> On 9 Feb 2020, at 13:42, Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> On Sun, Feb 9, 2020 at 10:21 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> On Sun, 9 Feb 2020 at 09:13, Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>>> On Sun, Feb 9, 2020 at 6:38 AM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List >>>> <everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote: >>>> On 2/7/2020 11:00 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote: >>>>> >>>>> It is an indexical theory. The problem is that in MWI there will always >>>>> be observers who see the sequences that are improbable according to the >>>>> Born rule. This is not the case in the single-world theory. There is no >>>>> random sampling from all possibilities in the single-world theory. >>>> >>>> ?? There's something deterministic in single-world QM? You seem to have >>>> taken the position that MWI is not just an interpretation, but a different >>>> theory. >>> >>> That is a possibility. I do think that MWI has difficulty with probability, >>> and with accounting for the results of normal observation. >>> >>>> That some very improbable results cannot occur in SW QM. I think you are >>>> mistaken. >>> >>> I don't know where you got the idea that I might think this. >>> >>> >>>> No matter how low a probability the Born rule assigns to a result, that >>>> result could occur on the first trial. >>> >>> >>> Yes, but in SW the probability of that is very low: in MWI the probability >>> for that is unity. >>> >>> >>> However, we seem to be in danger of going round in circles on this, so it >>> might be time to try a new tack. >>> >>> As I said, I have difficulty understanding how the concept of probability >>> can make sense when all results occur in every trial. If you have N >>> independent repetitions of an interaction or experiment that has n possible >>> outcomes, the result, if every outcome occurs every time, is a set of n^N >>> sequences of results. The question is "How does probability fit into such a >>> picture?" >> >> Do you have a fundamental problem with probabilities where every outcome >> occurs? > > I thought I had made it clear that I do not think that any meaningful notion > of probability can be defined in that case: such as in Everett's model where > there is just one branch for each term in the original superposition -- i.e., > all outcomes occur just once on each trial. > >> For example, if you are told you have been copied 999 times at location A >> and once at location B, would you not guess that you are most likely one of >> the copies at location A? > > No. For to make such a guess would be to assume a dualist model of personal > identity: viz., that I have an immortal soul that is not duplicated with my > body, but assigned at random to one of the duplicates. I do not believe this, > nor do I believe that any concept of probability is relevant to your presumed > scenario.
Strange that you should say that, since in the philosophical literature (eg. Derek Parfit) the position you describe as dualist is called “reductionist”, assuming there is no soul and the mind is duplicated along with the body. Anyway, you would not do well if you assumed this in a world where duplication occurred commonly. If you were rewarded if you bet correctly and punished if you bet incorrectly, the world would come to be dominated by people who assume in the above scenario they have a 99.9% chance of finding themselves at A. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/9BC47030-901E-4688-89B0-598FE70CFA42%40gmail.com.
