subject:"Re\: Holiday Exercise"

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-21 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On 21 July 2016 at 07:29, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 7/20/2016 6:34 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, 20 July 2016, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 7/18/2016 11:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 19 July 2016 at 04:00, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/18/2016 2:59 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

 On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>> The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the
>> original and, because of the phenomenon of first person experience, feels
>> that he is the one true copy persisting through time
>>
>
> How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't know and
> neither does anyone else.  So it's really meaningless to say he feels he's
> the one true copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice that he 
> was
> unique.
>

 Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I can be
 radically sceptical about the existence of the world and other minds, but
 still go about life as if it matters.


 But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been said
 about Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot conclude that he is
 thinking, he can only conclude that thinking is going on.

>>>
>>> From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a thought at
>>> this moment, not that there is an entity that has a stream of thoughts.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thoughts are not "at a moment".  They have temporal extent and hence can
>>> have continuity.
>>>
>>
>> It seems that thoughts can be divided up arbitrarily. This is more easily
>> shown by considering a digital computer. A computation can be paused,
>> saved, and restarted, and if there are observers in the computed
>> environment there is no way for them to know that this has happened.
>>
>>
>> First, that assumes single computer running on a clock that keeps all the
>> changes synchronized so there is a each clock cycle "the state".  No at all
>> like a brain in which there is a distributed process.  Second, it's not
>> even clear that it's possible for a single clocked computer.  When you stop
>> a computation there are registers to be saved and cleared; and when you
>> restart it these have to be reinitialized.  On theory that awareness is a
>> kind of computation, how do we know that a computer instantiated AI would
>> not be aware of this in some sense.  When you have a concussion you don't
>> have memory of what went just before the event, although there's no reason
>> to suppose you weren't aware of it at the time.  You are aware that you
>> have a gap in memory, that you have been unconscious.
>>
>
> It would be very strange if a computer instantiated AI would be aware of a
> pause in the computation, since that would imply a decoupling between the
> AI's consciousness and the computation - like a dualist version of
> computationalism.
>
>
> If I programmed an AI, say for a Mars rover, I would certainly make sure
> that it recorded every power loss and reboot.
>

That would be extra data inserted into the computation. The fact that the
computer had stopped and started again would not, on its own, be noticed.

> Even if a minimum duration is needed it might still be broken up
>> arbitrarily. For example, if 500 ms is needed to generate an experience the
>> computation could branch at the 200 ms point giving two different
>> experiences, or there could be two overlapping experiences from 0 ms to 500
>> ms and from 100 ms to 600 ms. If you don't allow such overlap, and there
>> are only discrete 500 ms experiences, it is still possible to replace talk
>> of observer-(infinitesimal)-moments with observer-half-seconds.
>>
>>
>> I not only allow overlap, I think it is essential to how a brain
>> operates, and that's why there are no discrete thoughts.  Thoughts can form
>> a continuum because they overlap.
>>
>> The entity, the "I", is not fundamental but emergent, the set of related
>>> thoughts.
>>>
>>>
>>> That's begging the question and assuming the physical is not
>>> fundamental.  It depends on whether you look for something that is
>>> epistemologically primary or something that is ontologically primary.
>>>
>>
>> The argument so far has mostly been about the concrete copying of brains.
>>
>>> These thoughts are not necessarily connected through sharing a physical
>>> substrate. Sharing a physical substrate is a convenient method of producing
>>> thoughts with the right sort of relationship to each other,
>>>
>>>
>>> "Producing" is a funny word to use.  Are you assuming there is a
>>> "someone" who produces the thoughts -

Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-21 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> 
>> "THE FPI" comes from nothing because in a world with FPI duplicating
>> machines 
>> "THE FPI" does not exist.
>>
>
> > 
> The FPI requires duplicating machines.
>

We haven't invented duplicating machines yet, does that mean FPI doesn't
exist in our world? 

>> >> 
>> What the hell is the difference between "3-1 view" and "3 view"?  
>
>
> > 
> 3p view: the bodies of the H-guy is reconstituted in both places.
>  
> 3-1 view: the bodies of the H-guy is reconstituted in both places and I
> attribute a genuine first person experience to both
>

In other words the Helsinki man's "
genuine first person experience
"
would be experienced by 
both
. So "What one and only one experience will The Helsinki Man experience?"
is not a question with a indeterminate answer, it's just an asinine
question.

> 
> The 1-1 view is just an expression emphasizing that it is not the 3-1 view.
>  
>

Then it's just a case of jargon inflation to impress the rubes, but I'm
not a rube and I am not impressed. I had already figured out that if 1 view
were the same as 3 view you wouldn't have given them different names.

> 
> The 1-1-view is equivalent with a 1-view

Then the best way to emphasize that is to never say 1-1-view again.

>> 
>> At least with the Schrodinger Cat thought experiment when it's all over
>> and the box is opened the state of the cat's health is known,
>
>
> > 
> Which cat?
>

The only cat in the box that we can see in the observable universe, that
cat.

> > 
> We know all the time that the cat is all the time dead and alive, in the
> 3-1 view,
>

Sorry, I've lost track of what  the 3-1 view is, but I do know that in no
view in the observable universe "the cat is all the time dead and alive".

> > 
> Then the math confirms this up to now.
>

Math alone can't confirm anything, it can just tell us that certain
results follow from certain assumptions. But you're assumptions are worse
than wrong, they're gibberish. 

>> 
>> Even though Bruno conceded that "He" means "remember having been in
>> Helsinki
>>  
>> " John Clark is sure Bruno's response to this will be "not in the 1-p"
>> forgetting that in a world that has 1-p duplicating machines there is no
>> such thing as "THE 1-p".
>
>
> > 
> Then you die,

Maybe, that depends entirely on what the hell "he" means, and the meaning
seems to shift even within a single sentence, but whatever the hell that
 god damned personal pronoun means what's important is that if at least one
thing (and the more the merrier) tomorrow remembers being John Clark today
then John Clark will live for at least another 24 hours.

> > 
> If computationalism is correct, then there is a "the 1-p" at both places,
>

No there would  be "a 1p" at both places, and that would be true even
if computationalism
was false.

> > 
> "the 1p" is the one you will live with certainty
>

And 
 the one
"
you
"
will live with certainty
 is "the 1p". And round and round  we go.

> 
> although you cannot know which one in advance.
>

Not only that, "you" cannot know which one even after the experiment is
over because it's not a question, it's just words with a question mark at
the end. 

> > 
> "Which one" makes no sense in the 3p view, but get already clear meaning
> in the 3-1 view.
>

There is no such thing as THE 3-1 view.

 John K Clark

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-21 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 19 Jul 2016, at 18:29, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 7/18/2016 11:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



On 19 July 2016 at 04:00, Brent Meeker  wrote:


On 7/18/2016 2:59 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett  
 wrote:

On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker   
wrote:



On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the  
original and, because of the phenomenon of first person  
experience, feels that he is the one true copy persisting through  
time






 This is why I think Bruno's argument that you can instantiate  
consciousness without a physical world fails.  The physical and  
mental are inextricably entwined.



Computationalism guaranties that the physical and the mental are  
deeply entwined. The physical becomes the border of the universal mind  
(the mind of the universal machine/number), so to speak.


The point is just that once you bet on computationalism, you can no  
more invoke some physical reality to explain consciousness, you have  
to explain the physical by local/global relative measure on the  
computations, which are already all realized, in infinitely many  
relative representations, in arithmetic.


Invoking the physical, having understood the notion of computation, is  
exactly introducing the kind of magic in matter which would prevent  
the computationalist to say "yes" to the doctor.


And also, why not add the need of a God with a white beard sitting on  
a cloud? You can't reify a metaphysical notion to hide a genuine  
problem, which is also an interesting problem as it leads to the  
testability of a rather precise version of the cognitive digital  
thesis (CT + YD).


With computationalism, physics becomes machine-independent, or theory  
independent. The physics is the same in all the phi_i bases. That is a  
very powerful invariant principle, for both physics and psychology/bio/ 
theology.


Bruno







Brent




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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-21 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 20 Jul 2016, at 23:44, John Clark wrote:




On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Stathis Papaioannou  wrote


There would be a discontinuity if you go into the teleporter in one  
city and get out in another, but there is also a discontinuity if  
you fall asleep on the train.


Except at death conscious is always continuous,



With computationalism, it can be shown (in different ways) that  
conscious is continuous even at death, although it is here that we  
have to take the 1-3 distinction the most into account.


That is almost trivial. Your first person is associated with  
infinitely many computations, making conscious continues, and this  
with some intuitionistic semantic topology (as provided through the  
mathematical 1p: S4Grz1 and X1*)


There is an inflation of type of immortality, and some depends on what  
you identify yourself with.


Now, nobody can know for sure that computationalism is true, nor can  
know for sure its own substitution level. But everyone can bet, as you  
already did.


We don't need to believe in the theology of numbers, and we can  
consider it as a "toy theology", but it is interesting that it can be  
tested, and that what is weird and shocking in QM becomes trivial, and  
I guess as much shocking, when we assume explicitly the digital  
mechanist thesis. This happens at the intuitive level (step 7), and in  
arithmetic (from theoretical computer science).


I am aware this is step 7 level advanced computationalism (grin), and  
it requires a good understanding of the extensional and intensional  
Church-Turing-Post thesis (non grin), and some knowledge on how  
recursive functions and predicate can be represented in (very weak)  
arithmetical theories, like RA.


I insist anyone interested (having studied a bit the Mendelson book,  
or Boolos & Jeffrey) take a look on the three papers of Tarski,  
including the important --Mostowski, Robinson, Tarski paper, where RA  
is born and shown essentially undecidable (undecidable and so for  
*all* its consistent extensions and theories in which they can be  
interpreted).


People should understand well that the notion of computation is not  
just a well defined mathematical concept, but that it is also an  
arithmetical concept, indeed a Sigma_1 complete one, like, notably  
Gödel's beweisbar predicate []p, or [0]p, which is axiomatized by G  
(at the machine justifiable level) and G* (at the truth level).




although the outside world may not be.



With mind-digitalism (the mechanist hypothesis in the *cognitive*  
science) there are infinitely many universal numbers which compete for  
making you believe in an sensible and stable world. What does that  
give? We can only do the math.


Bruno




In your example it's the train that behaves discontinuously,  
instantaneously it jumps many miles ahead.  


 John K Clark









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Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-21 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 20 Jul 2016, at 01:31, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 3:47 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

>> That's right Bruno, keep sweeping those foggy thoughts and  
fractured logic under the "he" colored personal pronoun rug.

> No problem,

If there really is no problem why does Bruno Marchal refuse to to  
use Mr. He's name? Because the theory would fall apart that's why.

I did it, and you did not reply.

 >  we agree on who "he" is at all times."he" is both copies,  
as both remember having been in Helsinki.

Then answer just one question, how many people  remember  
being in Helsinki?

Two. Indeed both confirmed "HW v HM", which is equivalent to H & (W v  
M)"

> The FPI comes from the fact that alhtough he is both, he  
(both guy) can only feel to be one of them.

"THE FPI" comes from nothing because in a world with FPI  
duplicating machines  "THE FPI" does not exist.

The FPI requires duplicating machines.

>>Two people not one have the experience of seeing only one  
city and not the other. So which ONE is "THE"?

> Both in the 3-1 view.

What the hell is the difference between "3-1 view" and "3  
view"?  

3p view: the bodies of the H-guy is reconstituted in both places.

3-1 view: the bodies of the H-guy is reconstituted in both places and  
I attribute a genuine first person experience to both guys (and thus I  
listen to them, or read their personal diary, and both confirmed W v M.

> One of them with the 1-1 view.

What the hell is the difference between "THE 1-1 view" and "THE  
1-view"?  And which ONE of the TWO did it turn out to have  
"THE 1-1 view", was it Moscow or Washington?

The 1-1 view is just an expression emphasizing that it is not the 3-1  
view. The 1-1-view is equivalent with a 1-view, not attributed to  
another body, but to the indexical body (or diary/memory) to which the  
experiencer has some direct access (usually through neurons).

At least with the Schrodinger Cat thought experiment when it's all  
over and the box is opened the state of the cat's health is known,

Which cat? We know all the time that the cat is all the time dead and  
alive, in the 3-1 view, which here is the universal wave. But yes, in  
each branch, the cat observer, when he observes the cat with some  
alive/dead apparatus, will see only the cat being dead, or alive, but  
this is because he splitted/differentiate, like in the WM-duplication.

> That's why in Helsinki, we got an indeterminacy.

Nothing as profound as that, all that happened is that in  
Helsinki somebody spouted some gibberish and stuck a question mark  
at the end of it.

Not at all. Even using pronouns, or not, the question is cristal  
clear, and the means of verification is very simple. It is just that  
you seem to infer we get a 3p indeterminacy, but we get "only" a 1p  
indeterminacy, like in Everett, but in a much larger context, and that  
explains eventually why physics cannot be the fundamental science,  
once we bet on Mechanism. Then the math confirms this up to now.

>> John Clark will say if P=1/2 is correct or not as soon as  
Bruno Marchal explains exactly what P is supposed to be a  
probability of. Until then is is neither correct nor  
incorrect, it's just gibberish  

> The probability of seeing W. Or of seeing M, for the H-guy.

But before you said "he", The Helsinki guy,  "is  
both copies, as both remember having been in Helsinki." 
.  So the guy seeing Washington at 9:01 am Thursday  
morning remembers  being the Helsinki guy at 8:59 am on Thursday  
morning, so the probability of that guy seeing  
Washington  is 1 not 1/2. But that guy is not alone, the guy  
seeing Moscow at 9:01am Thursday morning also  
remembers being the Helsinki guy at 8:59 am on Thursday  
morning, so the probability of that guy seeing Moscow  
is 1 not 1/2.  Therefore the probability of the guy  
seeing Helsinki at  8:59 am on Thursday morning seeing BOTH  
Washington and Moscow at 9:01 Thursday morning is 100% not 50%.

For the 3-1 view, that is correct, but avoid the question asked. I  
think you played that trick a lot. Repeating errors does not correct  
them.

Even though Bruno conceded that "He" means "remember having been  
in Helsinki" John Clark is sure Bruno's response to this will be  
"not in the 1-p" forgetting that in a world that has 1-p duplicating  
machines there is no such thing as "THE 1-p". 

Then you die, and computationalism is false, making my point. If  
computationalism is correct, then there is a "the 1-p" at both places,  
and that is what we talk about. "a "the" " does not seem english, but  
that is indeed because english is not well suited to a world with  
duplicating machine. "the 1p" is the one you will live with certainty,  
although you cannot know which one in advance. "Which one" makes no  
sense in the 3p view,

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-20 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Stathis Papaioannou 
wrote

There would be a discontinuity if you go into the teleporter in one city
> and get out in another, but there is also a discontinuity if you fall
> asleep on the train.


Except at death conscious is always continuous, although the outside world
may not be. In your example it's the train that behaves discontinuously,
instantaneously it jumps many miles ahead.  


 John K Clark

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-20 Thread Brent Meeker

On 7/20/2016 6:34 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On Wednesday, 20 July 2016, Brent Meeker > wrote:

On 7/18/2016 11:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 19 July 2016 at 04:00, Brent Meeker > wrote:

On 7/18/2016 2:59 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett
>
wrote:

On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker
>
wrote:

On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

The problems arise because each copy has
memories of being the original and, because of
the phenomenon of first person experience,
feels that he is the one true copy persisting
through time

How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He
doesn't know and neither does anyone else.  So it's
really meaningless to say he feels he's the one
true copy.  He's just relying on his previous
prejudice that he was unique.

Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one
nonetheless. I can be radically sceptical about the
existence of the world and other minds, but still go
about life as if it matters.

But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has
been said about Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that
Descartes cannot conclude that he is thinking, he can
only conclude that thinking is going on.

From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a
thought at this moment, not that there is an entity that has
a stream of thoughts.

Thoughts are not "at a moment".  They have temporal extent
and hence can have continuity.

It seems that thoughts can be divided up arbitrarily. This is
more easily shown by considering a digital computer. A
computation can be paused, saved, and restarted, and if there are
observers in the computed environment there is no way for them to
know that this has happened.

First, that assumes single computer running on a clock that keeps
all the changes synchronized so there is a each clock cycle "the
state".  No at all like a brain in which there is a distributed
process.  Second, it's not even clear that it's possible for a
single clocked computer.  When you stop a computation there are
registers to be saved and cleared; and when you restart it these
have to be reinitialized.  On theory that awareness is a kind of
computation, how do we know that a computer instantiated AI would
not be aware of this in some sense.  When you have a concussion
you don't have memory of what went just before the event, although
there's no reason to suppose you weren't aware of it at the time. 
You are aware that you have a gap in memory, that you have been

unconscious.

It would be very strange if a computer instantiated AI would be aware 
of a pause in the computation, since that would imply a decoupling 
between the AI's consciousness and the computation - like a dualist 
version of computationalism.

If I programmed an AI, say for a Mars rover, I would certainly make sure 
that it recorded every power loss and reboot.

Even if a minimum duration is needed it might still be broken up
arbitrarily. For example, if 500 ms is needed to generate an
experience the computation could branch at the 200 ms point
giving two different experiences, or there could be two
overlapping experiences from 0 ms to 500 ms and from 100 ms to
600 ms. If you don't allow such overlap, and there are only
discrete 500 ms experiences, it is still possible to replace talk
of observer-(infinitesimal)-moments with observer-half-seconds.

I not only allow overlap, I think it is essential to how a brain
operates, and that's why there are no discrete thoughts.  Thoughts
can form a continuum because they overlap.

The entity, the "I", is not fundamental but emergent, the
set of related thoughts.

That's begging the question and assuming the physical is not
fundamental.  It depends on whether you look for something
that is epistemologically primary or something that is
ontologically primary.

The argument so far has mostly been about the concrete copying of
brains.

These thoughts are not necessarily connected through sharing
a physical substrate. Sharing a

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-20 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Wednesday, 20 July 2016, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 7/18/2016 11:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>
>
> On 19 July 2016 at 04:00, Brent Meeker  > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 7/18/2016 2:59 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett > > wrote:
>>
>>> On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>
>>> On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker >> > wrote:
>>>


 On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the
> original and, because of the phenomenon of first person experience, feels
> that he is the one true copy persisting through time
>

 How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't know and
 neither does anyone else.  So it's really meaningless to say he feels he's
 the one true copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice that he was
 unique.

>>>
>>> Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I can be
>>> radically sceptical about the existence of the world and other minds, but
>>> still go about life as if it matters.
>>>
>>>
>>> But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been said about
>>> Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot conclude that he is
>>> thinking, he can only conclude that thinking is going on.
>>>
>>
>> From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a thought at
>> this moment, not that there is an entity that has a stream of thoughts.
>>
>>
>> Thoughts are not "at a moment".  They have temporal extent and hence can
>> have continuity.
>>
>
> It seems that thoughts can be divided up arbitrarily. This is more easily
> shown by considering a digital computer. A computation can be paused,
> saved, and restarted, and if there are observers in the computed
> environment there is no way for them to know that this has happened.
>
>
> First, that assumes single computer running on a clock that keeps all the
> changes synchronized so there is a each clock cycle "the state".  No at all
> like a brain in which there is a distributed process.  Second, it's not
> even clear that it's possible for a single clocked computer.  When you stop
> a computation there are registers to be saved and cleared; and when you
> restart it these have to be reinitialized.  On theory that awareness is a
> kind of computation, how do we know that a computer instantiated AI would
> not be aware of this in some sense.  When you have a concussion you don't
> have memory of what went just before the event, although there's no reason
> to suppose you weren't aware of it at the time.  You are aware that you
> have a gap in memory, that you have been unconscious.
>

It would be very strange if a computer instantiated AI would be aware of a
pause in the computation, since that would imply a decoupling between the
AI's consciousness and the computation - like a dualist version of
computationalism.

