On 13 August 2017 at 11:16, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sat, Aug 12, 2017 Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> You call yourself "I" and I call myself "I", simultaneously, and we don't >> fight over who deserves the title, because that is how pronouns work. >> > > Pronouns work fine today because nobody has yet made a "I" duplicating > machine, but when they do the English language is going to need a massive > overhaul. >
There are already billions of "I's" in the world without such a duplicating machine, and no-one is confused by the large number of them. > > >> If the bet is that "SP1 will see W" then this will happen as a matter of >> definition, and it isn't an interesting bet. >> > > I know that's the problem. But there are worse things than being > uninteresting, like being incoherent. > > > > >> If the bet is that "I will see W" it may look like a similar bet but it >> is in fact different >> > > I agree it is different. One may be boring and predictable and pointless > but it is a bet, the other is not a bet, it's just a sequence of words. > > > >> > >> So one copy wins the bet >> > > So which one wins the bet? The one that sees W. But which one sees W? > The one that wins the bet. And round and round we go. > > > > >> and everyone agrees on this. >> > > And everyone correctly predicted this. And I correctly predicted it would > be silly. > If the subject predicts, prior to duplication, "I will see W" then one copy will be correct and the other copy will be wrong. If the subject predicts, prior to duplication, "SP1 will see W" then both copies will be correct. They are different bets, but both are coherent, and it is clear who has won and who has lost. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
