On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 6:01 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >> Let me ask you >> Stathis Papaioannou >> a different question, do you think the following 2 questions are >> equivalent? >> 1) What will *I* >> see >> tomorrow? >> 2) What will Stathis Papaioannou see tomorrow? >> If they are equivalent then >> Stathis Papaioannou >> (aka *I*) will see 2 cities tomorrow. >> John Clark says they are equivalent, what does >> Stathis Papaioannou >> say? >> > > > > They are not equivalent if duplication will occur. There will be two > Stathis Papaioannous who will see two different things. > OK. > > > We will have to start referring to them using different proper nouns, eg > SP1 and SP2. > OK. > > > However, there is only ever one "I", correctly used by each copy > True. Even in a world with "I" duplicating machines when looking from the present into the past there is always only one "I". All conscious beings will only remember one continuous thread. However the past and the future are NOT symmetrical so none of this is true when looking from the present into the future. And the question is about the future, and it contains the personal pronoun "I", so the answer to the question isn't just unknown the answer does not exist and what is worse it never will. So it's not a question. In that situation proper nouns must be used in all questions about the future, personal pronouns just generate silly nonsense. > > Personal pronouns capture the peculiar and probabilistic nature of > personal identity The very concept of probability becomes meaningless if after the probabilistic prediction there is no way to ever know if the prediction turned out to be right or not. And that is exactly what will happen if personal pronouns are used in the prediction and personal pronoun duplicating machines exist. 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 [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.