> Even if a minimum duration is needed it might still be broken up
> arbitrarily. For example, if 500 ms is needed to generate an experience the
> computation could branch at the 200 ms point giving two different
> experiences, or there could be two overlapping experiences from 0 ms to 500
> ms and from 100 ms to 600 ms. If you don't allow such overlap, and there
> are only discrete 500 ms experiences, it is still possible to replace talk
> of observer-(infinitesimal)-moments with observer-half-seconds.
>
>
> I not only allow overlap, I think it is essential to how a brain operates,
> and that's why there are no discrete thoughts.  Thoughts can form a
> continuum because they overlap.
>
> The entity, the "I", is not fundamental but emergent, the set of related
>> thoughts.
>>
>>
>> That's begging the question and assuming the physical is not
>> fundamental.  It depends on whether you look for something that is
>> epistemologically primary or something that is ontologically primary.
>>
>
> The argument so far has mostly been about the concrete copying of brains.
>
>> These thoughts are not necessarily connected through sharing a physical
>> substrate. Sharing a physical substrate is a convenient method of producing
>> thoughts with the right sort of relationship to each other,
>>
>>
>> "Producing" is a funny word to use.  Are you assuming there is a
>> "someone" who produces the thoughts - even though the "someone" is emergent
>> from the thoughts?  The physical world is partly an inference and partly a
>> mode of thought hardwired by evolution.
>>
>
> In the first instance, I assume that the physical brain goes
> clickety-clack, and as a result thoughts are produced. In order for the
> thoughts to be strung together to form a stream of

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread spudboy100 via Everything List

I have replied to Dr. Marchal, using a scifi writer, Wil McCarthy version of 
the future regarding this (Derek Parfit's analysis, not withstanding),  and 
basically McCarthy concluded that everytime somebody used a teleport machine 
they killed themselves. Cloning oneself was frowned upon, and often led to 
reunification orders by the government (a monarchy!). 

Sent from AOL Mobile Mail


-Original Message-
From: Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jul 19, 2016 01:04 PM
Subject: Re: Holiday Exercise










On 7/19/2016 5:18 AM, Bruce Kellett
  wrote:



  
  On 19/07/2016 9:47 pm, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

  The who
  argument here, is one of fission, plus, identity. But what of
  fusion. Let us say Biff, using magical teleportation
  technology, clones himself into 2 identical guys called Biff
  and Biff zips off to Moscow, Boff decides to shop for fishing
  equipment, in Helsinki. After a few hours seeing the sights,
  buying some goods, Biff, bought a case of Stoly, Boff, some
  fishing gear, both zap back to "Copenhagen," their site of
  origin. Once they arrive, they discuss their trips with each
  other and agree to re-merge. The transporter is used, and Boff
  is absorbed back into Biff. Biff emerges from the transporter,
  memories of both places intact, and anticipating a weekend of
  fishing and Stoly. This would be fission, then fusion or
  re-fusion. 


  

  Parfit has considered such a case:

  
  
  

  
Suppose that the bridge
between my hemispheres is brought under my voluntary
control. This would enable me to disconnect my
hemispheres as easily as if I were blinking. By doing
this I would divide my mind. And we can suppose that
when my mind is divided I can, in each half, 
bring about reunion. 
This ability would have
obvious uses. To give an example: I am near the end of a
maths exam, and see two ways of tackling the last
problem. I decide to divide my mind, to work, with each
  half,
  at one of two calculations,
and then to reunite my mind and write a fair copy of the
best result. 
What shall I experience?

  


  

  


  

  My work is now over. I
  am about to reunite my mind. What should I, in
  each stream, expect? Simply that I shall suddenly
  seem to remember just having thought out two
  calculations, in thinking out each of which I was
  not aware of thinking out the other. This, I
  submit, we can imagine. And if my mind was
  divided, these memories are correct. 

  

  

  
  
  

  
In describing this episode, I
assumed that there were two series of thoughts, and that
they were both mine. If my two hands visibly wrote out
two calculations, and if I claimed to remember two
corresponding series of thoughts, this is surely what we
should want to say. 
If it is, then a person's
mental history need not be like a canal, with only one
channel. It could be like a river, with islands, and
with separate streams.

  
Parfit appears to be undecided as to what to make of
  this, but it might be of some interest to consider
  further.


  --- (Derek Parfit, The Philosophical Review,
  Vol. 80 (1971) pp. 3-27)


Bruce


  

  



That's pretty much the multiple drafts model of Daniel Dennett.  He
speculates that the brain consists of a lot modules that evolved to
serve different purposes (sight, kinesthetics, language,...) and
they "compete" in deciding actions, including what gets encoded in
the internal narrative we experience as conscious thoughts.



Brent

  




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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread spudboy100 via Everything List

No point per se, but was invoking an idea that fission in our imaginary realm 
of teleportation combines the personal experiences of single individuals, when 
the original person decides to fission sort of like an ameoba, but then rejoin 
together so that the orginal being posesses both experiences as memory. Fueion 
is the re-identification of the original person. Call it the ultimate in 
multitasking. If 2, why not more? Think of all those Agent Smiths in Matrix 
Reloaded. There is no need for amnesia, unless you are indicating that our 
magical teleportation machine induces this? If amnesia, why not acne, or bad 
breath?? 

Science fiction writer Wil McCarthy deal with 
some of these issues with his writings over the last 25 years. The fantasy 
teleportation technology provided for a large buffer for backup, in case 
somebody came to a bad end, soon after they left the teleportation process. A 
backup copy could thus, be generated, or at least the copy would, be identical 
to the deceased, minus the time immediately prior to their demise. The author 
indicated that this form of travel, teleportation, involved the annihilation of 
the original, and the creation of a perfect copy stepping out of the teleport 
device. He also noted, that most people of this future did not like to think 
about this fact. McCarthy also wrote that on average, when teleportation became 
popular, everyone re-did themselves, to be about 4 inches taller.   

Sent from AOL Mobile Mail

-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jul 19, 2016 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: Holiday Exercise

On 19 Jul 2016, at 13:47, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:The who argument here, is one of fission, plus, identity. 
But what of fusion.

Fusing is far more complex, and involve amnesia. better to understand fission 
first. Eventually fusin is treated by the translation of UDA in arithmetic, as 
intuition can only be wrong for obvious reason (evolution in (semi--classical 
environment).

 Let us say Biff, using 
magical teleportation technology, clones himself into 2 identical guys called 
Biff and Biff zips off to Moscow, Boff decides to shop for fishing equipment, 
in Helsinki.

Keep in mind that we were at step 3, where the Helsinki guy is annihilated. 
here you are unclear. What do you mean by "zips off to Moscow". I think you 
made also a typo (I guess the guys are named Biff and Boff, and I guess Boff is 
the original, non annihilated, staying in Helsinki).

 After a few hours seeing 
the sights, buying some goods, Biff, bought a case of Stoly, Boff, some fishing 
gear, both zap back to "Copenhagen," their site of origin. Once they arrive, 
they discuss their trips with each other and agree to re-merge. The transporter 
is used, and Boff is absorbed back into Biff. Biff emerges from the 
transporter, memories of both places intact, and anticipating a weekend of 
fishing and Stoly. This would be fission, then fusion or re-fusion.  

That seems coherent with computationalism, no problem, and it is a bit like the 
two simultaneous dreams I mentioned.
It is not clear if you were trying to make a point, or to criticize a 
reasoning. The advantage of fission, is that it is clear-cut, and feasible in 
principle and theory. Fusion is much harder to define, and there are millions 
type of fusions possible.

Bruno

-Original 
Message- From: Bruno 
Marchal <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be;>marc...@ulb.ac.be>
 To: everything-list <mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com;>everything-list@googlegroups.com>
 Sent: Tue, Jul 19, 2016 3:58 am
 Subject: Re: Holiday Exercise

 On 19 Jul 2016, at 09:41, Bruce Kellett wrote:

 > On 19/07/2016 5:28 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 >> On 19 Jul 2016, at 06:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:
 >>> On 19/07/2016 2:18 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 >>>> On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:
 >>>>
 >>>>> As you say in another post, computationalism depends on the  
 >>>>> breakdown of transitivity for personal identity: M is the same  
 >>>>> as H; W is the same as H; but M is not the same as W. Given  
 >>>>> this, you have all sorts of problems with the nature of personal  
 >>>>> identity -- maybe it is not a modal concept! I will talk more  
 >>>>> about this in reply to your other post.
 >>>>
 >>>> Well, the machine notion of 3p-self can be defined in arithmetic,  
 >>>> and all correct machine knows that her 1p-self is not. Sure it is  
 >>>> a tricky notion, but the non transitivity is not a problem, as  
 >>>> the "Parfit person series" will work transitively in all cases,  
 >>>> except when duplication occurs, but why would that cause any  
 >>

Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-19 Thread John Clark

On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 3:47 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>> 
>> That's right Bruno, keep sweeping those foggy thoughts and fractured
>> logic under the "he" colored personal pronoun rug.
>
>
> > 
> No problem,

If there really is no problem why does Bruno Marchal refuse to to use Mr.
He's name? Because the theory would fall apart that'
s why.

> > 
>  we agree on who "he" is at all times."he" is both copies, as both
> remember having been in Helsinki.

Then answer just one question, how many people 

remember being in Helsinki?

> 
> The FPI comes from the fact that alhtough he is both, he (both guy) can
> only feel to be one of them.

"THE FPI" comes from nothing because in a world with FPI duplicating
machines 

"THE FPI" does not exist.

>> >>
>> Two people not one have the experience of seeing only one city
>>  
>> and not the other. So which ONE is "THE"?
>
>
> > 
> Both in the 3-1 view.
> 
>

What the hell is the difference between "3-1 view" and "3 view"?  

> >
> One of them with the 1-1 view.
>

What the hell is the difference between "
THE 1
-1 view" and "
THE
1-view"?  And which
ONE of the TWO
 did it turn out
to have "THE 1-1 view"
,
w
as it Moscow or Washington?

At least with the Schrodinger Cat thought experiment when it's all over and
the box is opened the state of the cat's health is known, but we NEVER find
out what
ONE 
city "he" ended up seeing which means
 assigning probabilities to such a event is just ridiculous so
 it's not a thought experiment at all
,
it's a thought muddle. The only thing indeterminate about it is
the 
experimental protocol and the
 ever shifting
meaning of personal pronouns.

> 
> That's why in Helsinki, we got an indeterminacy.
>

Nothing as profound as that, all that happened is that in Helsinki
somebody spouted some gibberish and stuck a question mark at the end of it.

>> >> 
>> John Clark will say if P=1/2 is correct or not as soon as Bruno Marchal
>> explains exactly what P is supposed to be a probability of.
>>  
>> Until then is is neither correct nor incorrect, it's just gibberish  
>
>
> > 
> The probability of seeing W. Or of seeing M, for the H-guy.
>

But before you said "he", The Helsinki guy
,

"
i
s both copies, as both remember having been in Helsinki
.
"
.
  So
the guy seeing
Washington
at 9:01 am Thursday morning remembers
 being the Helsinki guy
at 8:59 am on Thursday morning, 
so
the

probability
of that guy seeing Washington  is
 1 not 1/2
. But that guy is not alone,
the guy seeing Moscow

at 9:01am
Thursday morning 
also 
remembers being the Helsinki guy at 8:59 am on Thursday morning,

so the

probability of that guy seeing Moscow is

1 not 1/2.
 Therefore the probability of the guy seeing Helsinki at
 8:59 am on Thursday morning
 seeing BOTH Washington and Moscow at 9:01 Thursday morning is 100% not
50%.

Even though Bruno conceded that "He" means "
remember having been in Helsinki
" John Clark is sure Bruno's response to this will be "not in the 1-p"
forgetting that in a world that has 1-p duplicating machines there is no
such thing as "THE 1-p". 

> 
>> >> 
>> "He" just walked into a "he" duplicating machine so there is absolutely
>> no contradiction between:
>> 1)  He will see either Moscow, or Washington and never in both cities
>> 2) John Clark (aka The Helsinki Man) will see both Moscow AND Washington.
>
>
> > 
> There is a contradiction if we identify the 3p and the 1p view,
>

But "he" just walked into a 1p view duplicating machine, therefore there
is no such thing as "THE 1p view", therefore there is no contradiction.
It's odd certainly, our technology isn't yet good enough to make
1p view duplicating machine
 so it seems very odd indeed, but there is no paradox, there is no
logical contradiction. It's just odd nothing more.

> >
>>> >>
>>> You forget again to put yourself at the place of both copies
>>
>> >> 
>> Are you sure you really want me to do that? If so I'd have to conclude
>> that I will see both cities at the same time.
>
>
>
> > 
> But that contradicts the "1)"
>

Not if there are 2 I's, and there are because I just walked into a I
duplicating machine.  

You told me to take the point of view of both so I will, I see Moscow AND
I see Washington at the same time; the Washington Man doesn't and the
Moscow Man doesn't but "I" does if "I" means what Bruno Marchal just said
that personal pronoun should mean, but then Bruno changes the fundamental
meanings of personal pronouns several times in each post so it's hard to
keep up.

>> >> 
>> There is no such thing as "THE 1p" in a world with 1p duplicating
>> machines.
>
>
> > 
> That is contradicted by what copies says.
>

If BOTH copies say "mine is THE 1p and there is no other" then THAT is a
contradiction and both copies are Imbeciles.

> > 
> you will not become a monster with two heads.
>  
> You

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Jason Resch

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 11:01 AM, Russell Standish 
wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 08:51:32AM -0500, Jason Resch wrote:
> > >
> > I have only come across two theories of personal identity that are
> > consistent and void issues inherent to body-continuity and
> > psychological-continuity theories. The two consistent personal identity
> > theories I am aware of are no-self (you are only a single thought moment
> > and nothing else) and universalism (you are all thought moments and all
> > people). Anything in between is bound to fall flat when you try to limit
> > the scope of experiences you my ascribe that person to some biological or
> > some psychological continuation when both of these continuations can
> > changes over time. What are the practical limits to allowable change
> which
> > preserve that person? It seems entirely arbitrary to me.
> >
>
> I am not convinced that they are the only two possible
> outcomes. Remember my skepticism of the Parfit Napoleon thought
> experiment.
>
>
There may be other theories of personal identity that are consistent. I
only mention that there are two I am aware of that are. What was your
skepticism regarding Parfit's thought experiment?

> However, ISTM that the real issue being discussed here is transitivity
> of the notion of personal identity. Why should identity be transitive?
> After all, why shouldn't your identity be tied up with whoever you
> remember being?

I think theories of personal identity should aim to be objective. That is,
be capable of definitively and objectively answering the question of what
experiences belong to which persons.

A theory of personal identity based on memory cannot be used to make
predictions on what future experience will belong to which persons, and it
seems to have difficulty with cases of memory loss or amnesia. E.g. who was
it that experienced the 5th bite of your dinner from 58 nights ago, if not
you?

> If B and C both remember being A, then they can claim
> to being the same person as A, in spite of the fact that B and C are
> different people.
>
> What is the problem with that point of view?
>

Identity relations, by definition, are transitive. If A is identical to B,
and A is identical to C, then B is identical to C.

Jason

"This is also the resolution of the tension between the rival criteria for
personal identity,
psychological and bodily continuity. As with brain bisection, there is here
an embarrassment of
riches. Either side of the classic debate has the upper hand when it argues
positively that the person
could remain the same if its own pet criterion was maintained even if the
other was wholly absent.
And, indeed, one could easily imagine a person going along into another
body with a transfer to that
body’s brain of his pattern of memories. And yet one can also easily
imagine the person’s
continuing in the same body with an experience of amnesia or false
memories. It seems that all
such content of experience, in different bodies or with differing mental
states, could be mine. In
fact, all the mental content in different bodies and differing mental
states actually is mine. For all of
it has everything that it takes to be mine–the first person character that
is common to all
experience." --- Arnold Zuboff

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

In the fictional realm of art, where everything is a lie and the winning
theory is the yummiest, all these things: cleopatra personhood
intertwinedity river of thought are easily fusionated by some guy and girl
playing Joni songs for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrBilBQ1C54

(Apologies if the copyright cops block this wherever you are, in which
case: ignore this post.)

Not that anybody knows what they're doing or what any of those things
are... but we still dare to guess about those rather large things fusioning
and place the notes accordingly. Even with the probability of making fools
of ourselves... and who cares? We could be the large sort of kind fool, and
what's so terrible about that? PGC



On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 6:38 PM, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
> On 7/19/2016 12:28 AM, Bruce wrote:
>
>> Abandoning the transitivity of identity is difficult in general because
>> it is precisely that transitivity that gives us a reliable notion of the
>> continuity of personhood through time. The things that might seem to
>> violate transitivity in duplication (copies in separate locations, etc,
>> that is, non-psychological differences), also would give violations of
>> transitivity relating copies of the same person at different times and
>> places. We need a principled account of exactly what leads to the violation
>> of transitivity in one case and not in the other.
>>
>
> I think this is looking at the problem the wrong way; it's trying to fit
> the world to a word.  It's not transitivity that gives us a reliable notion
> of the continuity of personhood.  We already had the notion of continuity
> and we invented the concept of transitivity (actually in other contexts)
> and applied it to personhood.  There's no reason we should not recognize
> personhood as having several empirical bases: memories, similarity of
> bodies, continuity of location,...  Personhood is not some logical
> attribute that must have a sharp mathematical definition, as I tried to
> illustrate by the problem of Eve.
>
> Brent
>
>
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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/19/2016 5:18 AM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 19/07/2016 9:47 pm, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
The who argument here, is one of fission, plus, identity. But what of 
fusion. Let us say Biff, using magical teleportation technology, 
clones himself into 2 identical guys called Biff and Biff zips off to 
Moscow, Boff decides to shop for fishing equipment, in Helsinki. 
After a few hours seeing the sights, buying some goods, Biff, bought 
a case of Stoly, Boff, some fishing gear, both zap back to 
"Copenhagen," their site of origin. Once they arrive, they discuss 
their trips with each other and agree to re-merge. The transporter is 
used, and Boff is absorbed back into Biff. Biff emerges from the 
transporter, memories of both places intact, and anticipating a 
weekend of fishing and Stoly. This would be fission, then fusion or 
re-fusion.


Parfit has considered such a case:
Personal Identity

Suppose that the bridge between my hemispheres is brought under my 
voluntary control. This would enable me to disconnect my hemispheres 
as easily as if I were blinking. By doing this I would divide my mind. 
And we can suppose that when my mind is divided I can, in each half, 
bring about reunion.


This ability would have obvious uses. To give an example: I am near 
the end of a maths exam, and see two ways of tackling the last 
problem. I decide to divide my mind, to work, with each half, at one 
of two calculations, and then to reunite my mind and write a fair copy 
of the best result.


What shall I experience?



Personal Identity

My work is now over. I am about to reunite my mind. What should I, in 
each stream, expect? Simply that I shall suddenly seem to remember 
just having thought out two calculations, in thinking out each of 
which I was not aware of thinking out the other. This, I submit, we 
can imagine. And if my mind was divided, these memories are correct.


In describing this episode, I assumed that there were two series of 
thoughts, and that they were both mine. If my two hands visibly wrote 
out two calculations, and if I claimed to remember two corresponding 
series of thoughts, this is surely what we should want to say.


If it is, then a person's mental history need not be like a canal, 
with only one channel. It could be like a river, with islands, and 
with separate streams.


Parfit appears to be undecided as to what to make of this, but it 
might be of some interest to consider further.


  --- (Derek Parfit, /The Philosophical Review/, Vol. 80 (1971) pp. 3-27)

Bruce



That's pretty much the multiple drafts model of Daniel Dennett.  He 
speculates that the brain consists of a lot modules that evolved to 
serve different purposes (sight, kinesthetics, language,...) and they 
"compete" in deciding actions, including what gets encoded in the 
internal narrative we experience as conscious thoughts.


Brent

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Brent Meeker



On 7/19/2016 12:28 AM, Bruce wrote:
Abandoning the transitivity of identity is difficult in general 
because it is precisely that transitivity that gives us a reliable 
notion of the continuity of personhood through time. The things that 
might seem to violate transitivity in duplication (copies in separate 
locations, etc, that is, non-psychological differences), also would 
give violations of transitivity relating copies of the same person at 
different times and places. We need a principled account of exactly 
what leads to the violation of transitivity in one case and not in the 
other.


