On 4 October 2013 05:59, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 , LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> What question about personal identity is indeterminate? There is a >>> 100% chance that the Helsinki man will turn into the Moscow man because the >>> Helsinki Man saw Moscow, and a 100% chance the Helsinki Man will turn into >>> the Washington Man because the Helsinki Man saw Washington, and a 100% >>> chance that the first person view of the Helsinki Man will be a view ONLY >>> of Helsinki because otherwise the first person view of the Helsinki Man >>> would not be the first person view of the Helsinki man. >>> >> >> > This is uncontraversially, one might say trivially correct, >> > > I would have thought so too, but however trivial it may be for reasons I > don't understand most on this list are unable to grasp this simple truth. > > > but it doesn't refute anything about the first person indeterminacy, >> > > I don't know what indeterminacy you're talking about. LizR may not be able > to predict what LizR sees next, but as far as personal identity is > concerned that is irrelevant because whatever LizR sees LizR will still > feel like LizR. >
Sorry, I'm using "indeterminacy" because that's the term that was first introduced into quantum mechanics when it was believed that's what it was, and which I guess is still used even though if the MWI is correct it isn't the right word (for the subject the comp teleporter is directly parallel to MWI splitting, though it might in practice operate at a different level). However you can't call it "uncertainty" either - if you're being strictly accurate, you can only call it something like "global determinism which gives the false appearance of first person indeterminacy / uncertainty / probability / whatever" ! Bruno calls it "first person indeterminacy" and I can see why he uses that term. From the point of view of Moscow man, say, it appears (retrospectively, at least) that he had a 50-50 chance of going to either place. And for an experimenter it would appear that a photon has a 50-50 chance of being transmitted or reflected, especially after multiple measurements, and they might also still call that "indeterminacy / uncertainty / probability / whatever" even if they believe the MWI to be the correct interpretation of QM. As I said, this is just a semantic quibble. All Bruno is showing in step 3 is that *if *consciousness is a computation, *then* in principle it could be treated as we already treat other digital processes - "forking into two separate address spaces" is, I think, the computational parallel for the teleporter. As I said earlier, if you imagine consciousness instantiated in a computer (as according to comp it could be) then it will perhap be clearer what's going on. Personally I can't see any problem with step 3, given the assumptions. I certainly can't see why you couldn't teleport HAL9000 via radio waves to two separate spaceships. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
