Re: Pareto laws and expected income
On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 10:43:50AM +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote: On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 12:01:16PM +1000, Russell Standish wrote: The alternative is that consciousness is a continuous property (or at least finely divided miltivalued), argued by people like Susan ..and by all of critical care medicine. http://www.google.com/search?num=100hs=aXMhl=enlr=safe=offc2coff=1client=firefox-arls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficialbiw=1172q=critical+care+level+consciousnessbtnG=Search I did the Google search, but unfortunately I'm none the wiser as to how critical care spcecialists uses the term. However, I woudl wager that it is a 3rd person term, referring somehow to congitive ability, not a first person term meaning being aware of oneself and the surroundings. At least Greenfield is supposedly talking about the latter. It doesn't sound right to me. Greenfield. This doesn't seem right to me. For one thing, this is not how the term is used in everyday language - you are either conscious or unconscious. I haven't seen one whisk of evidence that this naive folk approach has got it wrong. You aren't serious, are you? Common sense completely fails most of science. Sure. But until the folk meaning of the term is shown to be inconsistent or meaningless, it is viable to use it. Science has a (sometimes annoying) habit of borrowing everyday terms and changing the meaning, which is quite likely in the case of critical care medicine (or in anaesthetics for that matter). Cheers -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpfE4ecv1h2V.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: another puzzzle
On 6/23/05, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Eric Cavalcanti writes: I don't think it is that good an analogy for the following reason: I don't believe that pushing a button to create a copy of me in New York will increase my expectation of experiencing New York, while I believe that flipping a coin to decide whether I'll take a plane to New York does. The latter case you could describe in terms of a splitting of the muiltiverse in two universes: one in which I go to New York and one in which I don't. The former I would represent in terms of a single universe where I will not experience New York, but only a copy of me will. I think there is something fundamental about the fact that the copies can meet *in principle*. It doesn't matter how hard it is, how far away you put them, or how controlled you do it. All it matters for me is that they could, in principle, communicate. In this case I don't believe I could have a first person expectation of being in New York. Eric2 finds himself in New York: E2- Wow! It worked after all! I really am in New York! E1- You might be in New York, but I haven't gone anywhere, and I'm the original. E2- How can you demonstrate that you have any more claim to being Eric than I have? I know everything Eric knows, I look like Eric, I certainly feel 100% certain that I'm Eric; what else could I possibly do to convince you than that? E1- But you materialised out of thin air [or whatever copies materialise out of], whereas nothing happened to me, I'm still here where I was. So obviously I'm the original! E2- None of that proves that you have any more claim to being Eric than I am, even if you could somehow show you were the original and I a copy. However, I have some information that might interest you. The people who set up this duplication procedure have not been entirely honest with you. When the original Eric pushed that button, a copy was created, but locally rather than in New York. In fact, the copy was created in a room exactly like the one you are in now. Then, the original Eric flew to New York in the normal way. So you see, I'm the original and you are the copy! E1- But that's ridiculous! I feel *exactly* the same as I did before pressing that button; nothing at all happened to *me*, so I have to be the original! E2- So how do you think you should have felt if you were the copy? That's the whole idea of a functionally identical copy: no-one, neither the copy nor anyone else, can tell that there is any difference. And anyway, it happens to us all the time even without duplicating machines. Almost all the atoms in our body are replaced over the course of months or years. It happens gradually, but if it happened quickly, the effect would be that you would completely disintegrate and be replaced by a near-identical copy who thinks he is you, remembers everything you remember, etc. How is that any different to what has just happened to us? E1- For one thing, that would be different because there is only one Eric extant at any one time. E2- Which would have been the case if we were using destructive teleportation, where the original is destroyed in the process of scanning it. But you're being a bit inconsistent, aren't you? You're saying that if the original were destroyed and replaced with a copy, as happens in the course of life over time, then the copy would have the right to call himself the original; whereas if the original were not destroyed, the copy would not be the original. And yet in both cases the copy would be exactly the same. E1- I don't know about the same; I might feel more at ease if you weren't around... E2- Oh! So now you admit that you're the copy! [and we could go on like this for quite a while, with no resolution to the problem...] Yep, it's a hard problem, and I heard that line of argumentation hundreds of times. But I am still not convinced that the mere fact that someone scans me would increase my expectation of having a discontinuity of experience. I agree that the dialogue above would happen (or not exactly, because Eric wouldn't believe that destructive teleportation is teleportation at all. He would say that it is homicide followed by duplication. In fact, I believe that in your example Eric the copy would probably agree that he is a copy after seing evidence of that, and would live with his life without claiming the rights of the original. That would make him very unhappy and confused, of course, and then Eric the original would pity him and help him as he would help a twin brother. Furthermore, there is always some way to tell the difference between the copy and the original, in principle, even if that infomation is not epistemologically available to the subjects themselves. If the original flew to New York, then he would have interacted with the environment in a completely different way than if he stayed in the room, and that
Re: another puzzzle