I think this is looking at the problem the wrong way; it's trying to fit 
the world to a word.  It's not transitivity that gives us a reliable 
notion of the continuity of personhood.  We already had the notion of 
continuity and we invented the concept of transitivity (actually in 
other contexts) and applied it to personhood.  There's no reason we 
should not recognize personhood as having several empirical bases: 
memories, similarity of bodies, continuity of location,...  Personhood 
is not some logical attribute that must have a sharp mathematical 
definition, as I tried to illustrate by the problem of Eve.


Brent

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/18/2016 11:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



On 19 July 2016 at 04:00, Brent Meeker > wrote:




On 7/18/2016 2:59 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett
> wrote:

On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker > wrote:



On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

The problems arise because each copy has memories of
being the original and, because of the phenomenon of
first person experience, feels that he is the one
true copy persisting through time


How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He
doesn't know and neither does anyone else.  So it's
really meaningless to say he feels he's the one true
copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice that
he was unique.


Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I
can be radically sceptical about the existence of the world
and other minds, but still go about life as if it matters.


But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been
said about Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot
conclude that he is thinking, he can only conclude that
thinking is going on.


From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a
thought at this moment, not that there is an entity that has a
stream of thoughts.


Thoughts are not "at a moment".  They have temporal extent and
hence can have continuity.


It seems that thoughts can be divided up arbitrarily. This is more 
easily shown by considering a digital computer. A computation can be 
paused, saved, and restarted, and if there are observers in the 
computed environment there is no way for them to know that this has 
happened.


First, that assumes single computer running on a clock that keeps all 
the changes synchronized so there is a each clock cycle "the state".  No 
at all like a brain in which there is a distributed process.  Second, 
it's not even clear that it's possible for a single clocked computer.  
When you stop a computation there are registers to be saved and cleared; 
and when you restart it these have to be reinitialized.  On theory that 
awareness is a kind of computation, how do we know that a computer 
instantiated AI would not be aware of this in some sense.  When you have 
a concussion you don't have memory of what went just before the event, 
although there's no reason to suppose you weren't aware of it at the 
time. You are aware that you have a gap in memory, that you have been 
unconscious.


Even if a minimum duration is needed it might still be broken up 
arbitrarily. For example, if 500 ms is needed to generate an 
experience the computation could branch at the 200 ms point giving two 
different experiences, or there could be two overlapping experiences 
from 0 ms to 500 ms and from 100 ms to 600 ms. If you don't allow such 
overlap, and there are only discrete 500 ms experiences, it is still 
possible to replace talk of observer-(infinitesimal)-moments with 
observer-half-seconds.


I not only allow overlap, I think it is essential to how a brain 
operates, and that's why there are no discrete thoughts.  Thoughts can 
form a continuum because they overlap.



The entity, the "I", is not fundamental but emergent, the set of
related thoughts.


That's begging the question and assuming the physical is not
fundamental.  It depends on whether you look for something that is
epistemologically primary or something that is ontologically primary.

The argument so far has mostly been about the concrete copying of brains.


These thoughts are not necessarily connected through sharing a
physical substrate. Sharing a physical substrate is a convenient
method of producing thoughts with the right sort of relationship
to each other,


"Producing" is a funny word to use.  Are you assuming there is a
"someone" who produces the thoughts - even though the "someone" is
emergent from the thoughts?  The physical world is partly an
inference and partly a mode of thought hardwired by evolution.

In the first instance, I assume that the physical brain goes 
clickety-clack, and as a result thoughts are produced. In order for 
the thoughts to be strung together to form a stream of consciousness 
they must bear a particular relationship to each other. Being produced 
by the same brain is the familiar way this relationship is ensured, 
which is why a stream of consciousness is usually associated with a 
particular body. Technology can disrupt this process if brains can be 
physically copied or uploaded to computers.

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 19 Jul 2016, at 13:47, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

The who argument here, is one of fission, plus, identity. But what  
of fusion.

Fusing is far more complex, and involve amnesia. better to understand  
fission first. Eventually fusin is treated by the translation of UDA  
in arithmetic, as intuition can only be wrong for obvious reason  
(evolution in (semi--classical environment).

Let us say Biff, using magical teleportation technology, clones  
himself into 2 identical guys called Biff and Biff zips off to  
Moscow, Boff decides to shop for fishing equipment, in Helsinki.

Keep in mind that we were at step 3, where the Helsinki guy is  
annihilated. here you are unclear. What do you mean by "zips off to  
Moscow". I think you made also a typo (I guess the guys are named Biff  
and Boff, and I guess Boff is the original, non annihilated, staying  
in Helsinki).

After a few hours seeing the sights, buying some goods, Biff, bought  
a case of Stoly, Boff, some fishing gear, both zap back to  
"Copenhagen," their site of origin. Once they arrive, they discuss  
their trips with each other and agree to re-merge. The transporter  
is used, and Boff is absorbed back into Biff. Biff emerges from the  
transporter, memories of both places intact, and anticipating a  
weekend of fishing and Stoly. This would be fission, then fusion or  
re-fusion.

That seems coherent with computationalism, no problem, and it is a bit  
like the two simultaneous dreams I mentioned.
It is not clear if you were trying to make a point, or to criticize a  
reasoning. The advantage of fission, is that it is clear-cut, and  
feasible in principle and theory. Fusion is much harder to define, and  
there are millions type of fusions possible.

Bruno

-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jul 19, 2016 3:58 am
Subject: Re: Holiday Exercise

On 19 Jul 2016, at 09:41, Bruce Kellett wrote:

> On 19/07/2016 5:28 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> On 19 Jul 2016, at 06:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>>> On 19/07/2016 2:18 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>> On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> As you say in another post, computationalism depends on the
>>>>> breakdown of transitivity for personal identity: M is the same
>>>>> as H; W is the same as H; but M is not the same as W. Given
>>>>> this, you have all sorts of problems with the nature of personal
>>>>> identity -- maybe it is not a modal concept! I will talk more
>>>>> about this in reply to your other post.
>>>>
>>>> Well, the machine notion of 3p-self can be defined in arithmetic,
>>>> and all correct machine knows that her 1p-self is not. Sure it is
>>>> a tricky notion, but the non transitivity is not a problem, as
>>>> the "Parfit person series" will work transitively in all cases,
>>>> except when duplication occurs, but why would that cause any
>>>> problem, you tell me. Nothing here threats the validity of the
>>>> reasoning leading to the reversal physics/arithmetic. I think you
>>>> confused non transitivity (the failing of some transitive link)
>>>> with intransitivity (the failing of all transitive link). With
>>>> self-duplication, we lost transitivity in one case, but both
>>>> surviver recover it as long as they do'nt duplicate again, and so
>>>> the old guy who stayed in Moscow remains the same young guy who
>>>> teleported at Moscow through some duplication a long time ago.
>>>> You might elaborate on your problem, as I don't see any.
>>>
>>> I think a relation is either transitive or it is intransitive:
>>> personal identity is a transitive relation; 'father of' is an
>>> intransitive relation. You can't be 'half-pregnant', as it were.
>>>
>>> I quote from Wikipedia on personal identity:
>>> "Generally, personal identity is the unique numerical identity of
>>> a person in the course of time. That is, the necessary and
>>> sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a
>>> person at another time can be said to be the same person,
>>> persisting through time."
>>>
>>> And from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/
>>> "Personal identity is an instance of the relation of numerical
>>> identity; investigations into the nature of the former, therefore,
>>> must respect the formal properties that govern the latter. The
>>> concept of identity is uniquely defined by (a) the logical laws of

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 19 Jul 2016, at 13:39, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 19/07/2016 5:58 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 19 Jul 2016, at 09:41, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 19/07/2016 5:28 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 19 Jul 2016, at 06:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 19/07/2016 2:18 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:

As you say in another post, computationalism depends on the  
breakdown of transitivity for personal identity: M is the same  
as H; W is the same as H; but M is not the same as W. Given  
this, you have all sorts of problems with the nature of  
personal identity -- maybe it is not a modal concept! I will  
talk more about this in reply to your other post.


Well, the machine notion of 3p-self can be defined in  
arithmetic, and all correct machine knows that her 1p-self is  
not. Sure it is a tricky notion, but the non transitivity is  
not a problem, as the "Parfit person series" will work  
transitively in all cases, except when duplication occurs, but  
why would that cause any problem, you tell me. Nothing here  
threats the validity of the reasoning leading to the reversal  
physics/arithmetic. I think you confused non transitivity (the  
failing of some transitive link) with intransitivity (the  
failing of all transitive link). With self-duplication, we lost  
transitivity in one case, but both surviver recover it as long  
as they do'nt duplicate again, and so the old guy who stayed in  
Moscow remains the same young guy who teleported at Moscow  
through some duplication a long time ago. You might elaborate  
on your problem, as I don't see any.


I think a relation is either transitive or it is intransitive:  
personal identity is a transitive relation; 'father of' is an  
intransitive relation. You can't be 'half-pregnant', as it were.


I quote from Wikipedia on personal identity:
"Generally, personal identity is the unique numerical identity  
of a person in the course of time. That is, the necessary and  
sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a  
person at another time can be said to be the same person,  
persisting through time."


And from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/
"Personal identity is an instance of the relation of numerical  
identity; investigations into the nature of the former,  
therefore, must respect the formal properties that govern the  
latter. The concept of identity is uniquely defined by (a) the  
logical laws of congruence: if X is identical with Y, then all  
non-relational properties borne by X are borne by Y, or formally  
"A(x,y)[(x = y) --> (Fx = Fy)]; and (b) reflexivity: every X is  
identical with itself, or formally "Ax(x = x). (Note that  
congruence and reflexivity entail that identity is symmetric,  
"A(x,y)[(x = y) --> (y = x)], and transitive, "A(x,y,z)[((x = y)  
& (y = z)) --> (x = z)]."


And later in the same article:
"Should fission be an acceptable scenario, it presents problems  
for the psychological approach in particular. The fission  
outcomes Y1 and Y2 are both psychologically continuous with X.  
According to the psychological approach, therefore, they are  
both identical with X. By congruence, however, they are not  
identical with each other: Y1 and Y2 share many properties, but  
even at the very time the fission operation is completed differ  
with regard to others, such as spatio-temporal location.  
Consequently fission cases seem to show that the psychological  
approach entails that a thing could be identical with two non- 
identical things, which of course violates the transitivity of  
identity."


Fission, in this case, is equivalent to the duplication  
protocols under consideration in this discussion. There does not  
seem to be any widely agreed resolution of the problems that the  
duplication scenarios entail. Some acknowledge that these  
scenarios indicate that psychological continuity is not  
sufficient for person identity. "These commentators typically  
complement their psychological theory with a non-branching  
proviso and/or a closest continuer clause. The former states  
that even though X would survive as Y1 or Y2 if the other did  
not exist, given that the other does exist, X ceases to exist."  
This might be problematic, however, and we could avoid some  
problems by adding a closest-continuer or best candidate clause,  
stating roughly that the best candidate for survival in a  
duplication scenario, that is, the duplicate which bears the  
most or the most important resemblances to the original person  
X, is identical with X." For instance, if the original survives  
the duplication, he is the closest continuer and hence uniquely  
identical to the original.


And so on. As I have said, the philosophical literature on  
personal identity is extensive and quite complex. The idea of  
transitivity of personal identity does seem to be central, so  
duplication cases are often problematic.


Parfit's analysis seems to suggest that

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 19/07/2016 9:47 pm, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
The who argument here, is one of fission, plus, identity. But what of 
fusion. Let us say Biff, using magical teleportation technology, 
clones himself into 2 identical guys called Biff and Biff zips off to 
Moscow, Boff decides to shop for fishing equipment, in Helsinki. After 
a few hours seeing the sights, buying some goods, Biff, bought a case 
of Stoly, Boff, some fishing gear, both zap back to "Copenhagen," 
their site of origin. Once they arrive, they discuss their trips with 
each other and agree to re-merge. The transporter is used, and Boff is 
absorbed back into Biff. Biff emerges from the transporter, memories 
of both places intact, and anticipating a weekend of fishing and 
Stoly. This would be fission, then fusion or re-fusion.


Parfit has considered such a case:
Personal Identity

Suppose that the bridge between my hemispheres is brought under my 
voluntary control. This would enable me to disconnect my hemispheres as 
easily as if I were blinking. By doing this I would divide my mind. And 
we can suppose that when my mind is divided I can, in each half, bring 
about reunion.


This ability would have obvious uses. To give an example: I am near the 
end of a maths exam, and see two ways of tackling the last problem. I 
decide to divide my mind, to work, with each half, at one of two 
calculations, and then to reunite my mind and write a fair copy of the 
best result.


What shall I experience?



Personal Identity

My work is now over. I am about to reunite my mind. What should I, in 
each stream, expect? Simply that I shall suddenly seem to remember just 
having thought out two calculations, in thinking out each of which I was 
not aware of thinking out the other. This, I submit, we can imagine. And 
if my mind was divided, these memories are correct.


In describing this episode, I assumed that there were two series of 
thoughts, and that they were both mine. If my two hands visibly wrote 
out two calculations, and if I claimed to remember two corresponding 
series of thoughts, this is surely what we should want to say.


If it is, then a person's mental history need not be like a canal, with 
only one channel. It could be like a river, with islands, and with 
separate streams.


Parfit appears to be undecided as to what to make of this, but it might 
be of some interest to consider further.


  --- (Derek Parfit, /The Philosophical Review/, Vol. 80 (1971) pp. 3-27)

Bruce

Personal Identity

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread spudboy100 via Everything List

The who argument here, is one of fission, plus, identity. But what of fusion. 
Let us say Biff, using magical teleportation technology, clones himself into 2 
identical guys called Biff and Biff zips off to Moscow, Boff decides to shop 
for fishing equipment, in Helsinki. After a few hours seeing the sights, buying 
some goods, Biff, bought a case of Stoly, Boff, some fishing gear, both zap 
back to "Copenhagen," their site of origin. Once they arrive, they discuss 
their trips with each other and agree to re-merge. The transporter is used, and 
Boff is absorbed back into Biff. Biff emerges from the transporter, memories of 
both places intact, and anticipating a weekend of fishing and Stoly. This would 
be fission, then fusion or re-fusion. 




-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jul 19, 2016 3:58 am
Subject: Re: Holiday Exercise


On 19 Jul 2016, at 09:41, Bruce Kellett wrote:

> On 19/07/2016 5:28 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> On 19 Jul 2016, at 06:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>>> On 19/07/2016 2:18 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>> On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> As you say in another post, computationalism depends on the  
>>>>> breakdown of transitivity for personal identity: M is the same  
>>>>> as H; W is the same as H; but M is not the same as W. Given  
>>>>> this, you have all sorts of problems with the nature of personal  
>>>>> identity -- maybe it is not a modal concept! I will talk more  
>>>>> about this in reply to your other post.
>>>>
>>>> Well, the machine notion of 3p-self can be defined in arithmetic,  
>>>> and all correct machine knows that her 1p-self is not. Sure it is  
>>>> a tricky notion, but the non transitivity is not a problem, as  
>>>> the "Parfit person series" will work transitively in all cases,  
>>>> except when duplication occurs, but why would that cause any  
>>>> problem, you tell me. Nothing here threats the validity of the  
>>>> reasoning leading to the reversal physics/arithmetic. I think you  
>>>> confused non transitivity (the failing of some transitive link)  
>>>> with intransitivity (the failing of all transitive link). With  
>>>> self-duplication, we lost transitivity in one case, but both  
>>>> surviver recover it as long as they do'nt duplicate again, and so  
>>>> the old guy who stayed in Moscow remains the same young guy who  
>>>> teleported at Moscow through some duplication a long time ago.  
>>>> You might elaborate on your problem, as I don't see any.
>>>
>>> I think a relation is either transitive or it is intransitive:  
>>> personal identity is a transitive relation; 'father of' is an  
>>> intransitive relation. You can't be 'half-pregnant', as it were.
>>>
>>> I quote from Wikipedia on personal identity:
>>> "Generally, personal identity is the unique numerical identity of  
>>> a person in the course of time. That is, the necessary and  
>>> sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a  
>>> person at another time can be said to be the same person,  
>>> persisting through time."
>>>
>>> And from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/
>>> "Personal identity is an instance of the relation of numerical  
>>> identity; investigations into the nature of the former, therefore,  
>>> must respect the formal properties that govern the latter. The  
>>> concept of identity is uniquely defined by (a) the logical laws of  
>>> congruence: if X is identical with Y, then all non-relational  
>>> properties borne by X are borne by Y, or formally "A(x,y)[(x = y)  
>>> --> (Fx = Fy)]; and (b) reflexivity: every X is identical with  
>>> itself, or formally "Ax(x = x). (Note that congruence and  
>>> reflexivity entail that identity is symmetric, "A(x,y)[(x = y) -->  
>>> (y = x)], and transitive, "A(x,y,z)[((x = y) & (y = z)) --> (x =  
>>> z)]."
>>>
>>> And later in the same article:
>>> "Should fission be an acceptable scenario, it presents problems  
>>> for the psychological approach in particular. The fission outcomes  
>>> Y1 and Y2 are both psychologically continuous with X. According to  
>>> the psychological approach, therefore, they are both identical  
>>> with X. By congruence, however, they are

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 19/07/2016 5:58 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 19 Jul 2016, at 09:41, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 19/07/2016 5:28 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 19 Jul 2016, at 06:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 19/07/2016 2:18 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:

As you say in another post, computationalism depends on the 
breakdown of transitivity for personal identity: M is the same as 
H; W is the same as H; but M is not the same as W. Given this, 
you have all sorts of problems with the nature of personal 
identity -- maybe it is not a modal concept! I will talk more 
about this in reply to your other post.


Well, the machine notion of 3p-self can be defined in arithmetic, 
and all correct machine knows that her 1p-self is not. Sure it is 
a tricky notion, but the non transitivity is not a problem, as the 
"Parfit person series" will work transitively in all cases, except 
when duplication occurs, but why would that cause any problem, you 
tell me. Nothing here threats the validity of the reasoning 
leading to the reversal physics/arithmetic. I think you confused 
non transitivity (the failing of some transitive link) with 
intransitivity (the failing of all transitive link). With 
self-duplication, we lost transitivity in one case, but both 
surviver recover it as long as they do'nt duplicate again, and so 
the old guy who stayed in Moscow remains the same young guy who 
teleported at Moscow through some duplication a long time ago. You 
might elaborate on your problem, as I don't see any.


I think a relation is either transitive or it is intransitive: 
personal identity is a transitive relation; 'father of' is an 
intransitive relation. You can't be 'half-pregnant', as it were.


I quote from Wikipedia on personal identity:
"Generally, personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a 
person in the course of time. That is, the necessary and sufficient 
conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another 
time can be said to be the same person, persisting through time."


And from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: 
www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/
"Personal identity is an instance of the relation of numerical 
identity; investigations into the nature of the former, therefore, 
must respect the formal properties that govern the latter. The 
concept of identity is uniquely defined by (a) the logical laws of 
congruence: if X is identical with Y, then all non-relational 
properties borne by X are borne by Y, or formally "A(x,y)[(x = y) 
--> (Fx = Fy)]; and (b) reflexivity: every X is identical with 
itself, or formally "Ax(x = x). (Note that congruence and 
reflexivity entail that identity is symmetric, "A(x,y)[(x = y) --> 
(y = x)], and transitive, "A(x,y,z)[((x = y) & (y = z)) --> (x = z)]."


And later in the same article:
"Should fission be an acceptable scenario, it presents problems for 
the psychological approach in particular. The fission outcomes Y1 
and Y2 are both psychologically continuous with X. According to the 
psychological approach, therefore, they are both identical with X. 
By congruence, however, they are not identical with each other: Y1 
and Y2 share many properties, but even at the very time the fission 
operation is completed differ with regard to others, such as 
spatio-temporal location. Consequently fission cases seem to show 
that the psychological approach entails that a thing could be 
identical with two non-identical things, which of course violates 
the transitivity of identity."


