On 01 Oct 2013, at 18:41, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
>> Digital teleportation is not necessary, with existing technology
I can make a real experiment, not just a thought experiment, that
incorporates all the philosophical implications, such as they are,
as your hi-tech version. In Helsinki I put you into a soundproof
box, I then flip a fair coin and put you and the box on a jet headed
to either Washington of Moscow. Several hours later you push a
button, the box opens and you find out what city your eyes are
receiving signals from. Do you find anything about this surprising
or philosophically interesting? I don't.
> OK. That clear. You really miss the point. In your scenario, you
throw a coin. In the duplication, you don't throw any coin, yet it
generates the same situation, indeed. That is the "miracle".
In both cases if the Helsinki man sees Moscow he will turn into the
Moscow man and if the Helsinki man sees Washington he will turn into
the Washington man.
Exact.
You're big on point of view so you must know that if your
doppelganger is experiencing a different city it in no way effects
what you are seeing;
Exact.
so philosophically my low-tech experiment works just as well and is
just as uninformative as your hi-tech version.
Not at all. In your low tech (using a coin), you get an indeterminacy
from coin throwing, which is very well known since Pascal.
In that case, a God knowing the precise way how you throw the coin,
can predict your personal first person future.
In the duplication case, you get a stronger form of indeterminacy,
which has nothing to do with imprecision in the initial data, and that
even a God cannot predict to you in advance. It is similar with QM
indeterminacy, except that it does not rely on QM.
> I give you a Island spath (CaCO_3 cristal), and I send a photon in
some polarized state, and if it deviates, I send you to Moscow, and
if not, I send you to Washington.
Then the calculation is easy and precise, the probability that I the
Helsinki man will be in Moscow is 0% and the probability that I the
Helsinki man will be in Washington is 0% because in any other city
"I" would no longer be the Helsinki man.
You agreed some post before, that anyone remembering having been the
Helsinki man can consider himself rightfully as the Helsinki man, he
has just been duplicated, and the 1p-indeterminacy comes from this.
If you change the meaning of the personal pronoun "I" you can change
the probability to 100% for both cities. But no matter what "I"
means it will always be the case that the man who sees Moscow will
be the Moscow man.
Sure.
But this does not help to predict. As you have admitted the
probabilistic equivalence with your low tech coin throwing, you *have*
recognized (perhaps unintentionally) that P(W) = P(M) = 1/2.
So please, read the step 4, which I have just reminded to you, and
tell us if you agree, so that we can move to step 5.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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