--- Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 10/09/07, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > No, it is not necessary to destroy the original. If you do destroy the > > > original you have a 100% chance of ending up as the copy, while if you > > > don't you have a 50% chance of ending up as the copy. It's like > > > probability if the MWI of QM is correct. > > > > No, you are thinking in the present, where there can be only one copy of a > > brain. When technology for uploading exists, you have a 100% chance of > > becoming the original and a 100% chance of becoming the copy. > > It's the same in no collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics. > There is a 100% chance that a copy of you will see the atom decay and > a 100% chance that a copy of you will not see the atom decay. However, > experiment shows that there is only a 50% chance of seeing the atom > decay, because the multiple copies of you don't share their > experiences. The MWI gives the same probabilistic results as the CI > for any observer.
The analogy to the multi-universe view of quantum mechanics is not valid. In the multi-universe view, there are two parallel universes both before and after the split, and they do not communicate at any time. When you copy a brain, there is one copy before and two afterwards. Those two brains can then communicate with each other. The multi-universe view cannot be tested. The evidence in its favor is Occam's Razor (or its formal equivalent, AIXI, assuming the universe is a computation). The view that you express is that when a brain is copied, one copy becomes human with subjective experience and the other becomes a p-zombie, but we don't know which one. The evidence in favor of this view is: - Human belief in consciousness and subjective experience is universal and accepted without question. Any belief programmed into the brain through natural selection must be true in any logical system that the human mind can comprehend. - Out of 6 billion humans, no two have the same memory. Therefore by induction, it is impossible to copy consciousness. (I hope that you can see the flaws in this evidence). This view also cannot be tested, because there is no test to distinguish a conscious human from a p-zombie. Unlike the multi-universe view where a different copy becomes conscious in each universe, the two universes would continue to remain identical. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- 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&id_secret=40137679-35c2da
