On 28 October 2014 15:10, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 6:38 AM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > So far the only real (non-sarcastic, non-insult-based) objection I've >> heard comes down to a semantic quibble to do with redefining our concept of >> an individual person. > > > The entire point of Bruno's "proof" and all of his bizarre thought > experiments is to examine and get rid of that "semantic quibble", and yet > from page 1 Bruno acts as if the concept of personal identity was already > crystal clear even though in his thought experiments such things were > stretched about as far as they could go. In such circumstances using person > pronouns with abandon as Bruno does without giving them a second thought is > just ridiculous. >
If you say so. Maybe this is due to English not being his first language. However it may be worth looking past how he says it to what he's trying to say. > > >This is exactly the same redefinition that was brought up by Everett in >> 1957. > > > No it is not for 3 reasons: > > 1) Everett was trying to explain the strange observations of the Quantum > world in a logically cohesive way and to show why Quantum Mechanics was > able to make good prediction about future physical events. Everett said > nothing about personal identity or consciousness because he didn't need to, > and that is the HUGE advantage Many Worlds has over other Quantum > interpretations and is the only reason I'm a fan of the MWI. In the other > Quantum Interpretations consciousness soon enters the picture, that would > be OK if they could explain consciousness but they can't. Everett can't > explain consciousness either but he doesn't need to because consciousness > has nothing to do with his theory. > I seem to remember that HE (Hugh Everett :-) talks about the nature of the observer in his paper, but it's a while since I read it. But he does have to explain why an observer sees what he does, why he doesn't experience splitting, and so on. As far as I remember he does so using a similar method to Bruno - giving the observer something like a diary to write his experiences in. > > 2) Like Everett Bruno is also interested in prediction but he seems to > think that good predictions are the key to personal identity, and that's > just nuts. The sense of self depends on the past not the future. > If you look at Bruno's thought experiment it does in fact depend on the past. His talk about prediction is to do with how things will appear to have happened after they've happened (which is true of measurements in Everett as well). > > 3) With Everett the meaning of the personal pronoun "he" is always > obvious, it is the only person that we can observe using the laws of > physics that fits the description of Bruno Marchal, but in a world with > matter duplicating machines there are 2 (or more) people who fit that > description, and so the word "he" conveys zero information. > I don't think it conveys zero information. But you do have to be more careful, because you are only incidentally linked to one copy in Bruno's thought experiment, rather than strictly linked to one by the laws of physics. > > > a physicist who believes the MWI to be correct will come to the same >> conclusions about indeterminacy that someone using Bruno's matter >> transmitter would > > > Obviously, but a person wouldn't need to believe in the MWI or even be a > physicist to know that what is observed when a door is open a door is > uncertain. > ??? Sorry I don't understand that sentence. > > > both comp and Everett allow for the possibility that from the third >> person viewpoint the duplication could be observed > > > If you say so, but I'm not a bit interested in "comp" and except for a few > member of this list I don't think anybody on the planet is either. > Then why did you answer my post? > > > And of course, making up silly versions of Bruno's acronyms > > > I didn't make a single one up, they were what Wikipedia or Google though > they most likely meant. For example, Wikipedia lists 27 possible means of > "comp" and not one of them has anything to do with intelligence or > consciousness or personal identity, and only one had anything to do with > computers, " a class of Usenet groups devoted to computers and related > technology". > That seems like you're being deliberately obtuse. Anyone with a theory needs to invent terms for the components, just to keep it manageable. Do you refuse to accept the use of "top quark" because "top" has lots of meanings? -- 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/d/optout.
