On Thu, 17 Aug 2017 at 10:39 am, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 7:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> 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", >> > > Predictions are meaningless if nobody knows what is being predicted, and > that's exactly what happens when personal pronouns and not proper nouns are > used in a world with personal pronoun duplicating machines. Even the very > concept of probability itself becomes meaningless if its impossible for > anyone to EVER know if the event the probability refers to happened or > not, and that is also the case with Bruno's thought experiment. > There is a problem with asking "which one place will John Clark be in tomorrow", because there will be two of them, in two different places. The original John Clark would be wrong if he bet "John Clark will be only in Washington", and wrong if he bet "John Clark will be only in Moscow". (However, even this does not make the question meaningless, since we can still understand it and why it is pronlematic). There is no such problem with asking "which one place will I be in tomorrow". The Washington John Clark will be right if the original bet "I will be in Washington" and the Moscow John Clark will be wrong. > We can understand the question, specify what would constitute a right or wrong answer, make economic decisions based on the answer, demonstrate that even rats have an instinctive understanding of the question; what more do you require to make the question meaningful? -- 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.
