> On 22 Apr 2019, at 15:38, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 9:33 AM Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be > <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote: > > > The question is about the first person experience, > > I don't want to know what the question is about, I want to know precisely > what the question is.
OK. As there are new people, I explain for them, and ask them the question, which I repeat, is usually answered correctly, with respect to mechanism, by 14 and 15 kids. It is the easiest part of the reasoning. It is but the step 3 in the 8 step reasoning of the Sane04 paper http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html Indexical Digital Mechanism, or simply Mechanism, is the idea that we can survive with an artificial brain. It is the idea that my consciousness, or my first-person experience, is invariant for some functional digital substitution of my brain/body at some level of substitution (neurons, or perhaps atoms, or quarks and electron, or strings, etc.). In that case, we can show, or argue at least, that we can use classical teleportation as a mean to move from Earth to Mars, say. We are read and cut (scanned and annihilated) on Earth, and then the relevant digital information is sent to Mars (it takes four minutes, or a bit more because it is a long stream of digits), and on Mars, some reconstitution devices is supposed to have been installed before, and it reconstituted the body of the traveller in the state he was before pushing the button trigging the cut and copy, and the “pasting” on mars. Let us define the notion of first person and third person, which in this setting can be made easily. For this, we imagine that the candidate takes with him, in the cut and read box, a personal diary in which he describes the events that he lives during his journeys. The content of that diary is what I called the first person experience. The third person experience is the content of the diary of an observer, not going into the annihilating, copying device, of the entire experience. In the case of the simple teleportation experience, from Earth to Mars, the first person will be something like “I am on Earth, I will push on the button, and I expect to find myself on Mars. I push on the button now; I find myself in a box, and I guess that I am on Mars. I open the box, and I feel like I am seeing Mars, and after a while, I conclude that I am indeed on Mars”. The third person experience will be something like “the candidate did enter the box, and is annihilated, some ten minutes after, we get a call from the candidate from mars. He has successfully been teleported from Earth to Mars”. In that case, the two discourses have a very similar content. Imagine that we introduce a delay for the reconstitution on Mars. As it is the same code of the initial state, captured when pushing the button on Earth, which is transmitted, and given that we assume digital mechanism, the experience of the first person will not be different from the case without delay described just above. But the diary of the third person observer, will contained a description of the delay, like “the candidate enter the box and is annihilated, one year go on, and we get the eventually the message that the guy has been reconstituted, and he feel well, but he seems not aware at all that a delay of one year has been added”. It is obvious, using the hypothesis that we are discussing, that the first person and third person description are differing a bit more than in the preceding case. The first person is not aware of the delay of reconstitution, where the third person is. In that case, with the Mechanist Assumption, and the usual default hypothesis (like the engine works well, the substitution level has been chosen correctly, etc.) not only we can be teleported (in this classical way), but it happens that the information read before annihilation can be duplicated, and the reconstitution can be done in two places at once. In that sense, mechanism implies that we are, like amoeba, duplicable entity, at least our body is. The usual protocole here is that we are read and copied at time t_1 in Helsinki, and reconstituted simultaneously (in the Helsinki frame, say) at Moscow and at Washington, where a cup of coffee is offered to each copies. Now, we define the identity of a person at some time t, by the content of its personal diary, that he is able to access just by looking in its bag, and reading it loud to us. The question which is asked to the guy when he is in Helsinki is the following one: what do you expect to live when doing that duplication experience? Or equivalently “what do you expect to write in the entries of your diary after having push on the button”. A more precise question could, which is more probable, given the hypothesis of mechanism, to be sure. Here, the difference between the third person description of the experience is drastically different from the first person experiences. Note the s. As the personal diary enters the box, it is itself duplicated, and, obviously (I hope everyone agrees), their will be two personal diaries, but only one of them is directly available to each of the copies, in the two W and M cities. The diaries will each certainly contain the entries: “I am in Helsinki. I am told that I will be read and copy here inHelsinki, and that the information which has been encoded will be duplicated, and sent to both Moscow and Washington, and my copies will be reconstituted in each of those cities, after I push on this button. I am asked, here in Helsinki to predict what experience I will feel to live and describe in my personal diary. My prediction is [………]”. Now I push the button.Go!…." It should also be obvious that the diaries, which are each an exact copy of the diary in Helsinki, will continue in the following way. “… OK, I have pushed on the button. I find myself in a box. I open the door, and discover that I am in Washington. I am offered a cup of coffee. I ask if the reconstitution has worked well in Moscow. At some moment later I am told it did”. “… OK. I have pushed on the button. I find myself in a box. I open the door, and discovered that I am in Moscow. I am aoofered a cup of coffee. I ask if the reconstitution has worked well in Moscow. At some moment later I am told it did”. What would *you* write for the missing [………] in the diary, when still in Helsinki? To make things even more trivial/easy, I will say that a prediction is good when it is satisfied by all copies, so that both copies will write in their person diaries: “my prediction, i.e. [………] was correct!. The question is, what is the best prediction among: 0) I predict that I will die. 1) I predict that I will feel to be in Washington, drinking a cup of coffee. 2) I predict that I will feel to be in Moscow, drinking a cup of coffee. 3) I predict that I will feel to be simultaneously in W and in M, drinking the two coffees simultaneously, tasting them both at once, so that I can compare them instantaneously. 