On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 9:15 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 6:25 PM, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> >> >>> We're right back to Bruno's definition problem. I can't answer your >>> question until you make clear what you mean by "Abby". I can tell you >>> exactly precisely what I mean by "Abby", its whoever remembers being Abby >>> before the duplication. Yes its odd that there are 2 people that meet that >>> criteria, but odd is not the same thing as paradoxical. I've given you mine >>> so what is your precise definition of "Abby"? >>> >>> >> >> *>Given the "will" my assumption is the author is referring to Earth >> Abby, the Abby before the teleportation. Let us work with that assumption >> for now.* >> > > OK but that sure doesn't leave us much to work with! If "Abbey" is the > being before the teleportation then obviously by definition "Abbey" will > not exist after the teleportation. Are you sure you really want to go with > that definition? > Okay we can go with your definition as anyone who remembers being Abby, what is important is that our language and definitions are consistent. So we have: "Earth Abby" - The Abby at time 0 on Earth "Abby-1" - The Abby who ends up at her intended destination on Mars, at time 1 "Abby-2" - The Abby who ends up at her admirer's destination on Mars, at time 1 "Abby" - Anyone who remembers being Earth Abby (includes Earth Abby, Abby-1, Abby-2) > > > >> >> >>> If you're interested in consciousness and subjectivity you will get >>> nowhere pondering on the nature of successor states, it would be like >>> pushing on a string. If you don't want to get tied up in logical knots and >>> self contradictions you've got to define personal identity based on >>> previous states not successor states; otherwise you wouldn't even know who >>> you are because you don't know what your successor state will be. But you >>> do know what your previous state was. We don't live in the future because >>> we never know what the future will be, we live in the present and the past >>> through memory because we know what the past was. >>> >> >> >** >> *But we can have more than one precursor state too (e.g., the quantum >> erasure experiment).* >> > > There is only one one precursor state I am conscious of, and as > consciousness is pretty much the only thing anybody on this list wants to > talk about your objection is not relevant. > Okay, I don't see this tangent as particularly important to the thought experiment. We can drop it. > > > >> Do you believe persons are duplicated ala many-worlds? >> > > I believe people will be duplicated when > > technology becomes advanced enough and if many worlds is true they > already are. > > >* * >> *They identify themselves with Earth Abby.* >> > > I define "Abby" as anyone who remembers being Abbey as anyone who > remembers being Abby before the duplication. Do you disagree? > > No, we can go with that. > > >> >> >>> Forget teleportation and people duplicating machines, we can guess but >>> we can never know what the future will bring and that's why we don't define >>> ourselves by what will happen to us in the future. >>> >> >> > >> Do you not save money in the bank account for the future? >> >> > > If the future doesn't unfold as I expected and my retirement investments > go bad then I will have lost some money, but if I develop Alzheimer's > disease in retirement and lost my past then I will have lost far more than > money, I will have lost my identity. The past and the future are not > symmetrical, we can remember the past but not the future. > But the important point is we have expectations about the future, and physical theories attempt to predict likelihoods of various future outcomes which we (at time now) have no memory of, but nonetheless expect to experience in the future. Do you agree on this point? > > > >> *> the only point in having a brain is to predict and prepare for the >> future.* > > > Yes but even so the future often turns out to be very different from what > we expected, when that happens we are surprised but we don't feel that our > identity has been lost; but Alzheimer's patients do feel their identity > slipping away because they can no longer remember the past. > > >> >>> But we do remember what has happened in the past. I can say with >>> complete confidence that I am John Clark because I remember being John >>> Clark yesterday, but I don't remember being John Clark tomorrow. >>> >> >> > >> Which John Clark were you before I ran the quantum erasure experiment? >> Or before your memories were wiped and you were placed in a sensory >> deprivation chamber? >> > > I don't understand the question. > I think I was suggesting the same thing as you did regarding Alzheimers. If memories are erased and we have no