On 04 Mar 2012, at 01:14, meekerdb wrote:
On 3/3/2012 12:43 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
comp can never be proved
Yes.
or disproved
False. By UDA.
so there is no point in worrying about it. I just assume it's true
because I could not function otherwise
Which is a nonsense. Nobody use the hypothesis that the brain is a
machine in their everyday life.
If tomorrow comp is refuted, you will not feel a difference. Just
that both matter and mind will be more mysterious.
In fact most people are unreflective dualists. They assume they
have a magic soul so that if their brain were replaced by a computer
'they' would become a philosophical zombie while their 'real self'
would be teletransported to heaven (or Platonia if they happen to be
mathematicians :-) ).
Yes. I agree. Many people are instinctively skeptical for comp, unless
they are molecular biologists.
Note that this is already explained in the modal logic of self-
reference: machine cannot know that they are machine, and they cannot
believe it either. Comp is necessarily (provably) counter-intuitive.
There is a natural tension between the hypostases S4Grz1 and G1, G1*,
Z1*, X1*. The self-referentially correct machine cannot avoid a
conflict between any third person account of itsel (G1) f, and its 1p
"intuition" (S4Grz1).
On 3/3/2012 12:43 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I understand that seems possible. That is why I avoid in the
thought experience, both amnesia, death, or anything which would
prevent the persons, before he opens the reconstitution box, in W
and M, to feel any different from the person in Helsinki, apart
from finding themselves in a box, and not knowing where they are.
In such case, to believe that you don't survive would prevent you
to believe that you can survive teleportation, and comp would be
refuted.
But that seems to be equivocation on 'you'. 'I' have a certain
continuity of thought and more distant memories. The hypothetical
teleportation would necessarily (nomologically) produce a
discontinuity in thought, so my identity would depend on my memories.
The equivocation of "I" is well illustrated by the duplication, made
possible by comp. But the problem is avoided in the definition of comp
by the quasi-operational "yes" doctor. (It is not entirely operational
because logically a zombie can also say "yes" to the doctor, but of
course we assume *you* are not a zombie).
Small changes in memory would still allow 'me' to identify myself
with the Helsinki person, but large ones, e.g. I remember living in
Brussels not Helsinki, would make 'me' a different person.
Sure. But, by construction, there are no change at all in the
memories. The personal memories are annihilated and reconstituted
integrally.
'I' am an inference, or a construct, from my memory (including
unconscious habit/memory).
Not only that. "you" are also a universal number/machine. It is more
""I"" which is an inference than "I". The real first person, captured
by Theatetus, is really where ""I"" and "I" intersect, so to speak.
So the question as to which probability I have finding myself in M
or W is ill posed;
Here I strongly disagree. Despite what you say above, the question is
well posed. The candidate in Helsinki has all the information needed +
his assumption that comp is correct, which is part of the inference.
He knows in advance that he will be reconstituted in both W and M. He
knows with certainty (with respect to his comp assumption) that in
both W and M he will find himself to be in one place, and that he
cannot know which one in advance without adding a magic ability
contradicting comp. The question bears explicitly on its singular
future personal experience, and in this situation, the question is as
mundane than any question about a well defined random variable. The
duplication will be, from its first person perspective, equivalent
with a Bernouilli experience, despite the equivocation of the "I".
That's why we do such experience, to avoid any problem due to the "I"
equivocation. All we need is to define the 3-I by the body described
at the right level, and the 1-I, which in UDA is nothing more than the
personal memory, which is supposed by construction to be not altered
in the annihilation/reconstitution move.
it assumes that there is one 'I' and we can ask where this 'I' finds
himself. But there is no 'I' in this sense.
Of course there is such an "I". Once your body has been reconstituted
in both place, they both knows very well where that "I" feels to be,
and this is known in advanced (believed and true, given that we assume
the candidate believe in comp and that comp is true).
Such an "I" is well defined. It is the owner of the memory together
with the fact that those memory are known true, by us.
It is as well defined as in any mundane question like "Where will I
see the needle of my measuring device apparatus?" in any experience of
physics. The question is well defined as long as we suppose comp true.
I don't think that affects the idea of 1p uncertainty though. If
you believe QM is correct you already believe there is 1p
uncertainty; even if you like Copenhagen.
Without the collapse, the quantum uncertainty is entirely explained by
the relative comp 1-indeterminacy. With the collapse it is the
complete mess, because we have to assume QM is false for the observer,
and this reintroduce a form of unintelligible dualism. Copenhagen is a
label for more than hundred of failed and incompatible attempts to
avoid parallel universe, but with comp we know that we cannot avoid
them by pure logic and arithmetic.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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