4) I predict that I will either feel to be in Washington, drinking a cup of coffee, OR feel to be in Moscow, drinking a cup of coffee. So, what should be [………] in the diary, in Helsinki, among 0), 1), 2), 3), 4) so that the two entire story could end by "When I wrote "[………]” in Helskini, I was correct!”. Bruno > And even after all this time you are unable to unambiguously state the > question, so it's not surprising I am unable to answer it. > > > why do you keep saying that a computation is real only when implemented in > > a primary physical reality? > > So you're asking why are things real only when they are real. I don't think > that needs an answer. > > > God is defined by > > God is real unless defined an integer. > > > From Plato came neoplatonism. From this came mathematics and physics. > > You always ignore Archimedes, the greatest ancient Greek of them all. If > anyone is the father (or maybe grandfather) of modern physics and mathematics > it's him. Unlike Plato or Aristotle he discovered things that are just as > true today as they were on the day he discovered them. > > > God is defined by ... > > ... a grey amorphous blob. With that nifty definition one can state with > confidence that God exists because grey amorphous blobs certainly do. > > > 2+2 = 5 is grammatically correct in arithmetic, > > 2+2=5 can not be formed by lawfully manipulating Peano's axioms, if it could > be then arithmetic would be a silly useless enterprise. > > > ? > ! > >> with no clear referent that a personal pronoun with no clear referent is > >> supposed to answer. > > > The referent is the first person experience possible. > > Which "the" first person experience is being refers to, the one in Moscow or > the one in Washington? If it's both then stop saying "the". If it's neither > then you're using a personal pronoun with no referent and the word means > precisely nothing. > > > I will be duplicated, but I know with certainty that I will taste some > > coffee, but I am not sure, nor can I be sure if it will taste like Russian > > coffee or American coffee. > > That's 5, count them 5, uses of the personal pronoun "I" in the short > sentence above describing an exparament to be performed in a world that > contains personal pronoun duplicating machines. And Bruno is baffled that > John Clark believes Bruno is talking gibberish, Weird. > > > You keep denying the first person report of the copies, > > I keep insisting there is no such thing as THE first person if there is a > copy of it in Moscow and a copy of it in Washington. > > > that is the reason of the FPI. > > You've forgotten IHA. > > >>In a world with people duplicating machines there is no such thing as THE > >>first person experience; > > > Proof? > > "The" is singular and "copy" implies 2 and 2 is greater than 1. QED. > I await the Field Medal with eager anticipation. > > > Just read both diaries. > > Oh no, not those goddamn idiot diaries again!!! > > > You are the only one who have a problem with this, > > You say that a LOT and If it was really true I'd have to conclude that I'm > far smarter than I thought I was, but I don't believe for one nanosecond > that it is true. > > >> if you really meant what you said about the Helsinki Man being anyone who > >> remembers being the Helsinki Man yesterday, but of course you didn't > >> really mean it and will now start equivocating. > > > I will just distinguish the first person 1 from [...] > > Just as I predicted you now start equivocation and that sort of mental mush > and evasion is exactly precisely what I thought would happen. So please stop > saying that we agree on the definition of the Helsinki man because we most > certainly do NOT. I have a clear consistent definition and all you have is > gibberish > > >> Everybody correctly predicted that the Moscow Man will see Moscow and the > >> Washington man will see Washington and everybody correctly predicted that > >> both will have a first person experience tomorrow, > > >Indeed, and in particular that first person experience is, for both copies, > >I see one city and not the other, > > If so then where is this grand indeterminacy that you keep talking about? > Exactly what was NOT correctly predicted yesterday in Helsinki? I now await > an avalanche of personal pronouns in answer to my question not one of which > will have a clear unambiguous referent. > > > and I could not have written, in Helsinki, which one. > > Which ONE?? Forget yesterday even today you can't say which one ended up > seeing which city because the question makes no sense. Yesterday in Helsinki > there was only one so it's ridiculous to expect to be able to point to 2 > people and say you will see Moscow but you won't, but anybody can correctly > predict that the Moscow Man will see Moscow only and the Washington man will > see Washington only and both will have a first person experience tomorrow, > And if today "The Helsinki Man" means anybody who remembers being The > Helsinki man yesterday (and I can't think what else it could mean) then The > Helsinki Man will see 2 cities, provided that 1 +1 =2. > > > That is the FPI. > > Once again you've forgotten IHA. > > >> and nobody in Helsinki will. > > > Then the Helsinki guy has been killed in the process, > > Yep, he's dead as a doornail, well he is if "The Helsinki Man" means the man > who was in Helsinki yesterday because yesterday does not exist today. Of > course only a fool would define "The Helsinki Man" that way. > > >> Yes each individual only saw one city but each individual is only half of > >> the Helsinki man because THE HELSINKI MAN HAS BEEN DUPLICATED and that is > >> what the word "duplicated" means. > > > No body has been cut in half. A duplication is not a division > > Of course not, a dead half a body is not even a mediocre copy of a whole > living body. > > >>You forget that the question is about the first person experiences, > > I haven't forgotten, I just want to you to make clear which "the" first > person experiences you're talking about, but I'll never know because (and I > don't say this as a insult I mean it quite literally) you don't know what > you're talking about when you use a personal pronoun with no clear referent. > > > AS SEEN BY THE FIRST PERSON, > > Ah .., I believe all all first person experiences are from the first person, > that's why it's not the third person. > > > WHICH IS GIVEN IN THE PROTOCOL OF THE EXPERIENCE. > > Using a scientific sounding word like "protocol" can not turn a silly chaotic > mess into a real experiment or even a thought experiment. > > > If you think that there is no first person indeterminacy, just gives the > > algorithm. > > Before I can do that you have to tell me exactly what you want the algorithm > to do. I lost track of how many times I've asked you that but all I get is > more personal pronouns with no unique meaning in a world with personal > pronoun duplicating machines. Every meaningful prediction has already been > correctly made yesterday in Helsinki and there is nothing more to predict. > > 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 > <mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com > <mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list > <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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