Fission, in this case, is equivalent to the duplication protocols 
under consideration in this discussion. There does not seem to be 
any widely agreed resolution of the problems that the duplication 
scenarios entail. Some acknowledge that these scenarios indicate 
that psychological continuity is not sufficient for person 
identity. "These commentators typically complement their 
psychological theory with a non-branching proviso and/or a closest 
continuer clause. The former states that even though X would 
survive as Y1 or Y2 if the other did not exist, given that the 
other does exist, X ceases to exist." This might be problematic, 
however, and we could avoid some problems by adding a 
closest-continuer or best candidate clause, stating roughly that 
the best candidate for survival in a duplication scenario, that is, 
the duplicate which bears the most or the most important 
resemblances to the original person X, is identical with X." For 
instance, if the original survives the duplication, he is the 
closest continuer and hence uniquely identical to the original.


And so on. As I have said, the philosophical literature on personal 
identity is extensive and quite complex. The idea of transitivity 
of personal identity does seem to be central, so duplication cases 
are often problematic.


Parfit's analysis seems to suggest that the duplication scenarios, 
since they violate transitivity, entail that the original that is 
being duplicated does not

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 19 Jul 2016, at 09:41, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 19/07/2016 5:28 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 19 Jul 2016, at 06:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 19/07/2016 2:18 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:

As you say in another post, computationalism depends on the  
breakdown of transitivity for personal identity: M is the same  
as H; W is the same as H; but M is not the same as W. Given  
this, you have all sorts of problems with the nature of personal  
identity -- maybe it is not a modal concept! I will talk more  
about this in reply to your other post.


Well, the machine notion of 3p-self can be defined in arithmetic,  
and all correct machine knows that her 1p-self is not. Sure it is  
a tricky notion, but the non transitivity is not a problem, as  
the "Parfit person series" will work transitively in all cases,  
except when duplication occurs, but why would that cause any  
problem, you tell me. Nothing here threats the validity of the  
reasoning leading to the reversal physics/arithmetic. I think you  
confused non transitivity (the failing of some transitive link)  
with intransitivity (the failing of all transitive link). With  
self-duplication, we lost transitivity in one case, but both  
surviver recover it as long as they do'nt duplicate again, and so  
the old guy who stayed in Moscow remains the same young guy who  
teleported at Moscow through some duplication a long time ago.  
You might elaborate on your problem, as I don't see any.


I think a relation is either transitive or it is intransitive:  
personal identity is a transitive relation; 'father of' is an  
intransitive relation. You can't be 'half-pregnant', as it were.


I quote from Wikipedia on personal identity:
"Generally, personal identity is the unique numerical identity of  
a person in the course of time. That is, the necessary and  
sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a  
person at another time can be said to be the same person,  
persisting through time."


And from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/
"Personal identity is an instance of the relation of numerical  
identity; investigations into the nature of the former, therefore,  
must respect the formal properties that govern the latter. The  
concept of identity is uniquely defined by (a) the logical laws of  
congruence: if X is identical with Y, then all non-relational  
properties borne by X are borne by Y, or formally "A(x,y)[(x = y)  
--> (Fx = Fy)]; and (b) reflexivity: every X is identical with  
itself, or formally "Ax(x = x). (Note that congruence and  
reflexivity entail that identity is symmetric, "A(x,y)[(x = y) -->  
(y = x)], and transitive, "A(x,y,z)[((x = y) & (y = z)) --> (x =  
z)]."


And later in the same article:
"Should fission be an acceptable scenario, it presents problems  
for the psychological approach in particular. The fission outcomes  
Y1 and Y2 are both psychologically continuous with X. According to  
the psychological approach, therefore, they are both identical  
with X. By congruence, however, they are not identical with each  
other: Y1 and Y2 share many properties, but even at the very time  
the fission operation is completed differ with regard to others,  
such as spatio-temporal location. Consequently fission cases seem  
to show that the psychological approach entails that a thing could  
be identical with two non-identical things, which of course  
violates the transitivity of identity."


Fission, in this case, is equivalent to the duplication protocols  
under consideration in this discussion. There does not seem to be  
any widely agreed resolution of the problems that the duplication  
scenarios entail. Some acknowledge that these scenarios indicate  
that psychological continuity is not sufficient for person  
identity. "These commentators typically complement their  
psychological theory with a non-branching proviso and/or a closest  
continuer clause. The former states that even though X would  
survive as Y1 or Y2 if the other did not exist, given that the  
other does exist, X ceases to exist." This might be problematic,  
however, and we could avoid some problems by adding a closest- 
continuer or best candidate clause, stating roughly that the best  
candidate for survival in a duplication scenario, that is, the  
duplicate which bears the most or the most important resemblances  
to the original person X, is identical with X." For instance, if  
the original survives the duplication, he is the closest continuer  
and hence uniquely identical to the original.


And so on. As I have said, the philosophical literature on  
personal identity is extensive and quite complex. The idea of  
transitivity of personal identity does seem to be central, so  
duplication cases are often problematic.


Parfit's analysis seems to suggest that the duplication scenarios,  
since they violate transitivity, entail that the original that is

Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-19 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 18 Jul 2016, at 23:38, John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 10:25 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

> The Helsinki guy now that he will survive,

Only if there is a person or if there are persons who remember  
being the Helsinki guy. 

No problem.

> and that he cannot have the simultaneous first person  
experience

 That's right Bruno, keep sweeping those foggy thoughts and  
fractured logic under the "he" colored personal pronoun rug.

No problem, we agree on who "he" is at all times. "he" is both copies,  
as both remember having been in Helsinki. The FPI comes from the fact  
that alhtough he is both, he (both guy) can only feel to be one of them.

> There is no such thing as THE first person experience,  
there is only A first person experience.

> "The" refers to that experience of seeing only one city  
and not the other

Two people not one have the experience of seeing only one  
city and not the other. So which ONE is "THE"?

Both in the 3-1 view.
One of them with the 1-1 view.
That's why in Helsinki, we got an indeterminacy.

Bruno, to be meaningful language in a world that has personal  
pronoun duplicating machines just can't be used in the same way its  
used in our world that doesn't have such devices.

>> Both Moscow AND Washington are accessible because  
there are people in BOTH Washington and Moscow who remember being  
the Helsinki Man and neither city is more favored because both  
memories are equally vivid.

> Excellent. Both Washington  AND Moscow are accessible equally.

Equally accessible to the Helsinki man yes, the probability of the  
Helsinki man seeing Moscow is 100% and the probability of the  
Helsinki man seeing Washington is 100%.

That is immediately refute by one copy after the duplication.

> That is why P = 1/2 is the most plausible candidate in this  
situation.

John Clark will say if P=1/2 is correct or not as soon as Bruno  
Marchal explains exactly what P is supposed to be a probability  
of. Until then is is neither correct nor incorrect, it's just  
gibberish  

The probability of seeing W. Or of seeing M, for the H-guy.

> Refutation: he knows perfectly well that after pushing the  
button, he will feel to be in either Moscow, or Washington, and  
never in both cities

"He" just walked into a "he" duplicating machine so there is  
absolutely no contradiction between:

1)  He will see either Moscow, or Washington and never in both cities

2) John Clark (aka The Helsinki Man) will see both Moscow AND  
Washington.

There is a contradiction if we identify the 3p and the 1p view, but  
indeed, there is no contradiction once we take the 1-3 difference into  
account. That is why "1)" leads to the indeterminacy.

> You forget again to put yourself at the place of both copies

Are you sure you really want me to do that? If so I'd have to  
conclude that I will see both cities at the same time.

But that contradicts the "1)", or you just insist not taking the 1-1- 
view and the 3-1 view difference.

> No observer at all will have the 1p experience 

There is no such thing as "THE 1p" in a world with 1p  
duplicating machines.

That is contradicted by what copies says. In helsinki he imagined to  
get that 1p view, and both concur.

> of seeing both cities.

The Helsinki Man will see both cities. 

Yes, but you will not become a monster with two heads. You will become  
one of them, or you bring back again that telepathic ability of yours.

> The duplicating machine cannot introduce a telepathic link  
which would be mandatory for having an experience of both cities at  
once,

On no, now we're back with the idiotic telepathy crap! 

Exactly, but *you* are the one needing it to say that after the  
duplication you see the two cities, which is never the case assuming  
computationalism and non telepathy.

> indeed the probability that JKC see city X is 100%, from the  
3-1 view. But from this it does not follow that all copies will see  
both cities.

All the copies don't need to see both cities for JKC to see both  
cities if JKC means the person who remembers being in Helsinki.  
And what else on earth could JKC mean?

The question is about the 1p seeing a city, not on the intellectual  
belief about the 3-1 description.

> You forget to consult the diary of both copies, who both  
testify that they both see only one city.

I haven't forgotten that, but you seem to have forgotten that 1+1  
=2 

> You don't refute step 3, you just ignore it.

I've long long ago forgotten what step 3 is, but I do try to  
ignore gibberish.   

> What can the Helsinki guy write in his personal diary that  
the guy in Helsinki expect to live.

The diary says "I expect that after I walk into the I duplicating  
machine I, that is to say the person who remember writing these  
words, will see Washington and at the

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 19/07/2016 5:28 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 19 Jul 2016, at 06:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 19/07/2016 2:18 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:

As you say in another post, computationalism depends on the 
breakdown of transitivity for personal identity: M is the same as 
H; W is the same as H; but M is not the same as W. Given this, you 
have all sorts of problems with the nature of personal identity -- 
maybe it is not a modal concept! I will talk more about this in 
reply to your other post.


Well, the machine notion of 3p-self can be defined in arithmetic, 
and all correct machine knows that her 1p-self is not. Sure it is a 
tricky notion, but the non transitivity is not a problem, as the 
"Parfit person series" will work transitively in all cases, except 
when duplication occurs, but why would that cause any problem, you 
tell me. Nothing here threats the validity of the reasoning leading 
to the reversal physics/arithmetic. I think you confused non 
transitivity (the failing of some transitive link) with 
intransitivity (the failing of all transitive link). With 
self-duplication, we lost transitivity in one case, but both 
surviver recover it as long as they do'nt duplicate again, and so 
the old guy who stayed in Moscow remains the same young guy who 
teleported at Moscow through some duplication a long time ago. You 
might elaborate on your problem, as I don't see any.


I think a relation is either transitive or it is intransitive: 
personal identity is a transitive relation; 'father of' is an 
intransitive relation. You can't be 'half-pregnant', as it were.


I quote from Wikipedia on personal identity:
"Generally, personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a 
person in the course of time. That is, the necessary and sufficient 
conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another 
time can be said to be the same person, persisting through time."


And from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: 
www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/
"Personal identity is an instance of the relation of numerical 
identity; investigations into the nature of the former, therefore, 
must respect the formal properties that govern the latter. The 
concept of identity is uniquely defined by (a) the logical laws of 
congruence: if X is identical with Y, then all non-relational 
properties borne by X are borne by Y, or formally "A(x,y)[(x = y) --> 
(Fx = Fy)]; and (b) reflexivity: every X is identical with itself, or 
formally "Ax(x = x). (Note that congruence and reflexivity entail 
that identity is symmetric, "A(x,y)[(x = y) --> (y = x)], and 
transitive, "A(x,y,z)[((x = y) & (y = z)) --> (x = z)]."


And later in the same article:
"Should fission be an acceptable scenario, it presents problems for 
the psychological approach in particular. The fission outcomes Y1 and 
Y2 are both psychologically continuous with X. According to the 
psychological approach, therefore, they are both identical with X. By 
congruence, however, they are not identical with each other: Y1 and 
Y2 share many properties, but even at the very time the fission 
operation is completed differ with regard to others, such as 
spatio-temporal location. Consequently fission cases seem to show 
that the psychological approach entails that a thing could be 
identical with two non-identical things, which of course violates the 
transitivity of identity."


Fission, in this case, is equivalent to the duplication protocols 
under consideration in this discussion. There does not seem to be any 
widely agreed resolution of the problems that the duplication 
scenarios entail. Some acknowledge that these scenarios indicate that 
psychological continuity is not sufficient for person identity. 
"These commentators typically complement their psychological theory 
with a non-branching proviso and/or a closest continuer clause. The 
former states that even though X would survive as Y1 or Y2 if the 
other did not exist, given that the other does exist, X ceases to 
exist." This might be problematic, however, and we could avoid some 
problems by adding a closest-continuer or best candidate clause, 
stating roughly that the best candidate for survival in a duplication 
scenario, that is, the duplicate which bears the most or the most 
important resemblances to the original person X, is identical with 
X." For instance, if the original survives the duplication, he is the 
closest continuer and hence uniquely identical to the original.


And so on. As I have said, the philosophical literature on personal 
identity is extensive and quite complex. The idea of transitivity of 
personal identity does seem to be central, so duplication cases are 
often problematic.


Parfit's analysis seems to suggest that the duplication scenarios, 
since they violate transitivity, entail that the original that is 
being duplicated does not survive the duplication. However, in the 
duplication case with two copies, Y1 and Y2,

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 19 Jul 2016, at 06:58, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 19/07/2016 2:18 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:

As you say in another post, computationalism depends on the  
breakdown of transitivity for personal identity: M is the same as  
H; W is the same as H; but M is not the same as W. Given this, you  
have all sorts of problems with the nature of personal identity --  
maybe it is not a modal concept! I will talk more about this in  
reply to your other post.


Well, the machine notion of 3p-self can be defined in arithmetic,  
and all correct machine knows that her 1p-self is not. Sure it is a  
tricky notion, but the non transitivity is not a problem, as the  
"Parfit person series" will work transitively in all cases, except  
when duplication occurs, but why would that cause any problem, you  
tell me. Nothing here threats the validity of the reasoning leading  
to the reversal physics/arithmetic. I think you confused non  
transitivity (the failing of some transitive link) with  
intransitivity (the failing of all transitive link). With self- 
duplication, we lost transitivity in one case, but both surviver  
recover it as long as they do'nt duplicate again, and so the old  
guy who stayed in Moscow remains the same young guy who teleported  
at Moscow through some duplication a long time ago. You might  
elaborate on your problem, as I don't see any.


I think a relation is either transitive or it is intransitive:  
personal identity is a transitive relation; 'father of' is an  
intransitive relation. You can't be 'half-pregnant', as it were.


I quote from Wikipedia on personal identity:
"Generally, personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a  
person in the course of time. That is, the necessary and sufficient  
conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another  
time can be said to be the same person, persisting through time."


And from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/
"Personal identity is an instance of the relation of numerical  
identity; investigations into the nature of the former, therefore,  
must respect the formal properties that govern the latter. The  
concept of identity is uniquely defined by (a) the logical laws of  
congruence: if X is identical with Y, then all non-relational  
properties borne by X are borne by Y, or formally "A(x,y)[(x = y) -- 
> (Fx = Fy)]; and (b) reflexivity: every X is identical with itself,  
or formally "Ax(x = x). (Note that congruence and reflexivity entail  
that identity is symmetric, "A(x,y)[(x = y) --> (y = x)], and  
transitive, "A(x,y,z)[((x = y) & (y = z)) --> (x = z)]."


And later in the same article:
"Should fission be an acceptable scenario, it presents problems for  
the psychological approach in particular. The fission outcomes Y1  
and Y2 are both psychologically continuous with X. According to the  
psychological approach, therefore, they are both identical with X.  
By congruence, however, they are not identical with each other: Y1  
and Y2 share many properties, but even at the very time the fission  
operation is completed differ with regard to others, such as spatio- 
temporal location. Consequently fission cases seem to show that the  
psychological approach entails that a thing could be identical with  
two non-identical things, which of course violates the transitivity  
of identity."


Fission, in this case, is equivalent to the duplication protocols  
under consideration in this discussion. There does not seem to be  
any widely agreed resolution of the problems that the duplication  
scenarios entail. Some acknowledge that these scenarios indicate  
that psychological continuity is not sufficient for person identity.  
"These commentators typically complement their psychological theory  
with a non-branching proviso and/or a closest continuer clause. The  
former states that even though X would survive as Y1 or Y2 if the  
other did not exist, given that the other does exist, X ceases to  
exist." This might be problematic, however, and we could avoid some  
problems by adding a closest-continuer or best candidate clause,  
stating roughly that the best candidate for survival in a  
duplication scenario, that is, the duplicate which bears the most or  
the most important resemblances to the original person X, is  
identical with X." For instance, if the original survives the  
duplication, he is the closest continuer and hence uniquely  
identical to the original.


And so on. As I have said, the philosophical literature on personal  
identity is extensive and quite complex. The idea of transitivity of  
personal identity does seem to be central, so duplication cases are  
often problematic.


Parfit's analysis seems to suggest that the duplication scenarios,  
since they violate transitivity, entail that the original that is  
being duplicated does not survive the duplication. However, in the  
duplication case with two

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-19 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On 19 July 2016 at 04:00, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 7/18/2016 2:59 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>
>
> On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>
>> On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>> On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>
 The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the original
 and, because of the phenomenon of first person experience, feels that he is
 the one true copy persisting through time

>>>
>>> How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't know and
>>> neither does anyone else.  So it's really meaningless to say he feels he's
>>> the one true copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice that he was
>>> unique.
>>>
>>
>> Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I can be
>> radically sceptical about the existence of the world and other minds, but
>> still go about life as if it matters.
>>
>>
>> But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been said about
>> Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot conclude that he is
>> thinking, he can only conclude that thinking is going on.
>>
>
> From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a thought at
> this moment, not that there is an entity that has a stream of thoughts.
>
>
> Thoughts are not "at a moment".  They have temporal extent and hence can
> have continuity.
>

It seems that thoughts can be divided up arbitrarily. This is more easily
shown by considering a digital computer. A computation can be paused,
saved, and restarted, and if there are observers in the computed
environment there is no way for them to know that this has happened. Even
if a minimum duration is needed it might still be broken up arbitrarily.
For example, if 500 ms is needed to generate an experience the computation
could branch at the 200 ms point giving two different experiences, or there
could be two overlapping experiences from 0 ms to 500 ms and from 100 ms to
600 ms. If you don't allow such overlap, and there are only discrete 500 ms
experiences, it is still possible to replace talk of
observer-(infinitesimal)-moments with observer-half-seconds.

> The entity, the "I", is not fundamental but emergent, the set of related
> thoughts.
>
>
> That's begging the question and assuming the physical is not fundamental.
> It depends on whether you look for something that is epistemologically
> primary or something that is ontologically primary.
>

The argument so far has mostly been about the concrete copying of brains.

> These thoughts are not necessarily connected through sharing a physical
> substrate. Sharing a physical substrate is a convenient method of producing
> thoughts with the right sort of relationship to each other,
>
>
> "Producing" is a funny word to use.  Are you assuming there is a "someone"
> who produces the thoughts - even though the "someone" is emergent from the
> thoughts?  The physical world is partly an inference and partly a mode of
> thought hardwired by evolution.
>

In the first instance, I assume that the physical brain goes
clickety-clack, and as a result thoughts are produced. In order for the
thoughts to be strung together to form a stream of consciousness they must
bear a particular relationship to each other. Being produced by the same
brain is the familiar way this relationship is ensured, which is why a
stream of consciousness is usually associated with a particular body.
Technology can disrupt this process if brains can be physically copied or
uploaded to computers.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 19/07/2016 2:18 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:

As you say in another post, computationalism depends on the breakdown 
of transitivity for personal identity: M is the same as H; W is the 
same as H; but M is not the same as W. Given this, you have all sorts 
of problems with the nature of personal identity -- maybe it is not a 
modal concept! I will talk more about this in reply to your other post.


