On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > > You were told the protocol before you were put to sleep. >
Yes. > > > You know that the answer cannot be Friday. > I know nothing of the sort! If Einstein taught us anything it's that time is not absolute and so I know for a fact that for me it is Friday, what it may be to other people is a different question entirely. Let's be more exact: on Friday I am told that whenever I am awakened I must ask the following "what day is it?" and the big question is "what answer will I receive?". I will be lacking certain very important information that you have but I do not (was this the first time I was awakened or the second?) therefore on Friday I can not devise a strategy that guarantees I will always be able to correctly predict if you will say Monday or Tuesday, but there are 2 strategies I can take: 1) Always say Monday. 2) Always say Tuesday. With both strategies I will be correct exactly 50% of the time and wrong 50% of the time. If the protocol is modified slightly and I am allowed access to a coin then randomness allows for a third strategy and with it I would get one correct answer 50% of the time and 2 correct answers 25% of the time and no correct answers 25% of the time. So which of the 3 strategies should I take, should I play it safe or take a chance? That is a matter of taste and depends on the reward for being correct and the penalty for being incorrect. But I want to say again none of this has anything to do with my subjectivity and that is the most important thing in the universe, or at least it is in my opinion. The above thought experiment is about me predicting if your mouth will make the "Monday" noise or the "Tuesday" noise, and I already knew that precise answers can not be given if important information is lacking. So I've learned nothing from it. > > > Note: the experimenters add that if you guess correctly, they will give > you $100,000. Will you still answer Friday? > "Friday" has no intrinsic properties it is the subjective function of the observer, and they are NOT asking that question to themselves they are asking it of me, so yes I will answer in a loud clear voice "*FRIDAY*", and if I don't receive a check from them for $100,000 they will hear from my lawyer. John K Clark -- 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.