On 26 Jun 2015, at 00:21, Terren Suydam wrote:
On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 3:50 PM, John Clark <[email protected]>
wrote:
On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Terren Suydam <[email protected]
> wrote:
> Do you take the same position with regard to many-worlds
style splitting experiments?
No. Everett's Many Worlds contains no ambiguity but Bruno's
thought experiment has nothing but ambiguity. In Many
Worlds the word "you" causes no problems, if duplicating chambers
haven't been invented yet then "you" is the only chunk of matter
that the laws of physics allow John Clark to observe that are
arranged in a Terrensuydamian way. There is no ambiguity,
everything is clear as a bell. But in Bruno's thought experiment
there is a man standing to the right of the duplicating machine
who looks like Terren Suydam and an identical looking
man standing to the left of the duplicating machine and they both
passionately insist that they are Terren Suydam and both
have a equal right to use the grand title "you".
I'm not sure there's a difference there that makes a difference. In
both cases:
the Terrensuydamian bodies are duplicated
the bodies and environments immediately diverge post-duplication
assuming computationalism, consciousness supervenes on the physical
bodies
therefore two different first-person perspectives are generated post
duplication
and both persons duplicated would claim to be Terren Suydam
The only difference is that in the Many Worlds scenario, the two
Terren Suydams have no possibility of interacting. Otherwise,
everything else is the same. I don't see what problem the
possibility for interaction, or not, poses on the question of "which
continuation will I find myself in and with what probability?"
Another difference is that Bruno and Everett are trying to explain
different things. Everett's Many Worlds Theory is trying to make
predictions and explain why they are probabilistic, and in that he
was successful. In contrast Bruno wants to cast insight on the
nature of consciousness, but predictions have nothing to do with the
sense of personal identity, not good predictions, not bad
predictions, and not probabilistic predictions. So Everett
accomplished what he set out to do but Bruno did not.
Bruno's not talking about first-person-indeterminacy (FPI) as a
means to explain personal identity. It's a key part of the
explanation that computationalism implies that physics is not
fundamental. That part comes later in the argument, so it's not
worth getting into here. The point is that understanding the role of
consciousness in Bruno's argument depends on understanding the FPI.
It's a stepping stone to the more interesting parts of the argument.
> assuming the many-worlds interpretation, do you say that
there is a 1/2 probability we will open the door and find a dead cat?
Yes because I know exactly what "we will open the door"
means, it contains no ambiguity. I also know why you were the Dead
Cat Man and not the Live Cat Man, it's because you saw a dead cat.
And again the word "you" has no ambiguity.
To be clear, it appears that the only defensible obstacle to your
acceptance of step 3 appears to be your issues with personal
pronouns. Given you accept the use of pronouns in the many worlds
duplication, the problem must lie in the differences between those
two scenarios.
Excellent point which helped me in my answer to Clark to be honest.
But already made by Quentin and others.
But John Clark already told us that he might just be more intelligent
than all of us (and indeed he has to be more intelligent than all
universal machines). That is the ultimate authority argument.
Bruno
Terren
John K Clark
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