On 30 March 2015 at 15:20, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 9:10 PM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote: > > But if it were a world of copying machines and John K Clark says "I" >>> expect to see Moscow tomorrow then who the hell knows what "I" means. >>> >> >> >The same is true of the MWI. >> > > No it is not the same. In the MWI if John Clark says "tomorrow I will see > the electron spin up" then tomorrow there is a clear way for Liz to > determine if the prediction was correct or not because the the laws pf > physics guarantee that Liz will find no ambitious in the meaning of the > personal pronoun "I". >
You mean, because I will also be duplicated. That's true. Nevertheless, if the MWI is correct there is an ambiguity. I'm just not in a position to experience it. Or rather I only experience it as quantum uncertainty. > > But in the copying machine stuff if John Clark says "tomorrow I will see > Moscow" there is no way that Liz or anybody else can determine if the > prediction was correct or not because nobody knows who the hell "I" is. > Well, that's the point, I think - even without copying machines, the MWI implies that our idea of what we are is wrong, or at least inadequate. if someone asks me whether I'm going to be at work tomorrow, I'd either state my intention to be, or perhaps give a "probabalistic" answer (e.g. "yes, unless I catch cold or the ferry breaks down"). I wouldn't say "yes, no, and I'll be dead, and I'll also be kidnapped by aliens, and declared Ruler of the world..." - even though the MWI says that "I" will do everything it's physically possible for "me" to do, in different branches. > > >> We don't say "I expect to see both spin up and spin down" or "I expect >> the cat to be both dead and alive" - even if we believe the MWI to be true. >> > > That true. in the MWI we don't say that, but even if we did the statement > would not be gibberish it would just turn out to be wrong. But in the > copying machine world "I will see Moscow tomorrow" is equivalent to > "klogknee will see Moscow tomorrow" because both "I" and "klogknee" are not > defined. > I think the MWI version could be considered to be true - that the "I" who exists before the experiment turns into two people, who between them perceive both outcomes. But given that we understand that a duplication occurs in both the MWI and Bruno's thought experiment, we can see in both cases that there is an "I" who experiences both outcomes, which we experience from our own perspective as apparent randomness. Bruno's point is that *if* consciousness is an outcome of computation, then it could in principle be duplicated. Of course, this becomes more obvious if we're talking about a conscious AI... Bruno is considering classical (non-quantum) computation, in which it's trivially true that data and programmes can be duplicated. As far as we know, none of those programmes are conscious as yet, but there isn't any reason why a conscious programme couldn't be duplicated and one copy sent to a computer in Moscow, and another to a computer in Washington, which would (given the assumption that consciousness is the result of computation) be enough for step 3. However, the average person might have a "So what?" attitude to a philsophical argument based around a "mere" conscious computer programme, so I think the reason Bruno uses hypothetical teleporters is to make it easier for people to get to grips with. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
