On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 at 3:26 am, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 9:31 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> > wrote: > > >>> >> >>> a rat can remember the past and a rat can use induction to make a >>> prediction, and most important of all a rat knows if it's prediction turned >>> out to be correct or not and that enables the rat to improve its induction >>> process for Mr. Rat's next prediction. But if Mr. I, who is about to enter >>> a "I" duplicating chamber, asks the question "Will I see Moscow tomorrow?" >>> the only answer Mr. I will ever get is "yes and no", and that is not an >>> answer so that was not a question. >>> >> >> > >> If even the rat can understand it at a primitive level (as demonstrated >> by its behaviour) then I think this goes against your claim that the >> question is meaningless. >> > > It's very meaningful when looking from the present back into the past, > but NOT when looking from the present toward the future. > > People around here seem to think you can treat the future the same way you > treat the past but you can't, if you could then you couldn't tell the > difference between the past and the future, but you can. > > The difference between the past and the future in a deterministic multiverse is that for an observer inside it the past is known but the future is uncertain. Although it uncertain, it can be guessed at or calculated using probability theory. If it can be guessed at or calculated, questions about it are not "meaningless", in the sense most people would use the word. > >> And I think that if you went through the duplication a few times your >> copies would start to behave as if questions about their future were >> meaningful. >> > > If you send the rats through the duplicator 10 times you'll end up with > 2^10 or 1024 rats. All 1024 rats will have seen different things from each > other and thus have different memories, and thus formed different inductive > rules, and thus will behave differently in the future. > And all 1024 rats no matter how different their individual situation may be > now will remember a single unbroken chain of events going all the way back > to that single original rat. But the question wasn't about any member of > that rat pack, the question was asked 10 days and 10 duplications ago about > the single original rat: > > *What ONE thing will the ONE rat see in the future after the ONE rat > becomes 1024 rats?* > > That can't be answered and it's not because the answer is unknown > , > its > because the answer does not exist and never will. All answers need a > corresponding question and despite its conspicuous question mark the above > is not a question, it's not even a stupid question, so there can't be an > answer to it. > > 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. > -- 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.
