John C. just develop irrational rhetoric do
>> avoid moving on in the argument, ... then he talk like if I was defining
>> comp by its consequences, but this is another rhetorical trick, often used
>> by those who want to mock the enterprise.
>>
>> It is interesting. I try to figure out what is really stucking him so
>> much. i do the same with my students in math. Why some people avoid reason
>> in some circumstance. Given that Quentin seems to qualify himself as
>> atheist, it can't be simply Clark's atheism, isn't it? But then what?
>
>
> I think the sticking point, one which I also feel with some force, is the
> implicit assumption in the question, "Where will you find yourself." that
> there is a unique "you".
Brent,
Although naive, I find the following analogy useful: consider how
computer operating systems create new processes. A common method, in
UNIX operating systems is "forking" the current execution path. I will
cut and paste the relevant parts from the man page on my computer:
NAME
fork -- create a new process
DESCRIPTION
Fork() causes creation of a new process. The new process (child
process) is an
exact copy of the calling process (parent process) except for the
following:
o The child process has a unique process ID.
o The child process has a different parent process ID
(i.e., the process
ID of the parent process).
[...]
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, fork() returns a value of 0 to the
child process and
returns the process ID of the child process to the parent process.
[...]
So let's say the original process A is forked at some point in time t,
and process B is created. The only different things about A and B is a
value called the process identifier (pid). This could be a very simple
analogy for a person being in Moscow or Brussels.
So let's say the process records its pid before the fork. After the
fork, both processes are programmed to check their pid again and
compare it with what was stored. For one you will get "equal", for
another you will get "different".
If you ask the program, before the fork, to predict if it will find
itself in the state "equal" or "unequal" after the fork, the most
correct program will assign p=.5 to each one of these outcomes. Any
program that assigns a different p will be shown to be less correct by
repeating this experiment a number of times.
The program can tell you the state with p=1 after the fork.
Otherwise, both programs will feel "unique", in the sense that their
algorithms remain unchanged. It is now possible for them to interact,
in the same way that the victims of the duplication experiment can
shake hands or play chess.
If you ask any of the programs about a record of their states before
the fork, they will give you equal answers (if they are correct
programs).
What do you think?
Telmo.
> Under the theory of souls it would make sense to
> ask, which duplicate will your soul go to. But under computationalism there
> is no answer be the duplication entails that there is no "you", there are
> only computations that "think" you.
>
> Brent
>
>
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