Well, the machine notion of 3p-self can be defined in arithmetic, and 
all correct machine knows that her 1p-self is not. Sure it is a tricky 
notion, but the non transitivity is not a problem, as the "Parfit 
person series" will work transitively in all cases, except when 
duplication occurs, but why would that cause any problem, you tell me. 
Nothing here threats the validity of the reasoning leading to the 
reversal physics/arithmetic. I think you confused non transitivity 
(the failing of some transitive link) with intransitivity (the failing 
of all transitive link). With self-duplication, we lost transitivity 
in one case, but both surviver recover it as long as they do'nt 
duplicate again, and so the old guy who stayed in Moscow remains the 
same young guy who teleported at Moscow through some duplication a 
long time ago. You might elaborate on your problem, as I don't see any.


I think a relation is either transitive or it is intransitive: personal 
identity is a transitive relation; 'father of' is an intransitive 
relation. You can't be 'half-pregnant', as it were.


I quote from Wikipedia on personal identity:
"Generally, personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a 
person in the course of time. That is, the necessary and sufficient 
conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time 
can be said to be the same person, persisting through time."


And from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/
"Personal identity is an instance of the relation of numerical identity; 
investigations into the nature of the former, therefore, must respect 
the formal properties that govern the latter. The concept of identity is 
uniquely defined by (a) the logical laws of congruence: if X is 
identical with Y, then all non-relational properties borne by X are 
borne by Y, or formally "A(x,y)[(x = y) --> (Fx = Fy)]; and (b) 
reflexivity: every X is identical with itself, or formally "Ax(x = x). 
(Note that congruence and reflexivity entail that identity is symmetric, 
"A(x,y)[(x = y) --> (y = x)], and transitive, "A(x,y,z)[((x = y) & (y = 
z)) --> (x = z)]."


And later in the same article:
"Should fission be an acceptable scenario, it presents problems for the 
psychological approach in particular. The fission outcomes Y1 and Y2 are 
both psychologically continuous with X. According to the psychological 
approach, therefore, they are both identical with X. By congruence, 
however, they are not identical with each other: Y1 and Y2 share many 
properties, but even at the very time the fission operation is completed 
differ with regard to others, such as spatio-temporal location. 
Consequently fission cases seem to show that the psychological approach 
entails that a thing could be identical with two non-identical things, 
which of course violates the transitivity of identity."


Fission, in this case, is equivalent to the duplication protocols under 
consideration in this discussion. There does not seem to be any widely 
agreed resolution of the problems that the duplication scenarios entail. 
Some acknowledge that these scenarios indicate that psychological 
continuity is not sufficient for person identity. "These commentators 
typically complement their psychological theory with a non-branching 
proviso and/or a closest continuer clause. The former states that even 
though X would survive as Y1 or Y2 if the other did not exist, given 
that the other does exist, X ceases to exist." This might be 
problematic, however, and we could avoid some problems by adding a 
closest-continuer or best candidate clause, stating roughly that the 
best candidate for survival in a duplication scenario, that is, the 
duplicate which bears the most or the most important resemblances to the 
original person X, is identical with X." For instance, if the original 
survives the duplication, he is the closest continuer and hence uniquely 
identical to the original.


And so on. As I have said, the philosophical literature on personal 
identity is extensive and quite complex. The idea of transitivity of 
personal identity does seem to be central, so duplication cases are 
often problematic.


Parfit's analysis seems to suggest that the duplication scenarios, since 
they violate transitivity, entail that the original that is being 
duplicated does not survive the duplication. However, in the duplication 
case with two copies, Y1 and Y2, although the original X dies, having 
two survivors identical to the original is even better that being

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Russell Standish

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 08:51:32AM -0500, Jason Resch wrote:
> >
> I have only come across two theories of personal identity that are
> consistent and void issues inherent to body-continuity and
> psychological-continuity theories. The two consistent personal identity
> theories I am aware of are no-self (you are only a single thought moment
> and nothing else) and universalism (you are all thought moments and all
> people). Anything in between is bound to fall flat when you try to limit
> the scope of experiences you my ascribe that person to some biological or
> some psychological continuation when both of these continuations can
> changes over time. What are the practical limits to allowable change which
> preserve that person? It seems entirely arbitrary to me.
> 

I am not convinced that they are the only two possible
outcomes. Remember my skepticism of the Parfit Napoleon thought
experiment.

However, ISTM that the real issue being discussed here is transitivity
of the notion of personal identity. Why should identity be transitive?
After all, why shouldn't your identity be tied up with whoever you
remember being? If B and C both remember being A, then they can claim
to being the same person as A, in spite of the fact that B and C are
different people.

What is the problem with that point of view?

Cheers

-- 


Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Senior Research Fellowhpco...@hpcoders.com.au
Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Jul 17, 2016, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> > 
> You say that the person in Moscow is the same person as the person in
> Helsinki,
>

Yes.

> >
> and that the person in Washington is also the same as the person in
> Helsinki.
>

Yes.

> > 
> But also claim that the person in Washington is not the same as the person
> in Moscow
>

Yes.

> 
> The copy in Washington and the copy in Moscow, because they are distinct
> physical objects, might well become different over time
>

I am certain they will, and that is exactly why th
e person in Washington is not the same as the person in Moscow
, although both will always be the person who saw Helsinki.

> > 
> the differences that develop between the Washington and Moscow copies do
> not suffice to make them different persons
>

The best way to test this would be to simply ask them if they felt like
they were different people. I would bet money both would say "YES" in a
loud clear voice.

> > 
> This is where the closest continuer theory shows its strength:
>

Suppose I'm not the "closest continuer", does that mean I have no identity
even though I vividly remember being John Clark as a child? Has some
mysterious force emanated from that closer guy reach out and found me and
destroyed my consciousness?

If one or more things tomorrow remembers being John Clark today then John
Clark has survived, and if that isn't what "survived" means then I don't
care if
I've

"
survive
d"

or not. I
'll never know if 
know if I'm the

"closest continuer"
 and there is no reason I should care.

 John K Clark

>

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Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-18 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 10:25 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> 
> The Helsinki guy now that he will survive,
>

Only if there is a person or if there are persons who remember being the
Helsinki guy. 

> > 
> and that he cannot have the simultaneous first person experience
>

That's right Bruno, keep sweeping those foggy thoughts and fractured
logic under the "he" colored personal pronoun rug.

>> > 
>> There is no such thing as *THE* first person experience, there is only A
>> first person experience.
>
>
> > 
> "The" refers to that experience of seeing only one city
>  
> and not the other
>

Two people not one have the experience of seeing only one city

and not the other. So which ONE is "THE"?  Bruno, to be meaningful language
in a world that has personal pronoun duplicating machines just can't be
used in the same way its used in our world that doesn't have such devices.

>> 
>> Both Moscow AND Washington
>>  are accessible
>> because there are people in BOTH Washington and Moscow who remember being
>> the Helsinki Man and neither city is
>> more 
>> favored because both memories are equally vivid.
>
>
> > 
> Excellent. Both Washington  AND Moscow are accessible equally.
>

Equally accessible to the Helsinki man yes, the probability of the
Helsinki man seeing Moscow is 100% and the probability of the Helsinki man
seeing Washington is 100%.

> > 
> That is why P = 1/2 is the most plausible candidate in this situation.
>

John Clark will say if P=1/2 is correct or not as soon as Bruno Marchal
explains exactly what P is supposed to be a probability of.

Until then is is neither correct nor incorrect, it's just gibberish  

> 
> Refutation: he knows perfectly well that after pushing the button, he will
> feel to be in either Moscow, or Washington, and never in both cities
>

"He" just walked into a "he" duplicating machine so there is absolutely no
contradiction between:

1)  He will see either Moscow, or Washington and never in both cities

2) John Clark (aka The Helsinki Man) will see both Moscow AND Washington.

> 
> You forget again to put yourself at the place of both copies
>

Are you sure you really want me to do that? If so I'd have to conclude
that I will see both cities at the same time.

> > 
> No observer at all will have the 1p experience
>  
>

There is no such thing as "THE 1p" in a world with 1p duplicating
machines.

> > 
> of seeing both cities.
>

The Helsinki Man will see both cities. 

> > 
> The duplicating machine cannot introduce a telepathic link which would be
> mandatory for having an experience of both cities at once,
>

On no, now we're back with the idiotic telepathy crap! 

> 
> indeed the probability that JKC see city X is 100%, from the 3-1 view. But
> from this it does not follow that all copies will see both cities.
>

All the copies don't need to see both cities for JKC to see both cities if
JKC means the person who remembers being in Helsinki.

And what else on earth could JKC mean?

> > 
> You forget to consult the diary of both copies, who both testify that they
> both see only one city.
>

I haven't forgotten that, but you seem to have forgotten that 1+1 =2 

> 
> You don't refute step 3, you just ignore it.
>

I've long long ago forgotten what step 3 is, but I do try to ignore
gibberish.   

> 
> What can the Helsinki guy write in his personal diary that the guy in
> Helsinki expect to live.
>

The diary says "I expect that after I walk into the I duplicating machine
I, that is to say the person who remember writing these words, will see
Washington and at the same time I,
that is to say the person who remember writing these word
s
, will see
Moscow".

When we check later when its all over everybody involved agrees the
prediction turned out to be correct because everybody involved knows that
thanks to the person duplicating machine there is more than one person who
remembers writing those words.

> 
> When you say "John Clark will see 2 cities", you mean, taken together
>

Obviously, 2 beings have an equal right to call themselves John Clark and
a equal right to call themselves the Helsinki man. "What one and only one
city will you end up seeing after you step into the you duplicating
machine?" is not question, it's just a string of words with a question mark
at the end. If I'm wrong and it really is a question then answer it, after
it was all over what one and only one city did "you" end up seeing? Was it
Washington or Moscow?   

> > 
> You don't seem to try to refute an argument.
>

Because it's not a good argument, it's not even a bad argument, it's
personal pronoun laden gibberish. We're talking about a world with personal
pronoun duplicating machines in it and in such a world personal pronouns
can not be used in the same way as they are in a world like ours which
hasn't invented
personal pronoun duplicating machines
 yet. So stop talking about

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/18/2016 4:00 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



On Monday, 18 July 2016, Bruce Kellett > wrote:


On 18/07/2016 7:59 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett
> wrote:

On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker > wrote:



On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

The problems arise because each copy has memories of
being the original and, because of the phenomenon of
first person experience, feels that he is the one
true copy persisting through time


How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He
doesn't know and neither does anyone else.  So it's
really meaningless to say he feels he's the one true
copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice that
he was unique.


Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I
can be radically sceptical about the existence of the world
and other minds, but still go about life as if it matters.


But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been
said about Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot
conclude that he is thinking, he can only conclude that
thinking is going on.


From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a
thought at this moment, not that there is an entity that has a
stream of thoughts. The entity, the "I", is not fundamental but
emergent, the set of related thoughts. These thoughts are not
necessarily connected through sharing a physical substrate.
Sharing a physical substrate is a convenient method of producing
thoughts with the right sort of relationship to each other, but
as the sort of duplication experiments we are considering show,
there can be discontinuities in time, space and across
non-interacting universes, and continuity of identity, which is
not meaningfully different to the illusion of continuity of
identity, persists.


But you haven't shown continuity of identity without some
substrate to provide coherence.


It's trivial to show this. I feel I am a continuation of the person 
who went to sleep in my bed last night. If you now demonstrate that 
overnight there was a discontinuity (of whatever type you like) in my 
physical substrate, that would not change my feeling that I have 
survived the night, and hence would confirm that this discontinuity 
does not affect personal identity.


Or that feelings are not reliable evidence.


You have relied on a particular notion of personal identity that
has some serious problems in the examples that have been used. For
instance, the loss of transitivity of identity throws into
question the whole notion of an identity persisting in time.


If you accept that the whole notion of an identity persisting in time 
is an illusion it makes things simpler.


Without the "persisting in time" what sense does "identity" make? Yet 
Bruno insists that personal identity is more persistent than the physcial.


Brent





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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/18/2016 2:59 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett > wrote:


On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker > wrote:



On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

The problems arise because each copy has memories of
being the original and, because of the phenomenon of
first person experience, feels that he is the one true
copy persisting through time


How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't
know and neither does anyone else.  So it's really
meaningless to say he feels he's the one true copy.  He's
just relying on his previous prejudice that he was unique.


Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I can
be radically sceptical about the existence of the world and other
minds, but still go about life as if it matters.


But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been said
about Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot conclude
that he is thinking, he can only conclude that thinking is going on.


From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a thought at 
this moment, not that there is an entity that has a stream of thoughts.


Thoughts are not "at a moment".  They have temporal extent and hence can 
have continuity.


The entity, the "I", is not fundamental but emergent, the set of 
related thoughts.


That's begging the question and assuming the physical is not 
fundamental.  It depends on whether you look for something that is 
epistemologically primary or something that is ontologically primary.



These thoughts are not necessarily connected through sharing a 
physical substrate. Sharing a physical substrate is a convenient 
method of producing thoughts with the right sort of relationship to 
each other,


"Producing" is a funny word to use.  Are you assuming there is a 
"someone" who produces the thoughts - even though the "someone" is 
emergent from the thoughts?  The physical world is partly an inference 
and partly a mode of thought hardwired by evolution.


but as the sort of duplication experiments we are considering show, 
there can be discontinuities in time, space and across non-interacting 
universes, and continuity of identity, which is not meaningfully 
different to the illusion of continuity of identity, persists.


I wonder about that.  It's certainly true that one can suffer a 
concussion and have a gap in memory.  But in that case it's a noticeable 
gap.  On the other hand I can't remember what I had for breakfast day 
last Friday, yet I don't perceive that as a gap.


Brent




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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 18 Jul 2016, at 07:42, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the  
original and, because of the phenomenon of first person experience,  
feels that he is the one true copy persisting through time


How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't know and  
neither does anyone else.  So it's really meaningless to say he  
feels he's the one true copy.  He's just relying on his previous  
prejudice that he was unique.


It is not a prejudice, it is an experience.

The prejudice might be in naming or describing it, like when the  
computationalist practitionner chooses a substitution level.


Note that during sleep it seems that we can live two different dreams  
at once. I recorded it for myself four times (on thousand of dreams).  
Louis Jouvet (the discoverer of the REM dreams, and of the fact that  
the brain both hallucinates the cortex and inhibits the muscles)  
mention also that phenomenon, and assumes it happens when the corpus  
callosum remains sleepy, at the time (add Hobson) the cerebral stem  
triggers the cortex, and limbic system. Despite each of us is already  
many, among many, we are all one and unique.





Brent
Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.  ---  
Lily Tomlin


Nice quote. That sums up very well the main point.

Computationalism guaranties that if you ever survive a simple digital  
transplant, then you will survive a self-duplication, and you will  
feel remaining unique in that self-duplication. The Helsinki guy knows  
with probability one, (modulo the assumption and the simple protocol  
of course), that, whoever he will survive into, he will have to write  
in the diary the letter W, or the letter M, but never both.


The QM equivalent is Everett Dewitt explanation of why we can't feel  
the split (bifurcation/differentiation).


Bruno







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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:57, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 16/07/2016 4:32 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 15 Jul 2016, at 03:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:

that anything new actually happens. He could have started there  
and argued for the reversal of physics and computationalism  
directly. The duplication of persons is just a distracting  
irrelevance to the main argument, and depends so heavily on a  
particular theory of personal identity as to be essentially useless.


It depends on any identity theory in which you survive completely  
with a brain transplant, that is what the step 1 is all about. You  
illustrate that such an easy step was needed, it seems to me.


If you survive brain transplant you introduce all sorts of problems  
for an account of personal identity. Just read the relevant  
philosophical literature. Your "easy step" elides all the problems.


?

Name one. You might try to avoid non specific critics which just shows  
your prejudices. Which relevant literature would I have missed?  
Reference please.


Bruno





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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 18 Jul 2016, at 03:54, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 16/07/2016 4:28 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 15 Jul 2016, at 02:07, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 15/07/2016 9:42 am, Jason Resch wrote:
I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave one to  
both John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The questionnaires each  
had 8 questions:


1. What city did you last recall being in?
2. How many cities do you see now?
3. What is the name of the city you see before you?
4. True/False: You see two cities right now:
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was:
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was:
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow  
was:
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow  
was:


When I gave the questionnaire to John-Washington, he filled out  
the following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? Helsinki
2. How many cities do you see now? One
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? Washington
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: False
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: True
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: False
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow  
was: False
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow  
was: True


When I gave the questionnaire to John-Moscow, he filled out the  
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? Helsinki
2. How many cities do you see now? One
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? Moscow
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: False
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: False
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: True
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow  
was: False
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow  
was: True


Both Johns expressed deep regret over insulting people on the  
Everything list, most especially Bruno. It turned out neither  
John-Washington's, nor John-Moscow's prediction that they would  
see both cities was true from their own first person points of  
view.


But you have introduced a distinction between John-W and John-M  
that is not present in the original protocol. Remember that the  
criterion of personal identity you are working with is based on  
person memories (verified by a personal diary if necessary). Both  
copies of John have these memories and these diaries, so they both  
have equal claims to be John. "John", as this duplicated person,  
predicts with certainty that he will see W, and that he will see  
M, so he predicts that he will see both cities.


Yes, but only one in all 1p views accessible, and the question is  
on the future 1p view, not on the 3-1 views, for the same reason  
that when we look at 1/sqrt(2)(up + down) in the {up, down} base we  
can predict with certainty that we will see either up, OR down and  
never both at once.


I have said several times that probability is a problem for the  
Everettian or MWI view. This is not a problem of defining a measure  
over a possible infinite number of worlds -- though that is  
certainly a problem that has not really been solved -- but the main  
difficulty lies in the observation that probability makes little  
sense in a situation in which everything possible does happen.


The beauty and elegance of Mechanism is that it solves the problem. In  
a reality where a computation can differentiate, we have 3p  
determinacy, and a subjective, or first person, indeterminacy which  
occurs, and admit a trivial explanation, in term of memory access or  
self-reference.




So there is no workable notion of probability in the Everettian  
multiverse.


Quite the contrary, accepting just the most common of all theories in  
cognitive science: the brain is some machine.



Standard quantum mechanics gets around this in a fairly  
straightforward way: the "other worlds" in which alternative  
outcomes occur are  disjoint, with no possible future interaction  
with the world in which we find ourselves. Such alternative outcomes  
can thus be safely ignored because they can have no possible effect  
on the observer or on his future evolution. Decoherence ,and the 
irreversibility of completed experimental outcomes, thus reduce QM  
to an effective collapse situation -- there is no physical collapse,  
but FAPP the other worlds have vanished from existence.


Then add in all steps of the UDA that we change the protocol so that  
the copies never met, and the proof will remain valid, showing that  
your remark is not relevant.


It is even less relevant that the copies in the arithmetical reality  
cannot interact either. Duplication in one world is used as a  
pedagicial tool to express a problem, motivates the definitions, and  
appreciate the tiny bit of solution already given by simple known  
Löbian machines.











The fact

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 18 Jul 2016, at 07:16, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 18/07/2016 3:04 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 18 July 2016 at 12:53, Bruce Kellett   
wrote:


So in your duplication scenarios, the case in which the original is  
duplicated, but continues to exist, the closest continuer theory  
would have some measure that gave significance to bodily  
continuity, so we would say that the original person continued  
intact, and that, although sharing some background with the  
continuer, a new individual was created in the manufactured  
duplicate. In the duplication scenario in which the original is cut  
or deleted, then there is no preferred unique continuer, so there  
is a tie, and we would say that two new persons are created (the  
original having been destroyed).


If you think these things through, you can see that this theory of  
personal identity resolves all the problems that your  
"psychological" theory encounters.


Without a psychological theory of continuity this whole discussion  
would be unnecessary. We could just say that a person has been  
copied, the two copies are identical, and the original was  
destroyed. The problems arise because each copy has memories of  
being the original and, because of the phenomenon of first person  
experience, feels that he is the one true copy persisting through  
time - even though intellectually he knows this is not true.


We all know that feelings are an unreliable guide to anything.  
Careful analysis is a much better guide to what is actually going  
on. I might, in a moment of waking confusion, fell that I am the  
reincarnation of Cleopatra, but that is not a reliable feeling.



