--- Randall Randall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Jun 28, 2007, at 9:08 PM, Tom McCabe wrote: > > --- Randall Randall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > >> On Jun 28, 2007, at 7:35 PM, Tom McCabe wrote: > >>> You're assuming again that consciousness is > conserved. > >> I have no idea why you think so. I would say > that > >> I think that each copy is conscious only of their > >> own particular existence, > > What? If you let the copies interact with each > other, > > even briefly, they will realize that they are all > > conscious, even if their consciousnesses are all > > independent. I've been busy arguing that > consciousness > > is *not* conserved- if there's one you at time A, > that > > doesn't mean there's going to be one you at time > B. > > That just doesn't seem relevant to the matter at > hand. Whether or not all the copies are "really" > you isn't important for this; everyone agrees (I > think!) that they all remember being you, and that's > enough for this discussion.
My point was that you can't try and trace "you" as a coherent concept through these kinds of transformations, like you can trace a chemical element through a reaction, because there's no reason "you-ness" has to be conserved. If you make reference to someone's subjective experience after the copying, you have to be very careful not to mix it up with someone's experience before the copying. > >> His > >> history might be of waking up each time in the B > >> box, > >> or of waking up each time in the A box, but more > >> likely, > >> of some combination of boxes. If you follow the > >> "more > >> likely" there, I've made my point. > > > > If you select one person at random from the copies > > after they've already been copied, yes. Any given > > person who wakes up is more likely to remember > being > > in a series of different boxes rather than all As > or > > all Bs. However, that does not mean that if you go > to > > sleep, when you wake up you will have a higher > > probability of being in a "mixed-box" body than a > > "same-box" body, because that doesn't even make > any > > sense as the "you" refers to more than one person. > > It doesn't matter whether these people are "really" > "you". Er, so what does matter, what are we trying to figure out? > >>> it works better to look at it from the > perspective > >> of > >>> the guy doing the upload rather than the guy > being > >>> uploaded. > >> > >> That just begs the question, though. > > > > Which question? > > We have two questions at hand, I believe: > > What will a given person remember after a copying > experiment? Going to sleep in one body and waking up in another body, as well as all their previous memories. All copies will remember this. > and > > What should a person before a copying experiment > expect to remember, after the experiment? That is, > what should he anticipate? Waking up as a copy, as this will be true for all the copies which later remember his anticipation. If he anticipates waking up as copy A, copy B will think he was wrong. > Obviously, the only way to determine the answer to > the second question is to answer the first. Once > you've answered the first, and noted the various > answers from various viewpoints of people that all > remember being the "original", it seems obvious > that the way to handle the anticipation question > is via probability. If A goes to sleep and B and > C wake up remembering having been A, since B doesn't > remember having been C and C doesn't remember > having been B, it's clear that the original, A, > should have expected to wake up B 50%, and C 50%. This would be true if A were some magical conserved essence that *could not be created or destroyed* and was split evenly between B and C. In reality, of course, A never wakes up (we're assuming A is destroyed and B and C are preserved, right?) and so the statement is moot. > There are, after all, only 100% of cases, without > regard to the measure of people who have memories > of being A. > > Therefore, restricting our investigation to the > original begs the question about what he should > expect, since we need to think about the actual > result to determine that. We should try and restrict our investigation to what an outside observer can see if possible, since that will help to keep our heads clear. > >> Pick one. Ask him whether he remembers waking up > >> 10 times or 1024. If 10, then he had a 50% > chance > >> each time of waking up in the A box. > > > > Again, you've got to be careful using "he" here. > This > > time it does work, because you can trace the > copy's > > history back in such a manner that you're only > > referring to one person when you talk about past > > events. If you were doing a contraction- taking > two > > persons, averaging their brain state, and waking > the > > average up- then this wouldn't work, because if > you > > interviewed the contraction you would get a whole > > jumble of contradictory memories. > > This seems like a tangent, and I'm not sure what > my thoughts about such a "contraction" would be. > I agree that introducing contractions would muddy > the waters considerably, but hopefully by leaving > them out, we can find our way to a resolution. > > >> I strongly doubt he'll remember all > >> 1024 awakenings. > > > > Why should there be any doubt whatsoever? This is > a > > matter of physics, here. > > I was understating. Perhaps a smilie would have > been in order. :) Agreed. :) > -- > Randall Randall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > "If we have matter duplicators, will each of us be a > sovereign > and possess a hydrogen bomb?" -- Jerry Pournelle > > > ----- > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: > http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > - Tom ____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't get soaked. Take a quick peak at the forecast with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&user_secret=7d7fb4d8
