On 4/19/2017 3:56 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 19 April 2017 at 08:24, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
John has never write one clear post refuting the step-3 which
would make it possible to answer by one post. There is no need for
this, as the answer is in the publications, which makes clear the
1-3 distinction, so the ambiguity that John dreams for cannot occur.
I've often wondered whether Hoyle's heuristic could be a way of
short-cutting this dispute. Hoyle gives us a way to think about every
subjective moment as if it occurred within the 1-view of a common
agent. Essentially the heuristic invites us to think of all subjective
experiences, aka observer moments, as a single logical serialisation
in which relative spatial and temporal orientation is internal to each
moment. In comp terms this conceptual agent might perhaps be the
virgin (unprogrammed) machine, on the basis that all such machines are
effectively computationally equivalent. Anyway, in this way of
thinking, after my 3-duplication there are of course two 3-copies; so
in the 3-view it can make perfect sense to say that each copy is me
(i.e. one of my continuations). Hence my expectation in that same
3-sense is that I will be present in both locations. However, again in
terms of the heuristic, it is equally the case that each 1-view is
occupied serially and exclusively by the single agent: i.e. *at one
time and in one place*. Hence in that sense only a single 1-view can
possibly represent me *at that one time and that one place*. Hoyle
shows us how all the copies can indeed come to occupy each of their
relative spatio-temporal locations in the logical serialisation, but
also that *these cannot occur simultaneously*.
The crucial point to bear in mind is that according to Hoyle, both of
these understandings are equally true and *do not contradict each
other*. Furthermore, comp or no comp, they are surely consistent with
anything we would reasonably expect to experience: namely, that
whenever sufficiently accurate copies of our bodies could be made,
using whatever method, our expectation would nevertheless be to find
ourselves occupying a single 1-view, representing a subjectively
exclusive spatio-temporal location. Indeed it is that very 1-view
which effectively defines the relative boundaries of any given time
and place. Subjective experiences are temporally and spatially bounded
by definition; it is therefore inescapable that they are mutually
exclusive in the 1-view. So what Hoyle's method achieves here is a
clear and important distinction between the notion of
3-synchronisation (i.e. temporal co-location with respect to a
publicly available clock) and that of 1-simultaneity (i.e. the
co-occurrence of two spatio-temporally distinct perspectives within a
single, momentary 1-view). Whereas the former is commonplace and hence
to be expected, the latter is entirely inconsistent with normal
experience and hence should not be.
By the way, I shall be on holiday in Sicily from April 20th until May
12th (one of me only, I trust) so I probably won't be appearing much
in the list during that period.
It seems to me that this is mostly a semantic problem arising from a
mismatch between common language and a theory built on computations
producing "observer moments" or "events of consciousness" or
"thoughts". The theory implies that at a fundamental level there is no
"you". You are a construct, made of a sequence of experiences. Bruno's
"duplication" isn't really duplicating something, it's just forking the
sequence. So talk of 1-person or 3-person is misleading - those are
emergent concepts at a much higher level than computations and even
experiences. They are at a level where physics has emerged and so it
makes sense to talk about where "you" are. That's why I tend to
emphasize the essential role of an environment as referent for
"thoughts" and I think the material world, even if not fundamental, is
just as fundamental as the mental world.
Brent
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