But when we tackle on the mind-body problem, or the first-person/third  
person relation problem, we must invoke such feeling, or similar. Here  
the feeling is not much to be the "real true" guy, as the  
computationalist can accept that it is just one implementation of it,  
among others. But what is inescapable is the feeling to have receive  
one bit of information. And here we suppose by default that the guy  
has a brain working enough well to address question like "what is that  
city in front of me", and write the answer in a stable diary or in his  
local brain available at the time and place he feel, indeed, to be.
The though experience can be made with little robots, using simple RAM  
access, or any enough stable memory, and UDA does not use the quale  
aspect of the self-localization, note. (that aspect is addressed in  
the translation in arithmetic though.)




Bruno





Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 18 Jul 2016, at 04:53, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 16/07/2016 5:05 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 15 Jul 2016, at 04:00, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 15/07/2016 12:38 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 14 Jul 2016, at 02:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:


There is no single 1p view -- there are three possible 1p views  
in the triplication scenario.


Right. The point is that from the first person perspective, those  
1-views are logically incompatible.


No they are not. They all refer to the experience of John Clark,  
as defined by you.


Not at all. My definition, accepted by JKC, makes the M and the W- 
guy both equal to the H-guy, but different between each other. In  
this context of person, a =: b & a =: c does not entail that b =:  
c, with "=:" read as "becomes". That is well known about modalities.


This is probably the heart of the matter. You are claiming that  
transitivity does not obtain for personal identity:  You say that  
the person in Moscow is the same person as the person in Helsinki,  
and that the person in Washington is also the same as the person in  
Helsinki. But also claim that the person in Washington is not the  
same as the person in Moscow, in contradiction with transitivity as  
applied to personal identity. This might be true in modal logic, but  
the question remains as to whether modal logic applies to personal  
identity. I suggest that it does not, and that you have simply  
begged the question here.


If personal identity is not transitive, then we have all sorts of  
problems with the endurance of personal identity over time: if Bruce  
at age 30 becomes Bruce at age 40, and Bruce at age 30 becomes Bruce  
at age 50, the breakdown of transitivity would imply that Bruce at  
age 40 does not become Bruce at age 50!


You confuse "non transitive" with "intransitive".





The copy in Washington and the copy in Moscow, because they are  
distinct physical objects, might well become different over time --  
they have different experiences, develop different likings, values,  
desires and so forth over time, but this does not suffice to make 
them different persons,


Sure, but it is enough to distinguish their first person experiences,  
which is used in the reasoning.





else we would all become different persons over time. Poetically  
that might be the case, but the problem of personal identity is to  
capture the everyday experience and intuition that, despite all  
these changes wrought by time, we remain the same single unique  
person over time. Consequently, the differences that develop between  
the Washington and Moscow copies do not suffice to make them  
different persons -- those same changes in the individuals would, by  
the same token, make them both different from the original person in  
Helsinki and we would not have duplication of persons at all.


I can agree, but it is not relevant in the UDA reasoning.





The case of genetically identical twins might provide a possible  
insight into the case of two persons having a single origin.  
Identical twins start from a single fertilized egg that splits then,  
instead of that split presaging further development of a single  
embryo, the two offshoot cells develop separately to form two  
genetically identical embryos. In this case, differences do arise  
between the twins, in embryo and post natal, and although there has  
been a duplication in a real sense, we never get confused into  
thinking that these two 'identical' twins are, in fact, just one  
person. There is a breakdown of transitivity here if you trace back  
to the original fertilized egg, but there is no confusion arising  
from the thought that a 'person' has been duplicated.


This is where the closest continuer theory shows its strength: you  
maintain your unique identity through the changes and chances of  
time because at any particular time, there is generally only one  
"continuer" that could reasonably be supposed to be you.


But we have an infinity of them, when we assume computationalism. And  
Everett QM can be considered as an illustration of this. below our  
substitution level, we get an infinity of "parallel computations".






However, in the case of duplication protocols, an element of  
ambiguity is introduced. The cleanest way through this ambiguity is  
to suppose the if there is a tie for 'closest' continuer (according  
to some metric for closeness), two new persons are created, just as  
with the genetically identical twins -- the split created two  
potential embryos, though both are identical to the original egg,  
and these embryos develop into two distinct and different people,  
without any confusion as to personal identity.


So in your duplication scenarios, the case in which the original is  
duplicated, but continues to exist, the closest continuer theory  
would have some measure that gave significance to bodily continuity,  
so we would say that the original person continued intact, and that,  
although

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Jason Resch

On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou 
wrote:

>
>
> On 18 July 2016 at 12:35, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>
>> On 18/07/2016 12:10 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>> On 18 July 2016 at 11:54, Bruce Kellett 
>> wrote:
>>
>> I have said several times that probability is a problem for the
>>> Everettian or MWI view. This is not a problem of defining a measure over a
>>> possible infinite number of worlds -- though that is certainly a problem
>>> that has not really been solved -- but the main difficulty lies in the
>>> observation that probability makes little sense in a situation in which
>>> everything possible does happen. So there is no workable notion of
>>> probability in the Everettian multiverse.
>>>
>>> Standard quantum mechanics gets around this in a fairly straightforward
>>> way: the "other worlds" in which alternative outcomes occur are  disjoint,
>>> with no possible future interaction with the world in which we find
>>> ourselves. Such alternative outcomes can thus be safely ignored because
>>> they can have no possible effect on the observer or on his future
>>> evolution. Decoherence ,and the irreversibility of completed experimental
>>> outcomes, thus reduce QM to an effective collapse situation -- there is no
>>> physical collapse, but FAPP the other worlds have vanished from existence.
>>>
>>
>>  You seem to be saying that if the copies in the other worlds effectively
>> vanish due inaccessibility, this is fundamentally different with regard to
>> personal identity compared to the case of duplication within the one world.
>> I don't see why that should be so. It may solve some practical problems,
>> such as which copy gets the possessions of the original, but these are not
>> fundamental problems with personal identity.
>>
>>
>> Practical problems are what is at stake in personal identity, and the
>> inaccessibility of other worlds solves these because we only look for a
>> closest continuer in the world we actually inhabit -- all others are
>> irrelevant for any purposes whatsoever. A theory of personal identity has
>> to solve practical problems, and to accord with our expectations and
>> intuitions in difficult cases. That is why person duplication scenarios are
>> a problem for a satisfactory theory.
>>
>
> Practical problems are very important but they do not necessarily impact
> on personal identity. If God grants me a vision of my copies in other
> worlds that would be interesting, but it would not make me change my view
> of personal identity in general or my identity in particular given that I
> already believed those copies were out there anyway.
>
> "Closest continuer theory" should not be presented as if it is the
> standard philosophical position on personal identity, let alone the only
> correct one. It has serious inherent problems, eg. it implies that if two
> identical copies of you are made in a duplication experiment then there is
> no closest continuer and you have not survived.
>
>
I have only come across two theories of personal identity that are
consistent and void issues inherent to body-continuity and
psychological-continuity theories. The two consistent personal identity
theories I am aware of are no-self (you are only a single thought moment
and nothing else) and universalism (you are all thought moments and all
people). Anything in between is bound to fall flat when you try to limit
the scope of experiences you my ascribe that person to some biological or
some psychological continuation when both of these continuations can
changes over time. What are the practical limits to allowable change which
preserve that person? It seems entirely arbitrary to me.

All this said, whether you ascribe to no-self, universalism, biological
continuity, psychological continuity or closest continuer theory, this is
not of any relevance to Bruno's UDA. The thought experiment is a question
of predictions made and the later confirmation or refutation of those
predictions as remembered from the memories of duplicated entities. This
does not require having any assumed theory of personal identity, it works
even in the no-self theory of personal identity: Even if the Helsinki Man
is an entirely different person from the Washington Man, the Washington Man
can still confirm or refute the predictions of the Helsinki man he finds in
his memory.

Likewise if you looked at the experiment assuming universalism, where you
believe "one mind" experiences the views of the Helsinki man the Washington
Man and the Moscow Man, and you believe they are ultimately all the same
person and all the experiences belong to all, this too, does not stop the
Moscow Man nor the Washington Man from validating their predictions from
their local points of view.

Closest continuer theory I think is all a game with language to allow
philosophers to try and duct tape over obvious problems with biological and
psychological continuity

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 17 Jul 2016, at 20:05, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 7/17/2016 7:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The duplicating machine cannot introduce a telepathic link which  
would be mandatory for having an experience of both cities at once,  
so that the candidate would write "I see W and M". That simply  
never happens, or computationalism is false.


It's easy to see that physics implies one cannot see both W and M at  
the same time,







It is easy by using physics + computationalism. But this requires the  
abandon of the brain-mind identity link, like in Everett QM and/or  
comp. It requires also the abandon of physicalism, and this requires  
the extraction of physics from arithmetical self-reference.




but I don't see how it follows from computationalism.


The two computations are made relatively independent. I think you are  
using this in physics to say that it is easy to see that physics  
implies we cannot see both cities at the same time.






Why is there spacetime localization?


Good question. Open problem. The shadow of a solution relies perhaps  
in a Temperley-Lieb algebra related to the projection operators  
belonging to a semantics of one of the arithmetical quantum logics.


Bruno






Brent

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Monday, 18 July 2016, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On 18/07/2016 9:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> On Monday, 18 July 2016, Bruce Kellett <
> 
> bhkell...@optusnet.com.au
> > wrote:
>
>> On 18/07/2016 7:59 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>> On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>
>>> On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker >> > wrote:
>>>


 On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the
> original and, because of the phenomenon of first person experience, feels
> that he is the one true copy persisting through time
>

 How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't know and
 neither does anyone else.  So it's really meaningless to say he feels he's
 the one true copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice that he was
 unique.

>>>
>>> Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I can be
>>> radically sceptical about the existence of the world and other minds, but
>>> still go about life as if it matters.
>>>
>>>
>>> But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been said about
>>> Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot conclude that he is
>>> thinking, he can only conclude that thinking is going on.
>>>
>>
>> From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a thought at
>> this moment, not that there is an entity that has a stream of thoughts. The
>> entity, the "I", is not fundamental but emergent, the set of related
>> thoughts. These thoughts are not necessarily connected through sharing a
>> physical substrate. Sharing a physical substrate is a convenient method of
>> producing thoughts with the right sort of relationship to each other, but
>> as the sort of duplication experiments we are considering show, there can
>> be discontinuities in time, space and across non-interacting universes, and
>> continuity of identity, which is not meaningfully different to the illusion
>> of continuity of identity, persists.
>>
>>
>> But you haven't shown continuity of identity without some substrate to
>> provide coherence.
>>
>
> It's trivial to show this. I feel I am a continuation of the person who
> went to sleep in my bed last night. If you now demonstrate that overnight
> there was a discontinuity (of whatever type you like) in my physical
> substrate, that would not change my feeling that I have survived the night,
> and hence would confirm that this discontinuity does not affect personal
> identity.
>
>
>> You have relied on a particular notion of personal identity that has some
>> serious problems in the examples that have been used. For instance, the
>> loss of transitivity of identity throws into question the whole notion of
>> an identity persisting in time.
>>
>
> If you accept that the whole notion of an identity persisting in time is
> an illusion it makes things simpler.
>
>
> That rather contradicts what you said above about feeling that you are a
> continuation of the person you were yesterday. If the idea of persisting in
> time is an illusion, then so is your concept of personal identity. I
> thought the idea was to make consciousness and personal identity central to
> the theory -- not to abolish the concept of persons.
>

Moments of consciousness, or observer moments as they have previously been
called on this list, are in some sense fundamental. Their association into
persons is a construct.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 18/07/2016 9:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Monday, 18 July 2016, Bruce Kellett > wrote:


On 18/07/2016 7:59 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett
> wrote:

On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker > wrote:



On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

The problems arise because each copy has memories of
being the original and, because of the phenomenon of
first person experience, feels that he is the one
true copy persisting through time


How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He
doesn't know and neither does anyone else.  So it's
really meaningless to say he feels he's the one true
copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice that
he was unique.


Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I
can be radically sceptical about the existence of the world
and other minds, but still go about life as if it matters.


But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been
said about Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot
conclude that he is thinking, he can only conclude that
thinking is going on.


From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a
thought at this moment, not that there is an entity that has a
stream of thoughts. The entity, the "I", is not fundamental but
emergent, the set of related thoughts. These thoughts are not
necessarily connected through sharing a physical substrate.
Sharing a physical substrate is a convenient method of producing
thoughts with the right sort of relationship to each other, but
as the sort of duplication experiments we are considering show,
there can be discontinuities in time, space and across
non-interacting universes, and continuity of identity, which is
not meaningfully different to the illusion of continuity of
identity, persists.


But you haven't shown continuity of identity without some
substrate to provide coherence.


It's trivial to show this. I feel I am a continuation of the person 
who went to sleep in my bed last night. If you now demonstrate that 
overnight there was a discontinuity (of whatever type you like) in my 
physical substrate, that would not change my feeling that I have 
survived the night, and hence would confirm that this discontinuity 
does not affect personal identity.


You have relied on a particular notion of personal identity that
has some serious problems in the examples that have been used. For
instance, the loss of transitivity of identity throws into
question the whole notion of an identity persisting in time.


If you accept that the whole notion of an identity persisting in time 
is an illusion it makes things simpler.


That rather contradicts what you said above about feeling that you are a 
continuation of the person you were yesterday. If the idea of persisting 
in time is an illusion, then so is your concept of personal identity. I 
thought the idea was to make consciousness and personal identity central 
to the theory -- not to abolish the concept of persons.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Monday, 18 July 2016, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On 18/07/2016 7:59 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett  > wrote:
>
>> On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>> On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker <
>> 
>> meeke...@verizon.net
>> > wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>
 The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the original
 and, because of the phenomenon of first person experience, feels that he is
 the one true copy persisting through time

>>>
>>> How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't know and
>>> neither does anyone else.  So it's really meaningless to say he feels he's
>>> the one true copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice that he was
>>> unique.
>>>
>>
>> Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I can be
>> radically sceptical about the existence of the world and other minds, but
>> still go about life as if it matters.
>>
>>
>> But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been said about
>> Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot conclude that he is
>> thinking, he can only conclude that thinking is going on.
>>
>
> From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a thought at
> this moment, not that there is an entity that has a stream of thoughts. The
> entity, the "I", is not fundamental but emergent, the set of related
> thoughts. These thoughts are not necessarily connected through sharing a
> physical substrate. Sharing a physical substrate is a convenient method of
> producing thoughts with the right sort of relationship to each other, but
> as the sort of duplication experiments we are considering show, there can
> be discontinuities in time, space and across non-interacting universes, and
> continuity of identity, which is not meaningfully different to the illusion
> of continuity of identity, persists.
>
>
> But you haven't shown continuity of identity without some substrate to
> provide coherence.
>

It's trivial to show this. I feel I am a continuation of the person who
went to sleep in my bed last night. If you now demonstrate that overnight
there was a discontinuity (of whatever type you like) in my physical
substrate, that would not change my feeling that I have survived the night,
and hence would confirm that this discontinuity does not affect personal
identity.


> You have relied on a particular notion of personal identity that has some
> serious problems in the examples that have been used. For instance, the
> loss of transitivity of identity throws into question the whole notion of
> an identity persisting in time.
>

If you accept that the whole notion of an identity persisting in time is an
illusion it makes things simpler.



-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 18/07/2016 7:59 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett > wrote:


On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker > wrote:



On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

The problems arise because each copy has memories of
being the original and, because of the phenomenon of
first person experience, feels that he is the one true
copy persisting through time


How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't
know and neither does anyone else.  So it's really
meaningless to say he feels he's the one true copy.  He's
just relying on his previous prejudice that he was unique.


Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I can
be radically sceptical about the existence of the world and other
minds, but still go about life as if it matters.


But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been said
about Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot conclude
that he is thinking, he can only conclude that thinking is going on.


From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a thought at 
this moment, not that there is an entity that has a stream of 
thoughts. The entity, the "I", is not fundamental but emergent, the 
set of related thoughts. These thoughts are not necessarily connected 
through sharing a physical substrate. Sharing a physical substrate is 
a convenient method of producing thoughts with the right sort of 
relationship to each other, but as the sort of duplication experiments 
we are considering show, there can be discontinuities in time, space 
and across non-interacting universes, and continuity of identity, 
which is not meaningfully different to the illusion of continuity of 
identity, persists.


But you haven't shown continuity of identity without some substrate to 
provide coherence. You have relied on a particular notion of personal 
identity that has some serious problems in the examples that have been 
used. For instance, the loss of transitivity of identity throws into 
question the whole notion of an identity persisting in time.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On 18 July 2016 at 17:10, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>>> The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the original
>>> and, because of the phenomenon of first person experience, feels that he is
>>> the one true copy persisting through time
>>>
>>
>> How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't know and
>> neither does anyone else.  So it's really meaningless to say he feels he's
>> the one true copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice that he was
>> unique.
>>
>
> Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I can be
> radically sceptical about the existence of the world and other minds, but
> still go about life as if it matters.
>
>
> But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been said about
> Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot conclude that he is
> thinking, he can only conclude that thinking is going on.
>

>From the fact that I think, it follows only that there is a thought at this
moment, not that there is an entity that has a stream of thoughts. The
entity, the "I", is not fundamental but emergent, the set of related
thoughts. These thoughts are not necessarily connected through sharing a
physical substrate. Sharing a physical substrate is a convenient method of
producing thoughts with the right sort of relationship to each other, but
as the sort of duplication experiments we are considering show, there can
be discontinuities in time, space and across non-interacting universes, and
continuity of identity, which is not meaningfully different to the illusion
of continuity of identity, persists.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 18/07/2016 5:00 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker > wrote:




On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the
original and, because of the phenomenon of first person
experience, feels that he is the one true copy persisting
through time


How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't know
and neither does anyone else.  So it's really meaningless to say
he feels he's the one true copy.  He's just relying on his
previous prejudice that he was unique.


Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I can be 
radically sceptical about the existence of the world and other minds, 
but still go about life as if it matters.


But do the pronouns "I and you" have a referrent? It has been said about 
Descates' 'cogito ergo sum' that Descartes cannot conclude that he is 
thinking, he can only conclude that thinking is going on.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 18/07/2016 3:40 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 18 July 2016 at 15:16, Bruce Kellett > wrote:


On 18/07/2016 3:04 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 12:53, Bruce Kellett
> wrote:

So in your duplication scenarios, the case in which the
original is duplicated, but continues to exist, the closest
continuer theory would have some measure that gave
significance to bodily continuity, so we would say that the
original person continued intact, and that, although sharing
some background with the continuer, a new individual was
created in the manufactured duplicate. In the duplication
scenario in which the original is cut or deleted, then there
is no preferred unique continuer, so there is a tie, and we
would say that two new persons are created (the original
having been destroyed).

If you think these things through, you can see that this
theory of personal identity resolves all the problems that
your "psychological" theory encounters.


Without a psychological theory of continuity this whole
discussion would be unnecessary. We could just say that a person
has been copied, the two copies are identical, and the original
was destroyed. The problems arise because each copy has memories
of being the original and, because of the phenomenon of first
person experience, feels that he is the one true copy persisting
through time - even though intellectually he knows this is not true.


We all know that feelings are an unreliable guide to anything.
Careful analysis is a much better guide to what is actually going
on. I might, in a moment of waking confusion, fell that I am the
reincarnation of Cleopatra, but that is not a reliable feeling.


But if it were an absolutely consistent feeling across all people 
under certain circumstances, we could discuss the phenomenon, 
including what happens when two or more people claiming to be 
Cleopatra meet.