access to other evidence, the past can become indeterminant, similarly to the future. > > >> >>> As for preparations, if I was told I was to be duplicated and teleported >>> to Hawaii and Antarctica I'd insist on taking BOTH a swimsuit AND (not or) >>> a heavy woolen jacket with me into the duplication chamber. >>> >>> >> *>Good! I see you understand first-person indeterminancy. * >> > > > So what was that one bit of information that "Abby" gained? Did "Abby" > (and I am the only one who has given a precise definition of that word and > stuck with it) end up seeing W or M? > The bit is gained by "Abby-1" and "Abby-2". Abby-1 will say "Huh, I am experiencing life as Abby-1 rather than Abby-2" -- let's call this outcome "0" Abby-2 will say "Huh, I am experiencing life as Abby-2 rather than Abby-1" -- let's call this outcome "1" Each of Abby-1 and Abby-2 have gained a bit of information. > > >> > >> *You don't know whether you will need the coat or the swimsuit.* >> > > John Clark's expectation was that both would be used, and in the case John > Clark's expectations turned out to be correct. > > > >> >> >>> ask yourself this question; "after the " >>> experiment >>> " is over and the scientists have collected and analyzed all the data >>> and then locked the lab and gone home what one and only one thing did they >>> conclude Abby ended up seeing?". If the scientists STILL don't have an >>> answer then there must be something wrong with the question. The key >>> problem is that for some strange reason you insist there can only be one >>> Abby but then you introduce a Abby duplicating machine into the mix so >>> there can't be only one. So it always comes down to, what in the world do >>> you mean by "Abby"? >>> >> >> *>It concerns Abby's predictions concerning her subjective experience >> of being duplicated. You are right from the scientist's POV it is >> deterministic, nothing was learned by doing it. However, subjectively Abby >> will gain 1 bit of information which she could not have gained without >> executing the experiment.* >> > > So what was that one bit of information that "Abby" gained? Did "Abby" > (and I am the only one who has given a precise definition of that word and > stuck with it) end up seeing W or M? > The bit of information was "I got to use my swimsuit today" or "I had to use my winter coat", as recorded in the memories of John Clark-1's and John Clark-2's brains, respectively. But you don't have to take my word for it. Max Tegmark explained the same in a thought experiment he describes in "Our Mathematical Universe", starting on page 194: "It gradually hit me that this illusion of randomness business really wasn't specific to quantum mechanics at all. Suppose that some future technology allows you to be cloned while you're sleeping, and that your two copies are placed in rooms numbered 0 and 1 (Figure 8.3). When they wake up, they'll both feel that the room number they read is completely unpredictable and random. If in the future, it becomes possible for you to upload your mind to a computer, then what I'm saying here will feel totally obvious and intuitive to you, since cloning yourself will be as easy as making a copy of your software. If you repeated the cloning experiment from Figure 8.3 many times and wrote down your room number each time, you'd in almost all cases find that the sequence of zeros and ones you'd written looked random, with zeros occurring about 50% of the time. In other words, causal physics will produce the illusion of randomness from your subjective viewpoint in any circumstance where you're being cloned. The fundamental reason that quantum mechanics appears random even though the wave function evolves deterministically is that the Schrodinger equation can evolve a wavefunction with a single you into one with clones of you in parallel universes. So how does it feel when you get cloned? It feels random! And every time something fundamentally random appears to happen to you, which couldn't have been predicted even in principle, it's a sign that you've been cloned." Do you find it strange, or at least interesting, that three different scientists, independently are using a very similar thought experiment as they explore fundamental questions concerning reality? We have Bruno with the Washington and Moscow, Tegmark with being cloned while asleep, and Markus Muller with his Abbys. Is it not also interesting, that they all reach similar conclusions, namely, that computation sits at the basis of reality, and moreover that "all computations exist" if taken as true, could explain the appearance of our physical reality, that physics itself might be explained from a more fundamental ensemble of computations? Jason -- 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. 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