On 10 Oct 2013, at 20:35, John Clark wrote:
On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 9:00 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
>>The question is will "he" turn into the Moscow Man or the
Washington Man,
> Yes.
Thank you!
>> and that depends on one thing and one thing only, what
information "he" receives.
> Not at all.
What do you mean "not at all"?! The Helsinki Man has the neurons in
his brain arranged in a certain way and the Moscow Man, being a
exact copy, will have the neurons in his brain arranged in exactly
the same manner and the two will evolve in exactly the same manner
too UNLESS they receive different information, like one data stream
coming from Helsinki and the other data stream coming from Moscow.
Only then would they differentiate and only then would you be
justified in giving them different names.
But if you agree that each copy (the W-man, and the M-man) get one bit
of information, then you agree with the first person indeterminacy.
The bit of information reduces the uncertainty, so there was an
indeterminacy.
> It depends on the entire protocol. the information he will have
will confirm or refute his prediction (written in his diary, for all
possible "he's" relevant).
As far as personal identity or consciousness or a continuous feeling
of self is concerned it it totally irrelevant if that prediction, or
any other prediction for that matter, is confirmed or refuted, nor
does it matter if the prediction was probabilistic or absolute.
? (as far as I can make sense of this sentence, it looks like it makes
my point)
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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