On 24 Sep 2015, at 02:30, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 4:20 PM, Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au
> wrote:
On 24/09/2015 4:02 am, Jason Resch wrote:
On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 8:45 PM, Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au
> wrote:
On 9/09/2015 1:29 pm, Jason Resch wrote:
On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 9:44 PM, Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au
> wrote:
I presume you mean that the world is duplicated on each toss, with
one branch showing each outcome. We are back to the dreaded
"person duplication" problem. My opinion on this is that on such a
duplication, two new persons are created, so the probability that
the original person will see either heads or tails is precisely
zero, because that person no longer exists after the duplication.
So if some aliens create a copy of you in Andromeda, then you
cease to exist as a person?
Since I might know if they gathered the requisite information, it
is not an issue.
I don't see how this follows. Are you saying you would cease to
exist as a person if a duplicate of you arose far away in this
universe, or that you would not cease to exist as a person?
The closest continuer account of personal identity would have no
difficulty with this.
It might not, but closest continuer theory makes no sense and
appears to be an ad hoc way to escape what otherwise clear
conclusions from non-dualist theories of mind.
If you run an identical computer program on a different computer,
one on mars and one on the moon, why say the one on the moon the
only one that is identical to the program last run on Earth?
What if the two copies are an identical number of Plank lengths
away? Or what if many are all run on a sphere whose center is where
the last instance ran?
Closest continuer theory has no theoretical justification. The only
reason it even exists is that some find the idea that they are not
unique to be too upsetting. Closet continuer theory purports to
offer a way to guarantee uniqueness of the individual (at least
until you consider ties by equally close continuations).
That is the case with computationalism, and even computationalism +
Oracles.
But if Bruce decide to say no to *all* possible doctors, or that he is
an actually infinite machinery, then I can imagine some closer
continuer theiry to make sense, although it does not exist yet.
Of course, that can be considered as an ad hoc move to escape the non-
uniqueness of oneself.
The remote "copy" is purely a matter of chance, which has no
physical or causal connection with you, so is not a continuer in the
required sense.
Note: according to current comological models, space is infinite
and uniform, which means infinite copies of you exist (though very
far away).
Such models make really quite strong assumptions about initial
conditions.
This all follows from thw concordance model of cosmology, which is
the "standard model" in cosmology. See:
http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/PDF/multiverse_sciam.pdf
You might well have an infinity of worlds with our present
cosmology, but they might all be copies of some bland, boring model
with no intelligent life.
I don't think you grasp the implications of infinity. If there are
infinite worlds, there is effectively 100% probability that an
infinite number of them will be identical to this entire Earth as
you see it.
As I said, that assumes some regular distribution over initial
conditions -- condition for which we have no evidence whatsoever.
All current observations are consistent with the uniformity of the
universe. At large scales the universe is very homogenous, and it is
believed that early quantum fluctuations (which are effectively
random) shaped the clumping of matter.
Assuming mechanism makes this possible, but not necessarily relevant,
as, assuming mechanism, we belong to infinities of "universes/
histories" of all sizes, anyway.
So our universe - and our particular personal existences - might be
unique, even in an infinite universe. There can be universes of zero
probability measure.
Pi has infinite digits. Any sequence, however long, the encoding of
any documentary, can be found in the digits of Pi, and moreover, it
recurs an infinite number of times.
That, too, is an unproved assumption about uniformity --essentially
the assumption that pi is a normal number. And that has never been
proven.
It doesn't have to be normal, it just has to be irrational (no
repeating pattern) which is proven. In any event, I was just using
Pi to illustrate that when there is an infinite extension (without a
trivial repetition) the same sequences will recur. You need to adopt
non-standard cosmological theories to say this implication does not
apply in the case for our universe.
To avoid the lack of proof of normality of Pi, you can use
Champernowne number (in base 10), which is provably normal, trivially
irrational, and as been proved transcendental (by Champernowne 1933,
Bailey and Crandall 2002) if I remember well. It is the number
0.0123456789101112131415161718192021222324...(10/81 gives a good
approximation, but then it lost normality, irrationality, etc!).
Obviously, it cannot be "Chaitin"-random, as the sequence of digits
are easily computable.
Bruno
Jason
Bruce
I think you are trying to avoid answering my question.
Jason
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