On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 9:44 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 Terren Suydam <terren.suy...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > You can't dismiss what happens inside the room. >> > > I can and will dismiss things that happen inside that room that are not > important, and only things that make a subjective difference are important. > Or at least that's what I think. > > Sure. But if it were me, I'd make sure I understood the experiment before deciding what I could dismiss. > >> If that were true then exchanging their position would cause a >>> difference, but it doesn't, not objectively and not subjectively either. >>> Even the universe doesn't know or care if the exchange really happened or >>> not, so why should you? >>> >> >> > Yes it would cause a difference. >> > > How on earth could exchanging the position of two identical things make a > difference either objectively or subjectively, how could you even know that > such a exchange had even been made? In fact I can't think of a better > definition of "two identical things": Two things are identical if and only > if exchanging their position makes no difference to anybody or anything. > > Because they're not identical. > > There is only one room. The duplicator is inside the room. The room is >> not duplicated. >> > > Irrelevant. > What is irrelevant for the purposes of this experiment is that the two copies are identical. > > > I know you've seen The Prestige. Spoiler alert for everyone else... >> Anyway, it's like the scene where Hugh Jackman's character duplicates >> himself for the first time, and he shoots his duplicate as soon as he >> realizes what's happened. >> > > In that scene the two diverge very very quickly because one is pointing a > gun at the other and one expects to die in a few seconds and one does not. > That's about as big a difference in environmental conditions as you can get. > Exactly, and that's where things are headed inside the room, as soon as one of the JohnClarkian bodies opens the door. > > >> And consciousness doesn't even have a position. Does your consciousness >>> really exist inside a bone box sitting on your shoulders when you're in >>> Berlin looking at a picture of Dayton Ohio while thinking about the Great >>> Wall of China? It sure doesn't feel that way and the way things feel is >>> what consciousness is all about. >>> >> >> > So you're abandoning physical supervenience? >> > > I don't follow. How is that abandoning the idea that lower level > properties determine the higher level ones? > Ignore that. I asked that question before I realized where we are out of sync. > > >> > If you flood your bloodstream with alcohol do you not feel drunk? >> > > Yes. > > >> Because if the room were not symmetrical then the two would immediately >>> start to form different memories. >>> >> >> > Right. That's part of the experiment. The experiment is not trying to >> create duplicates that don't diverge. >> > > Then what in the world do you expect to learn from such a ill designed > experiment? Experiments should be as simple as possible and avoid redundant > unimportant nonessential needless excess redundancies. > > haha, indeed. > >> Obviously you can arrange things so that the two immediately start to >>> form different memories, but my point is that it doesn't have to be that >>> way and is not inherent in the body duplication process itself. >>> >> >> >There is a point to this thought experiment that does not depend on the >> copies remaining identical. >> > > If they don't remain identical identical then they are no longer copies, > they're just two people in a room, and the thought experiment no longer > has a point. > Not at all. They both share the same memories (up until shortly after the duplication) and would both feel like they are John Clark and continue to identify as John Clark. > > for the purposes of this thought experiment, trying to preserve >> identical copies is not important. >> > > WHAT! Then what do you need that elaborate matter copying machine for? > Just stick any two people you happen to find into a room, although I can't > imagine what you'd hope to learn by doing so. > Any two people I happen to find would not both claim to be John Clark (the one I am emailing right now). > > Two copies of John Clark, >> > > No, not two copies of John Clark, two collection of atoms arranged in a > Johnclarkian way. John Clark is an adjective not a noun. > Thanks for the precision. Two collections of atoms arranged in a Johnclarkian way. Of course, as you said yourself, we can admit minor differences in those arrangements and still consider them Johnclarkian e.g. "If an electron in a calcium atom in the fingernail of one is in a higher energy band than the other I'm not going to worry about it." Obviously once there are differences like that we have diverged on the quantum level. The important thing with this experiment - which informs the way it was constructed - is not that the copies don't diverge on the quantum level, but that the copies both identify as the same person. In fact, I modified the experiment (cf the lengthy hallway) to *ensure* that they diverge because this is a distraction from what I want to highlight with the experiment. The key is that both JC1 and JC2 would feel like they are John Clark. They would both remember walking into the duplicator and then emerging from it, one way or the other, and despite having different thoughts and experiments from one another, both would reject the claim that they are not John Clark. Or Johnclarkian, if you prefer. Terren > > > separated by space, have to work out which of them will open the door so >> the other will survive. >> > > As long as that door is opened quickly enough there is a 100% chance that > John Clark will survive and a 0% chance that anybody will die, so both > collections of atoms arranged in a Johnclarkian way will do everything they > can to get that door opened very quickly before divergence happens and > things become much more complicated. > > John K Clark > > >> >> -- > 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. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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