We cope with the occasional illusion/delusion by reference to the 
external world. Mass delusions can be more problematic -- as the history 
of the world shows.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-18 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On 18 July 2016 at 15:42, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>> The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the original
>> and, because of the phenomenon of first person experience, feels that he is
>> the one true copy persisting through time
>>
>
> How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't know and
> neither does anyone else.  So it's really meaningless to say he feels he's
> the one true copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice that he was
> unique.
>

Yes - it's a prejudice, but an important one nonetheless. I can be
radically sceptical about the existence of the world and other minds, but
still go about life as if it matters.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/17/2016 10:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
The problems arise because each copy has memories of being the 
original and, because of the phenomenon of first person experience, 
feels that he is the one true copy persisting through time


How would it feel any different if he weren't?  He doesn't know and 
neither does anyone else.  So it's really meaningless to say he feels 
he's the one true copy.  He's just relying on his previous prejudice 
that he was unique.


Brent
Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.
 --- Lily Tomlin

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On 18 July 2016 at 15:16, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On 18/07/2016 3:04 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> On 18 July 2016 at 12:53, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
>
> So in your duplication scenarios, the case in which the original is
>> duplicated, but continues to exist, the closest continuer theory would have
>> some measure that gave significance to bodily continuity, so we would say
>> that the original person continued intact, and that, although sharing some
>> background with the continuer, a new individual was created in the
>> manufactured duplicate. In the duplication scenario in which the original
>> is cut or deleted, then there is no preferred unique continuer, so there is
>> a tie, and we would say that two new persons are created (the original
>> having been destroyed).
>>
>> If you think these things through, you can see that this theory of
>> personal identity resolves all the problems that your "psychological"
>> theory encounters.
>>
>
> Without a psychological theory of continuity this whole discussion would
> be unnecessary. We could just say that a person has been copied, the two
> copies are identical, and the original was destroyed. The problems arise
> because each copy has memories of being the original and, because of the
> phenomenon of first person experience, feels that he is the one true copy
> persisting through time - even though intellectually he knows this is not
> true.
>
>
> We all know that feelings are an unreliable guide to anything. Careful
> analysis is a much better guide to what is actually going on. I might, in a
> moment of waking confusion, fell that I am the reincarnation of Cleopatra,
> but that is not a reliable feeling.
>

But if it were an absolutely consistent feeling across all people under
certain circumstances, we could discuss the phenomenon, including what
happens when two or more people claiming to be Cleopatra meet.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 18/07/2016 3:04 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 18 July 2016 at 12:53, Bruce Kellett > wrote:


So in your duplication scenarios, the case in which the original
is duplicated, but continues to exist, the closest continuer
theory would have some measure that gave significance to bodily
continuity, so we would say that the original person continued
intact, and that, although sharing some background with the
continuer, a new individual was created in the manufactured
duplicate. In the duplication scenario in which the original is
cut or deleted, then there is no preferred unique continuer, so
there is a tie, and we would say that two new persons are created
(the original having been destroyed).

If you think these things through, you can see that this theory of
personal identity resolves all the problems that your
"psychological" theory encounters.


Without a psychological theory of continuity this whole discussion 
would be unnecessary. We could just say that a person has been copied, 
the two copies are identical, and the original was destroyed. The 
problems arise because each copy has memories of being the original 
and, because of the phenomenon of first person experience, feels that 
he is the one true copy persisting through time - even though 
intellectually he knows this is not true.


We all know that feelings are an unreliable guide to anything. Careful 
analysis is a much better guide to what is actually going on. I might, 
in a moment of waking confusion, fell that I am the reincarnation of 
Cleopatra, but that is not a reliable feeling.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On 18 July 2016 at 12:53, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On 16/07/2016 5:05 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 15 Jul 2016, at 04:00, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>
> On 15/07/2016 12:38 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 14 Jul 2016, at 02:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>
>
> There is no single 1p view -- there are three possible 1p views in the
> triplication scenario.
>
>
> Right. The point is that from the first person perspective, those 1-views
> are logically incompatible.
>
>
> No they are not. They all refer to the experience of John Clark, as
> defined by you.
>
>
> Not at all. My definition, accepted by JKC, makes the M and the W-guy both
> equal to the H-guy, but different between each other. In this context of
> person, a =: b & a =: c does not entail that b =: c, with "=:" read as
> "becomes". That is well known about modalities.
>
>
> This is probably the heart of the matter. You are claiming that
> transitivity does not obtain for personal identity:  You say that the
> person in Moscow is the same person as the person in Helsinki, and that the
> person in Washington is also the same as the person in Helsinki. But also
> claim that the person in Washington is not the same as the person in
> Moscow, in contradiction with transitivity as applied to personal identity.
> This might be true in modal logic, but the question remains as to whether
> modal logic applies to personal identity. I suggest that it does not, and
> that you have simply begged the question here.
>
> If personal identity is not transitive, then we have all sorts of problems
> with the endurance of personal identity over time: if Bruce at age 30
> becomes Bruce at age 40, and Bruce at age 30 becomes Bruce at age 50, the
> breakdown of transitivity would imply that Bruce at age 40 does not become
> Bruce at age 50!
>
> The copy in Washington and the copy in Moscow, because they are distinct
> physical objects, might well become different over time -- they have
> different experiences, develop different likings, values, desires and so
> forth over time, but this does not suffice to make them different persons,
> else we would all become different persons over time. Poetically that might
> be the case, but the problem of personal identity is to capture the
> everyday experience and intuition that, despite all these changes wrought
> by time, we remain the same single unique person over time. Consequently,
> the differences that develop between the Washington and Moscow copies do
> not suffice to make them different persons -- those same changes in the
> individuals would, by the same token, make them both different from the
> original person in Helsinki and we would not have duplication of persons at
> all.
>
> The case of genetically identical twins might provide a possible insight
> into the case of two persons having a single origin. Identical twins start
> from a single fertilized egg that splits then, instead of that split
> presaging further development of a single embryo, the two offshoot cells
> develop separately to form two genetically identical embryos. In this case,
> differences do arise between the twins, in embryo and post natal, and
> although there has been a duplication in a real sense, we never get
> confused into thinking that these two 'identical' twins are, in fact, just
> one person. There is a breakdown of transitivity here if you trace back to
> the original fertilized egg, but there is no confusion arising from the
> thought that a 'person' has been duplicated.
>

The confusion arises due to first person psychological continuity. Take
this out of the picture and what you are left with is unambiguous facts.


> This is where the closest continuer theory shows its strength: you
> maintain your unique identity through the changes and chances of time
> because at any particular time, there is generally only one "continuer"
> that could reasonably be supposed to be you. However, in the case of
> duplication protocols, an element of ambiguity is introduced. The cleanest
> way through this ambiguity is to suppose the if there is a tie for
> 'closest' continuer (according to some metric for closeness), two new
> persons are created, just as with the genetically identical twins -- the
> split created two potential embryos, though both are identical to the
> original egg, and these embryos develop into two distinct and different
> people, without any confusion as to personal identity.
>
> So in your duplication scenarios, the case in which the original is
> duplicated, but continues to exist, the closest continuer theory would have
> some measure that gave significance to bodily continuity, so we would say
> that the original person continued intact, and that, although sharing some
> background with the continuer, a new individual was created in the
> manufactured duplicate. In the duplication scenario in which the original
> is cut or deleted, then there is no preferred unique continuer, so there is
> a tie,

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/17/2016 8:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



On 18 July 2016 at 12:35, Bruce Kellett > wrote:


On 18/07/2016 12:10 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 11:54, Bruce Kellett
>
wrote:

I have said several times that probability is a problem for
the Everettian or MWI view. This is not a problem of defining
a measure over a possible infinite number of worlds -- though
that is certainly a problem that has not really been solved
-- but the main difficulty lies in the observation that
probability makes little sense in a situation in which
everything possible does happen. So there is no workable
notion of probability in the Everettian multiverse.

Standard quantum mechanics gets around this in a fairly
straightforward way: the "other worlds" in which alternative
outcomes occur are  disjoint, with no possible future
interaction with the world in which we find ourselves. Such
alternative outcomes can thus be safely ignored because they
can have no possible effect on the observer or on his future
evolution. Decoherence ,and the irreversibility of completed
experimental outcomes, thus reduce QM to an effective
collapse situation -- there is no physical collapse, but FAPP
the other worlds have vanished from existence.


 You seem to be saying that if the copies in the other worlds
effectively vanish due inaccessibility, this is fundamentally
different with regard to personal identity compared to the case
of duplication within the one world. I don't see why that should
be so. It may solve some practical problems, such as which copy
gets the possessions of the original, but these are not
fundamental problems with personal identity.


Practical problems are what is at stake in personal identity, and
the inaccessibility of other worlds solves these because we only
look for a closest continuer in the world we actually inhabit --
all others are irrelevant for any purposes whatsoever. A theory of
personal identity has to solve practical problems, and to accord
with our expectations and intuitions in difficult cases. That is
why person duplication scenarios are a problem for a satisfactory
theory.


Practical problems are very important but they do not necessarily 
impact on personal identity. If God grants me a vision of my copies in 
other worlds that would be interesting, but it would not make me 
change my view of personal identity in general or my identity in 
particular given that I already believed those copies were out there 
anyway.


"Closest continuer theory" should not be presented as if it is the 
standard philosophical position on personal identity, let alone the 
only correct one. It has serious inherent problems, eg. it implies 
that if two identical copies of you are made in a duplication 
experiment then there is no closest continuer and you have not survived.


Just change it "no closer continuer" theory.

Brent

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 18/07/2016 1:25 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 18 July 2016 at 12:35, Bruce Kellett > wrote:


On 18/07/2016 12:10 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 18 July 2016 at 11:54, Bruce Kellett
>
wrote:

I have said several times that probability is a problem for
the Everettian or MWI view. This is not a problem of defining
a measure over a possible infinite number of worlds -- though
that is certainly a problem that has not really been solved
-- but the main difficulty lies in the observation that
probability makes little sense in a situation in which
everything possible does happen. So there is no workable
notion of probability in the Everettian multiverse.

Standard quantum mechanics gets around this in a fairly
straightforward way: the "other worlds" in which alternative
outcomes occur are  disjoint, with no possible future
interaction with the world in which we find ourselves. Such
alternative outcomes can thus be safely ignored because they
can have no possible effect on the observer or on his future
evolution. Decoherence ,and the irreversibility of completed
experimental outcomes, thus reduce QM to an effective
collapse situation -- there is no physical collapse, but FAPP
the other worlds have vanished from existence.


 You seem to be saying that if the copies in the other worlds
effectively vanish due inaccessibility, this is fundamentally
different with regard to personal identity compared to the case
of duplication within the one world. I don't see why that should
be so. It may solve some practical problems, such as which copy
gets the possessions of the original, but these are not
fundamental problems with personal identity.


Practical problems are what is at stake in personal identity, and
the inaccessibility of other worlds solves these because we only
look for a closest continuer in the world we actually inhabit --
all others are irrelevant for any purposes whatsoever. A theory of
personal identity has to solve practical problems, and to accord
with our expectations and intuitions in difficult cases. That is
why person duplication scenarios are a problem for a satisfactory
theory.


Practical problems are very important but they do not necessarily 
impact on personal identity. If God grants me a vision of my copies in 
other worlds that would be interesting, but it would not make me 
change my view of personal identity in general or my identity in 
particular given that I already believed those copies were out there 
anyway.


"Closest continuer theory" should not be presented as if it is the 
standard philosophical position on personal identity, let alone the 
only correct one. It has serious inherent problems, eg. it implies 
that if two identical copies of you are made in a duplication 
experiment then there is no closest continuer and you have not survived.


That is what I have always said happens in ties. Why is that a problem? 
Note that there is a difference between Bruno's steps in that in step 3 
(I think) the original continues, and thus would have at least a bodily 
claim to be the unique closest continuer. In the other scenario, the 
original is cut, so there can be no problem if one says in that case 
that there is a genuine tie -- the original dies and two new persons are 
created. Where's the problem?


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On 18 July 2016 at 12:35, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On 18/07/2016 12:10 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> On 18 July 2016 at 11:54, Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
> I have said several times that probability is a problem for the Everettian
>> or MWI view. This is not a problem of defining a measure over a possible
>> infinite number of worlds -- though that is certainly a problem that has
>> not really been solved -- but the main difficulty lies in the observation
>> that probability makes little sense in a situation in which everything
>> possible does happen. So there is no workable notion of probability in the
>> Everettian multiverse.
>>
>> Standard quantum mechanics gets around this in a fairly straightforward
>> way: the "other worlds" in which alternative outcomes occur are  disjoint,
>> with no possible future interaction with the world in which we find
>> ourselves. Such alternative outcomes can thus be safely ignored because
>> they can have no possible effect on the observer or on his future
>> evolution. Decoherence ,and the irreversibility of completed experimental
>> outcomes, thus reduce QM to an effective collapse situation -- there is no
>> physical collapse, but FAPP the other worlds have vanished from existence.
>>
>
>  You seem to be saying that if the copies in the other worlds effectively
> vanish due inaccessibility, this is fundamentally different with regard to
> personal identity compared to the case of duplication within the one world.
> I don't see why that should be so. It may solve some practical problems,
> such as which copy gets the possessions of the original, but these are not
> fundamental problems with personal identity.
>
>
> Practical problems are what is at stake in personal identity, and the
> inaccessibility of other worlds solves these because we only look for a
> closest continuer in the world we actually inhabit -- all others are
> irrelevant for any purposes whatsoever. A theory of personal identity has
> to solve practical problems, and to accord with our expectations and
> intuitions in difficult cases. That is why person duplication scenarios are
> a problem for a satisfactory theory.
>

Practical problems are very important but they do not necessarily impact on
personal identity. If God grants me a vision of my copies in other worlds
that would be interesting, but it would not make me change my view of
personal identity in general or my identity in particular given that I
already believed those copies were out there anyway.

"Closest continuer theory" should not be presented as if it is the standard
philosophical position on personal identity, let alone the only correct
one. It has serious inherent problems, eg. it implies that if two identical
copies of you are made in a duplication experiment then there is no closest
continuer and you have not survived.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 16/07/2016 5:05 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 15 Jul 2016, at 04:00, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 15/07/2016 12:38 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 14 Jul 2016, at 02:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:


There is no single 1p view -- there are three possible 1p views in 
the triplication scenario.


Right. The point is that from the first person perspective, those 
1-views are logically incompatible.


No they are not. They all refer to the experience of John Clark, as 
defined by you.


Not at all. My definition, accepted by JKC, makes the M and the W-guy 
both equal to the H-guy, but different between each other. In this 
context of person, a =: b & a =: c does not entail that b =: c, with 
"=:" read as "becomes". That is well known about modalities.


This is probably the heart of the matter. You are claiming that 
transitivity does not obtain for personal identity:  You say that the 
person in Moscow is the same person as the person in Helsinki, and that 
the person in Washington is also the same as the person in Helsinki. But 
also claim that the person in Washington is not the same as the person 
in Moscow, in contradiction with transitivity as applied to personal 
identity. This might be true in modal logic, but the question remains as 
to whether modal logic applies to personal identity. I suggest that it 
does not, and that you have simply begged the question here.


If personal identity is not transitive, then we have all sorts of 
problems with the endurance of personal identity over time: if Bruce at 
age 30 becomes Bruce at age 40, and Bruce at age 30 becomes Bruce at age 
50, the breakdown of transitivity would imply that Bruce at age 40 does 
not become Bruce at age 50!


The copy in Washington and the copy in Moscow, because they are distinct 
physical objects, might well become different over time -- they have 
different experiences, develop different likings, values, desires and so 
forth over time, but this does not suffice to make them different 
persons, else we would all become different persons over time. 
Poetically that might be the case, but the problem of personal identity 
is to capture the everyday experience and intuition that, despite all 
these changes wrought by time, we remain the same single unique person 
over time. Consequently, the differences that develop between the 
Washington and Moscow copies do not suffice to make them different 
persons -- those same changes in the individuals would, by the same 
token, make them both different from the original person in Helsinki and 
we would not have duplication of persons at all.


The case of genetically identical twins might provide a possible insight 
into the case of two persons having a single origin. Identical twins 
start from a single fertilized egg that splits then, instead of that 
split presaging further development of a single embryo, the two offshoot 
cells develop separately to form two genetically identical embryos. In 
this case, differences do arise between the twins, in embryo and post 
natal, and although there has been a duplication in a real sense, we 
never get confused into thinking that these two 'identical' twins are, 
in fact, just one person. There is a breakdown of transitivity here if 
you trace back to the original fertilized egg, but there is no confusion 
arising from the thought that a 'person' has been duplicated.


This is where the closest continuer theory shows its strength: you 
maintain your unique identity through the changes and chances of time 
because at any particular time, there is generally only one "continuer" 
that could reasonably be supposed to be you. However, in the case of 
duplication protocols, an element of ambiguity is introduced. The 
cleanest way through this ambiguity is to suppose the if there is a tie 
for 'closest' continuer (according to some metric for closeness), two 
new persons are created, just as with the genetically identical twins -- 
the split created two potential embryos, though both are identical to 
the original egg, and these embryos develop into two distinct and 
different people, without any confusion as to personal identity.


So in your duplication scenarios, the case in which the original is 
duplicated, but continues to exist, the closest continuer theory would 
have some measure that gave significance to bodily continuity, so we 
would say that the original person continued intact, and that, although 
sharing some background with the continuer, a new individual was created 
in the manufactured duplicate. In the duplication scenario in which the 
original is cut or deleted, then there is no preferred unique continuer, 
so there is a tie, and we would say that two new persons are created 
(the original having been destroyed).


If you think these things through, you can see that this theory of 
personal identity resolves all the problems that your "psychological" 
theory encounters.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 18/07/2016 12:10 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 18 July 2016 at 11:54, Bruce Kellett > wrote:


I have said several times that probability is a problem for the
Everettian or MWI view. This is not a problem of defining a
measure over a possible infinite number of worlds -- though that
is certainly a problem that has not really been solved -- but the
main difficulty lies in the observation that probability makes
little sense in a situation in which everything possible does
happen. So there is no workable notion of probability in the
Everettian multiverse.

Standard quantum mechanics gets around this in a fairly
straightforward way: the "other worlds" in which alternative
outcomes occur are  disjoint, with no possible future interaction
with the world in which we find ourselves. Such alternative
outcomes can thus be safely ignored because they can have no
possible effect on the observer or on his future evolution.
Decoherence ,and the irreversibility of completed experimental
outcomes, thus reduce QM to an effective collapse situation --
there is no physical collapse, but FAPP the other worlds have
vanished from existence.


 You seem to be saying that if the copies in the other worlds 
effectively vanish due inaccessibility, this is fundamentally 
different with regard to personal identity compared to the case of 
duplication within the one world. I don't see why that should be so. 
It may solve some practical problems, such as which copy gets the 
possessions of the original, but these are not fundamental problems 
with personal identity.


Practical problems are what is at stake in personal identity, and the 
inaccessibility of other worlds solves these because we only look for a 
closest continuer in the world we actually inhabit -- all others are 
irrelevant for any purposes whatsoever. A theory of personal identity 
has to solve practical problems, and to accord with our expectations and 
intuitions in difficult cases. That is why person duplication scenarios 
are a problem for a satisfactory theory.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On 18 July 2016 at 11:54, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

I have said several times that probability is a problem for the Everettian
> or MWI view. This is not a problem of defining a measure over a possible
> infinite number of worlds -- though that is certainly a problem that has
> not really been solved -- but the main difficulty lies in the observation
> that probability makes little sense in a situation in which everything
> possible does happen. So there is no workable notion of probability in the
> Everettian multiverse.
>
> Standard quantum mechanics gets around this in a fairly straightforward
> way: the "other worlds" in which alternative outcomes occur are  disjoint,
> with no possible future interaction with the world in which we find
> ourselves. Such alternative outcomes can thus be safely ignored because
> they can have no possible effect on the observer or on his future
> evolution. Decoherence ,and the irreversibility of completed experimental
> outcomes, thus reduce QM to an effective collapse situation -- there is no
> physical collapse, but FAPP the other worlds have vanished from existence.
>

 You seem to be saying that if the copies in the other worlds effectively
vanish due inaccessibility, this is fundamentally different with regard to
personal identity compared to the case of duplication within the one world.
I don't see why that should be so. It may solve some practical problems,
such as which copy gets the possessions of the original, but these are not
fundamental problems with personal identity.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/17/2016 6:06 PM, PGC wrote:
Assuming this sort of ontology the phenomenological multiplayer video 
game section of subjective machine experience requires that 
persistence via its own definition.


