On 20 June 2014 07:10, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 1:57 PM, Quentin Anciaux <[email protected]> > wrote: > > >> > you accept 1/3 distinction in MWI >> > > Forget MWI, EVERYBODY who is not in a padded cell accepts the 1/3 > distinction. >
OK, so there isn't any real problem then, only which pronoun to use. But technology often makes us revise our language, as in for example "There's too much sex on the television." > > >> > please do not come again with the "I could meet my doppelganger" crap. >> > > In MWI the laws of physics forbid Quentin Anciaux from ever meeting > Quentin Anciaux's doppelganger so it's always clear who personal pronouns > refer to, but in Bruno's thought experiment it's ridiculously easy for > Quentin Anciaux to meet Quentin Anciaux's doppelganger, yet Bruno still > insists on throwing around personal pronouns with abandon which makes a > question like "what will you see?" be as nonsensical as "how long is a > piece of string?". > However, this doesn't affect the argument. It's trivial to see what Bruno *means*, even if you don't agree with his use of personal pronouns. (Even I can see it, with a brain that is probably only 89% the size of yours.) What he means is exactly the same as a physicist who believes in the MWI would mean if they said the results they expect from a quantum experiment are... "I expect to randomly see outcome A 50% of the time, and to see outcome B the other 50% of the time." So if you ask Helsinki-man what he expects to see when he steps out of the matter transmitter, he will probably say that he expects there's a 50% probability he'll see Washington, and 50% probability he'll see Moscow. He will obviously consider this to be trivially true if he doesn't actually *know* the MT is a duplicator. Suppose for the sake of argument he has used it a few times already, but been kept separate from his duplicates - that would give the illusion that it sends him to a randomly chosen destination. So now if we ask all the duplicates what they expect to see next time they use it, we'll get the above answer. Once he knows it's really a duplicator, that could make him uncertain of what answer to give - but he will still feel exactly as he did before when he appears in Moscow, just as the physicist still feels he's seen outcome A when he runs his experiment. But if he says "Well, I'll see both, of course, because I'll be duplicated!" that doesn't actually alter the logic of the argument, which is only concerned with what he reports in his diary. -- 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/d/optout.
