On 6 August 2017 at 11:52, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: If it depends on which copy is speaking, and it certainly does, then there > is NOT a definite answer or even a probabilistic answer to the question > "which event *will I* see after the duplication?" because in this context > the personal pronoun in the "question" is undefined, and so it is not a > question at all. Without people duplicating machines "what will I see?" is > a legitimate question and could be rephrased as "tomorrow what one and only > one event will the one and only person in the world that remembers being me > right now see?". That question is clear as a bell and it has an answer, but > if tomorrow 2 people remember being you right then it's not a question, > it's just a bunch of words strung together. >
If I am duplicated I know for certain (assuming the duplicator works properly) that in future I will see either A or B, but not both, and I don't know which of the two it will be. I know this because it's obvious from the description of the experiment, but if it were not obvious (for example because I was a rat) I would understand it after trying it out a few times. I also know that it isn't the case that I am a unique individual persisting through time, but it certainly feels that way; I can see that, the rat can see that, multibillion dollar industries based on people making provisions for their copies will see that. > For a similar reason "How long is a piece of string?" is not a question > even though it has a question mark at the end. However both Mr. A and Mr. B > can give definite answers to the question "What event *did I* see after > the duplication?", and the answer they will give is very easy to predict: > Mr. A will say "I see A" and Mr. B will say "I see B" and both will > remember being Mr.Yesterday and a time before the duplication. What more is > there say? What have I failed to predict? > Mr Yesterday was asking whether he should dress for hot weather or cold weather. You advised him to forget about it, it's a non-question. Mr A and Mr B both find themselves in very cold places wearing only shorts and a T-shirt. They resolve next time they get copied not to listen to your ideas about predictions and personal pronouns. I have nothing against > irreducible randomness > because after even a quantum mechanical random event I can say "after > the photon passed the 2 slits it turned out it hit the photographic plate > right exactly there at the spot I'm pointing at". But even after the > duplication the question asked at the very beginning STILL has no answer, > and that is the smoking gun evidence that it was not a question. > You say you have no problem with irreducible randomness, but this deserves further examination. With a single world physics we can imagine that an oracle can know whether an atom will decay or not, even if it is not physically possible for us as observers to know this. But with a many worlds physics, it is not only physically impossible to know whether the atom will decay, it is also logically impossible, because the world splits and not even God can tell the observer which event he will end up seeing. So although for practical purposes under both types of physics the decay event is random, with a many worlds physics it is logically mandated randomness, while in the single world case it is not. And perhaps it is this logically mandated randomness that you consider renders speculation about future events meaningless. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