Eric Cavalcanti wrote: In fact, I believe that in your example Eric the copy would probably agree that he is a copy after seing evidence of that, and would live with his life without claiming the rights of the original. That would make him very unhappy and confused, of course, and then Eric the original would pity him and help him as he would help a twin brother. In reality the molecules in your brain are constantly being recycled--if you believe that the changes that make up memories happen at the synapses, the article at http://www.sci-con.org/articles/20040601.html suggests all the molecules at the synapses are replaced in only 24 hours or so, and also that the entire brain is probably replaced every other month or so. So do you think the Eric Cavalcanti of six months ago is dead, and that your memories of having been him are false? Jesse
RE: Torture yet again
Lee Corbin writes: quote-- [quoting Stathis] When you press the button in the torture room, there is a 50% chance that your next moment will be in the same room and and a 50% chance that it will be somewhere else where you won't be tortured. However, this constraint has been added to the experiment: suppose you end up the copy still in the torture room whenever you press the button. After all, it is certain that there will be a copy still in the room, however many times the button is pressed. Should this unfortunate person choose the coin toss instead? To me, it's always been a big mistake to employ the language of probability; you *will* be in the room where the torture is and you *will* be in the room where it's not, because you *can* be in two places at the same time. [quoting Jonathan] If he shares your beliefs about identity, then if he changes his mind he will be be comitting the gambler's fallacy. However, after having pressed the button 100 times and with nothing to show for it except 100 tortures, his faith that he is a random observer might be shaken :). You may want to read a story, The Pit and the Duplicate that I wrote many years ago, which dwells on the ironies of being duplicates. It's a little like Stathis's point here. http://www.leecorbin.com/PitAndDuplicate.html --endquote Lee's story linked to above is a good summary of the issues. I fundamentally disagree with Lee and Hal Finney about the status of copies, because I *do* consider that I will only be one person at a time, from a first person perspective. If I am going to be more than one person, it would involve a special process like telepathy or mind-melding, or something. My criterion is that if you stick a pin in someone and I feel it, then that person is me; if I don't feel it, then that person isn't me. There is a reasonable line of argument that says if copying were widespread, then this criterion would change, because people who considered their copies to be as good as self, and worked to increase their number and protect their interests, would eventually come to predominate. However, it would involve a profound and fundamental change in our psychology, so that we would become something like hive insects. Basically, when I look at these thought experiments, I assume that I am me as I am *now*, serving my own selfish interests as they seem to be to me now. If we specify what kind of self-interest is being served in discussing these examples, i.e. whether the traditional human type or that of some post-human ideal, we can avoid misunderstanding. Having said that, there is a real paradox in Jonathan's and Lee's thought experiment, which does not occur in a single world/ probabilistic cosmology: the button-presser will always be the loser. From his point of view, he will never escape, but rather is helping others escape. It isn't others before he presses the button, but it certainly is others the moment after the button is pressed, from the point of the view of the still-and-forever button-presser, since as soon as they are created, the duplicates start to diverge. Psychologically, it is easy to see how the button-presser could decide, against his better judgement, that it is hopeless to keep pressing, and this could happen even if the chance of escape per press is raised arbitrarily close to certainty. The paradox resolves if, at random, all but one of the copies is instantly destroyed the moment they are created, because then the button-presser can be assured that if he presses enough times, the chance of escape will come arbitrarily close to certainty. I suppose this is another situation where *reduction* in total measure can actually be a positive - and this time without even any relative reduvction, on average, of adverse outcomes. --Stathis Papaioannou _ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
Re: another puzzzle
Eric Cavalcanti writes: I believe that the solution is not 3-rd person communicable. I believe that if I press the button 100 times, I'll never experience leaving the room, but there will be 100 copies of me claiming otherwise. That is because I believe that my 1-st person probability (in the sense of degree of belief) in this case is NOT equal to the fraction of functionally identical copies. I believe that my first person expectation is not measurable by 3rd parties. The only way I can be convinced otherwise is by doing the test. But then you would never know, because empirically (for 3rd parties) the result would be the same in either case. I know that sounds somewhat solipsist in the end, but I can't believe that merely scanning me can affect my future. And I would like to be convinced otherwise, because I don't like solipsism. What do you mean, the only way I could be convinced otherwise is by doing the test? You agree that there is no 3rd person difference, but the whole point is that there can't be any *1st* person difference either! What do you imagine this 1st person difference could be? Actually, I sympathise with you, because for many years I wondered, if I went into a teleporter, would the person who came out the other end really be me, or would I have been committing suicide? Then a few years ago, on a Sunday afternoon driving home from the supermarket, it suddenly dawned on me that this was a crazy question. Other than thinking I was me, remembering my thoughts, behaving like me, looking like me, etc., what other evidence could there possibly be that the copy really was me? If I were to be consistent, I would have to wonder whether the person I was a few months ago was really me, because the atoms comprising my body today are probably completely different. In fact, in *every respect* the person I was a few months ago differs more from me as I am today than I would differ from a teleported copy. In what way is the destruction of the original in teleportation different to the destruction of the original which occurs in the course of normal life, other than the speed with which it happens? If you collected all the discarded matter from your body over the course of a year, you would probably have more than enough to build a whole alternative person. Would you consider that person dead, replaced by a mere copy? If not, could you give a consistent explanation for why you would consider teleportation to be basically different? --Stathis Papaioannou _ Single? Start dating at Lavalife. Try our 7 day FREE trial! http://lavalife9.ninemsn.com.au/clickthru/clickthru.act?context=an99locale=en_AUa=19179