Persistence, continuity in time, I understand.  Without that you 
couldn't identify PGC of now with PGC of a moment ago.   But why should 
PGC's perception be confined to Washington xor Moscow? Already with the 
miracle of TV we can see shooting in Ankara and Baton Rouge at the same 
time.  Are the Borg impossible according to some theorem of modal logic 
and computationalism?  I don't think so.


Brent
"We are the Dyslexic of Borg. Futility is persistent. Your ass will be 
laminated."


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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 16/07/2016 4:32 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 15 Jul 2016, at 03:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:

that anything new actually happens. He could have started there and 
argued for the reversal of physics and computationalism directly. The 
duplication of persons is just a distracting irrelevance to the main 
argument, and depends so heavily on a particular theory of personal 
identity as to be essentially useless.


It depends on any identity theory in which you survive completely with 
a brain transplant, that is what the step 1 is all about. You 
illustrate that such an easy step was needed, it seems to me.


If you survive brain transplant you introduce all sorts of problems for 
an account of personal identity. Just read the relevant philosophical 
literature. Your "easy step" elides all the problems.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 16/07/2016 4:28 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 15 Jul 2016, at 02:07, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 15/07/2016 9:42 am, Jason Resch wrote:
I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave one to 
both John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The questionnaires each had 8 
questions:


1. What city did you last recall being in?
2. How many cities do you see now?
3. What is the name of the city you see before you?
4. True/False: You see two cities right now:
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was:
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was:
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was:
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was:

When I gave the questionnaire to John-Washington, he filled out the 
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do you see now? *One*
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? *Washington*
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: *False*
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: *True*
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: *False*
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow 
was: *False*
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: 
*True*


When I gave the questionnaire to John-Moscow, he filled out the 
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do you see now? *One*
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? *Moscow*
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: *False*
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: *False*
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: *True*
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow 
was: *False*
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: 
*True*


Both Johns expressed deep regret over insulting people on the 
Everything list, most especially Bruno. It turned out neither 
John-Washington's, nor John-Moscow's prediction that they would see 
both cities was true from their own first person points of view.


But you have introduced a distinction between John-W and John-M that 
is not present in the original protocol. Remember that the criterion 
of personal identity you are working with is based on person memories 
(verified by a personal diary if necessary). Both copies of John have 
these memories and these diaries, so they both have equal claims to 
be John. "John", as this duplicated person, predicts with certainty 
that he will see W, and that he will see M, so he predicts that he 
will see both cities.


Yes, but only one in all 1p views accessible, and the question is on 
the future 1p view, not on the 3-1 views, for the same reason that 
when we look at 1/sqrt(2)(up + down) in the {up, down} base we can 
predict with certainty that we will see either up, OR down and never 
both at once.


I have said several times that probability is a problem for the 
Everettian or MWI view. This is not a problem of defining a measure over 
a possible infinite number of worlds -- though that is certainly a 
problem that has not really been solved -- but the main difficulty lies 
in the observation that probability makes little sense in a situation in 
which everything possible does happen. So there is no workable notion of 
probability in the Everettian multiverse.


Standard quantum mechanics gets around this in a fairly straightforward 
way: the "other worlds" in which alternative outcomes occur are  
disjoint, with no possible future interaction with the world in which we 
find ourselves. Such alternative outcomes can thus be safely ignored 
because they can have no possible effect on the observer or on his 
future evolution. Decoherence ,and the irreversibility of completed 
experimental outcomes, thus reduce QM to an effective collapse situation 
-- there is no physical collapse, but FAPP the other worlds have 
vanished from existence.






The fact that this appears odd is that our conventional intuition is 
essentially dualist -- we think that there is a central core that is 
the "real me" that gives me my continuing sense of personal identity. 
This intuition breaks down when you have duplication of persons.


Then computationalism, and Everett QM breaks down. Computationalism 
guaranties that whoever you will become, it is lived and felt as one 
unique person in one city, or you bring some telepathy of a kind not 
possible with computationalism with the protocol discussed.


Everett breaks down only if you try and imagine that the observer 
actually lives in the multiverse. But he does not -- the observer only 
ever observes one world. He might be uncertain as to which world he will 
inhabit in the future (which experimental outcome he will observe), but 
this does not introduce the paradoxes of person duplication in one world.


As you say in another post, computationalism

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread PGC

On Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 8:05:59 PM UTC+2, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/17/2016 7:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
> > The duplicating machine cannot introduce a telepathic link which would 
> > be mandatory for having an experience of both cities at once, so that 
> > the candidate would write "I see W and M". That simply never happens, 
> > or computationalism is false. 
>
> It's easy to see that physics implies one cannot see both W and M at the 
> same time, but I don't see how it follows from computationalism.  Why is 
> there spacetime localization? 
>

Assuming this sort of ontology the phenomenological multiplayer video game 
section of subjective machine experience requires that persistence via its 
own definition. Experienced intersubjectivity must feature some things 
folks can agree upon, even if on this list, such would be quite hard to 
believe!

And yet it's hard to agree on stuff which is why genuine platonists never 
manage to meet, because of infinite squabbling concerning which minuscule 
part of a world to share and how to do so, despite the fact that reality is 
apparently consistent enough to do it! That is a small miracle that is nice 
to remember when having to annoyingly visit friends or family: it can be 
part of why we're here.

Thank god some people forget Plato because without them, this little 
project on a blue dot would long have extinguished itself because Plato 
folks tend to forget to fuck. I am an exception you may note and don't know 
what went wrong with me. :-) PGC

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-17 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/17/2016 7:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The duplicating machine cannot introduce a telepathic link which would 
be mandatory for having an experience of both cities at once, so that 
the candidate would write "I see W and M". That simply never happens, 
or computationalism is false.


It's easy to see that physics implies one cannot see both W and M at the 
same time, but I don't see how it follows from computationalism.  Why is 
there spacetime localization?


Brent

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Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-17 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 14 Jul 2016, at 21:49, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 10:10 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

>>> The better prediction was "W v M and I have no clue  
which one".

>> The better prediction about WHAT?
> About the first person experience

There is no such thing as THE first person experience, there is  
only A first person experience.

The Helsinki guy now that he will survive, and that he cannot have the  
simultaneous first person experience of being in the two cities at  
once, so he will have with P = 1 an experience of seeing one city and  
not the other. "The" refers to that experience of seeing only one city  
and not the other that the guy in Helsinki expect. It is a "a" in the  
3-1 view, but it is a "the" for both copies.

> that is accessible to the candidate in Helsinki.

Both Moscow AND Washington are accessible because there are  
people in BOTH Washington and Moscow who remember being the Helsinki  
Man and neither city is more favored because both memories are  
equally vivid.

Excellent. Both Washington  AND Moscow are accessible equally. That is  
why P = 1/2 is the most plausible candidate in this situation. Both  
statements made by the copies confirm one city, and not the others,  
and both deserve to be listened equally.

>With computationalism, the guy in Helsinki knows that he will  
survive,

The guy in Helsinki knows that the guy in Helsinki will  
survive, but the guy in Helsinki knows nothing about "he".

Refutation: he knows perfectly well that after pushing the button, he  
will feel to be in either Moscow, or Washington, and never in both  
cities, from the 1-p pov, with "the" explained as above.

> given that we know that both will live A 1p view. But  
we know that the two 1p view are logically incompatible.

No, it would be logically incompatible only if people  
duplicating machines did not exist.

You forget again to put yourself at the place of both copies, as this  
shows immediately that you are plain wrong here. Like often, you stop  
the reasoning in the middle. It is simply obvious, given the  
assumption and protocol that the W and M 1p views are logically  
incompatible. No observer at all will have the 1p experience of seeing  
both cities.

You keep doing the same obvious mistake again and again.

For heaven's sake making those two views logically compatible is  
the very thing that makes a people duplicating machine a people  
duplicating machine! It's what they do!

The duplicating machine cannot introduce a telepathic link which would  
be mandatory for having an experience of both cities at once, so that  
the candidate would write "I see W and M". That simply never happens,  
or computationalism is false.

 >> All the 1-views that saw all those cities have an  
equal right to call themselves John Clark, so the answer to the  
question "what is the probability John Clark will see city X?" is  
100%.

> Only in the 3p view.

What the hell does that mean?

It means that for the outsider who look at the experience, or for the  
experiencer when he is in Helsinki, there will be a duplicated body,  
with each an 1p experience, in both cities, so that indeed the  
probability that JKC see city X is 100%, from the 3-1 view. But from  
this it does not follow that all copies will see both cities. In fact  
each copy will see only one city, and the Helsinki guy knew that in  
advance, so the probability, for the 1-view, is P(seeing one city) =  
1. And, as you argue correctly on the equally valid statement made by  
both copy, we get the ¨=1/2. It is the perfect 3-1 symmetry which  
entails the perfect indeterminacy P = 1/2.

 > You agree that for the cities which are not X, the guy  
will not see X, and so refute already what you say here.

I neither agree nor disagree because I have no idea who "THE guy 
" is.

Because you stop the experience in the middle. You forget to consult  
the diary of both copies, who both testify that they both see only one  
city. You abtract away from that second part of the experience, for  
unknown reason (you did this mistake very often).

People duplicating machines make it logically impossible for just  
one guy to refute the prediction that John Clark the Helsinki Man  
will see 2 cities, otherwise it wouldn't be a people duplicating  
machine.

You keep forgetting that the question is on the 1-views, so trivially,  
just one guy can refute a prediction. If he wrote "W and M" in  
Helsinki, both guy will refute the prediction, as it is on the 1-View,  
with "the" in the sense above.

You don't refute step 3, you just ignore it.

> The answer is crystal clear: it is: " Washington or Moscow,  
and I can't be more precise than that".

The answer may be crystal clear but that's not the problem. To  
hell with the answer, John Clark want's to know what the question  
was.

What can

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-16 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 3:33 PM, Bruce Kellett
 wrote:
> On 15/07/2016 8:31 pm, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 3:19 AM, Bruce Kellett
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> On 15/07/2016 11:03 am, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Although I think JKC has a point about pronouns, I don't see what it has
>>> to
>>> do with Bruno's theory.  He just proposes this as an illustration of
>>> first-person-indetermancy as implicit in Everett's interpretation of QM.
>>> It has problems with probability, but so does Everett's QM - what does
>>> probability refer to when everything happens.  The question of which JKC
>>> just gets mapped to which world.
>>>
>>>
>>> Exactly. I have made this point before. The first six or seven steps of
>>> Bruno's argument are not really necessary. It is only when he moves the
>>> Universal Dovetailer into platonia in step 8 that anything new actually
>>> happens.
>>
>> I don't think the argument would pack the same punch without the
>> previous steps. It's easy to dismiss the move to platonia without
>> them. With them it is not so easy -- unless you resort to linguistic
>> tricks like confusing 1p and 3p on purpose.
>
>
> It is easy to dismiss the move to platonia at any time. Confusing 1p and 3p
> is not relevant here.

Confusing 1p and 3p is a trick used by several people to refute the
initial steps of Bruno's argument, on the grounds of the supposed
ambiguity of the pronouns.

How do you dismiss the move to platonia while assuming computationalism?

>>> He could have started there and argued for the reversal of physics
>>> and computationalism directly. The duplication of persons is just a
>>> distracting irrelevance to the main argument,
>>
>> The duplication machines are an excellent device to expose materialist
>> self-contraditions (if you do not assume dualism).
>
>
> Materialism or physicalism?
> I don't think I am trying to defend the idea
> that matter excludes the mental. Besides, where is the self-contradiction in
> materialism (or physicalism)?

Both entail that mind is an emergent phenomena on the complex
interactions of physical particles. But then you are left, in my view,
with two scenarios:

- The complex interactions perform a computation, and that is what
mind is. But then, the computation is necessarily finite and can be
repeated. Unless you believe that this is the only universe there is
and that it is finite in time, any such computation is bound to be
repeated with p=1, so we reach a contradiction: mind cannot be local
and associated to a specific piece of matter after all;

- The complex interactions do something else than a computation. But
then what do they do? All emergent phenomena that we know about can be
traced back to some fundamental building blocks, but what are the
building blocks in the case of consciousness? It's a magical step.

>> I don't see how
>> these contradictions would be exposed by outright proposing the move
>> to platonia. This feels like an attempt to "put Bruno in his place" by
>> forcing him to defang his argument.
>
>
> If you propose the UD in platonia and derive physics from computations
> through conscious persons, the "contradictions of materialism", if there are
> such, become irrelevant.

No, because the point is to show that computationalism and materialism
are incompatible.

>>> and depends so heavily on a
>>> particular theory of personal identity as to be essentially useless.
>>
>> Would you mind restating Bruno's theory of personal identity in your
>> own words (so that we can agree that we are on the same page) and the
>> present a conflicting theory? I think this is the way forward.
>> Otherwise it's just subtle ad hominen: "you are ignorant about the
>> topic of personal identity!"
>
>
> People on this list seem to be very quick to interpret a lack of
> philosophical insight into anything (theories of personal identity here) as
> an ad hominem, whereas it is often a simple statement of fact.

It's an ad hominem if you do not cite the alternative theory that you
are alluding to, so that we can go verify by ourselves and then come
back with objections or change our minds.

> Bruno himself
> is always criticizing his critics for a lack of understanding of modal
> logics and computer science.

Yes, but he then goes on to explain these topics. Why don't you do the
same and explain yours?

> I find the commenters on this list to be, in
> general, philosophically naive.

Perhaps, but the majority are not (or were not) philosophy-adverse.
Some are, but that's not me.

> The theory of personal identity behind the duplication protocols is not
> clearly spelled out, but it is basically a psychological theory, that places
> heavy emphasis on personal memories, though no doubt does give some import
> to things like character, values, beliefs, desires, intentions and so forth.

I would say that, if you assume comp, then all of those things are
encoded in the memories somehow.

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-16 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 15 Jul 2016, at 15:33, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 15/07/2016 8:31 pm, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 3:19 AM, Bruce Kellett
 wrote:

On 15/07/2016 11:03 am, Brent Meeker wrote:


Although I think JKC has a point about pronouns, I don't see what  
it has to

do with Bruno's theory.  He just proposes this as an illustration of
first-person-indetermancy as implicit in Everett's interpretation  
of QM.
It has problems with probability, but so does Everett's QM - what  
does
probability refer to when everything happens.  The question of  
which JKC

just gets mapped to which world.


Exactly. I have made this point before. The first six or seven  
steps of
Bruno's argument are not really necessary. It is only when he  
moves the
Universal Dovetailer into platonia in step 8 that anything new  
actually

happens.

I don't think the argument would pack the same punch without the
previous steps. It's easy to dismiss the move to platonia without
them. With them it is not so easy -- unless you resort to linguistic
tricks like confusing 1p and 3p on purpose.


It is easy to dismiss the move to platonia at any time.


read the apers or my posts. There is no "move in Platonia". There is  
only "arithmetical realism", the belief that 2+2=4. That is assumed in  
all physical theories.






Confusing 1p and 3p is not relevant here.


Then you are changing the topic.







He could have started there and argued for the reversal of physics
and computationalism directly. The duplication of persons is just a
distracting irrelevance to the main argument,
The duplication machines are an excellent device to expose  
materialist

self-contraditions (if you do not assume dualism).


Materialism or physicalism? I don't think I am trying to defend the  
idea that matter excludes the mental. Besides, where is the self- 
contradiction in materialism (or physicalism)?


Step 7 (with Occam), or step 8 (with a much weaker Occam).







I don't see how
these contradictions would be exposed by outright proposing the move
to platonia. This feels like an attempt to "put Bruno in his place"  
by

forcing him to defang his argument.


If you propose the UD in platonia


The UD existence is a theorem in Peano Arithmetic. Or a metatheorem  
about Robinson Arithmetic.





and derive physics from computations through conscious persons, the  
"contradictions of materialism", if there are such, become irrelevant.


How could the theorem becomes irrelevant. UDA is the proof that  
materialism needs non Turing emulable/recoverable magic in the brain  
to make sense, and thus contradict computationalism. (recoverable =  
FPI recoverable).










and depends so heavily on a
particular theory of personal identity as to be essentially useless.

Would you mind restating Bruno's theory of personal identity in your
own words (so that we can agree that we are on the same page) and the
present a conflicting theory? I think this is the way forward.
Otherwise it's just subtle ad hominen: "you are ignorant about the
topic of personal identity!"


People on this list seem to be very quick to interpret a lack of  
philosophical insight into anything (theories of personal identity  
here) as an ad hominem, whereas it is often a simple statement of  
fact.


All I see is that you pursue the confusion between 1p and 3p, but  
taking the definition, agreed by everyone, even JKC, we get the result  
directly, when taking the fundamental difference between the 1p and  
the 3p view.


Do you agree that both the W-guy and the M-guy (in the step 3  
protocol) get both one bit of information?




Bruno himself is always criticizing his critics for a lack of  
understanding of modal logics and computer science.


When I criticize attempt to refute AUDA (the translation of UDA in  
arithmetic, or the interview of the Löbian machine). But here we are  
in UDA, which does not presuppose modal logics nor many computer  
science, just an intuition on computation, that is a passive  
understanding of how a computer works. I got UDA by a reflexion in  
molecular biology. I realize later that the main thing already exiosts  
in arithmetic, and that computer science brought an exact biology and  
psychology, and theology, in arithmetic.


You, on the contrary do the constant philosophical error consisting in  
a invocation of some "real thing" or "reality", well a God, in the  
theoretical sense of the antic greeks.




I find the commenters on this list to be, in general,  
philosophically naive.


That is the move: I lost the argument, so I will content myself with  
insulting the audience.







The theory of personal identity behind the duplication protocols is  
not clearly spelled out,


It is. Even JKC agrees on it. What is clearly spelled out, but that  
you want to dismiss, is the obvious fact that both the H and M guy got  
one bit of information, from each of such personal view attained in  
that protocol.




but it is

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-16 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 15 Jul 2016, at 04:00, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 15/07/2016 12:38 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 14 Jul 2016, at 02:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 13/07/2016 11:36 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 11 Jul 2016, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:


Holiday Exercise:

A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting  
again from Helsinki.
Then in Moscow, but not in Washington,  he (the one in Moscow  
of course) undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.


I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.

In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.

With one reasoning, he (the H-guy)  thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2,  
and that P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of  
independent probability) that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.


But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications  
give globally a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in  
W, a copy in S and a copy in B, and so, directly conclude P(H- 
S) = 1/3.


So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?


Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki  
gets to Sydney is unity.


Try to convince the guy who gets to Beijing, or the one who  
stayed in Washington. He knows that the probability evaluated in  
Helsinki was not P(Sidney) = 1.


We start with John Clark in Helsinki, so P(JC ~ H) = 1. By  
construction, after the duplication and so on, P(JC ~ W) = P(JC ~  
S) = P(JC ~ B) = 1. (I use '~' as a shorthand for 'in' or 'sees'.)


In the 3-1 view, that is correct.


There is no such thing as "the 3-1 view" distinct from the first  
person view. That is just a piece of jargon that you made up to  
cover the fact that you have assumed a distinction where none exists.



Of course there is. In the 3-1 view, we can say JC survived, and feel  
unique, in both cities. But when the question is about the 1-view  
expected by the H-guy, the answer is unambiguously "in W or in M, as I  
know in advance that both copies will fell unique and like getting one  
bit of information".








But in my posts I insist that "W", "M" denotes the experience of  
opening the door or the reconstitution box, and writting in the  
personal diary which cities is seen. In that case, obviously, P(W),  
P(S) and P(B) cannot be all equal to one as W, S and B are  
incompatible event.


These are not incompatible events: there are three physical bodies,  
one in each city.


These are incompatible *experience*. These are incompatible for  
describing the 1-views. It is obvious that all copies will say "one  
city". And, well, the question was about that unique city that all 1- 
views will confirm as being "only one city".

You seem to eliminate the 1-views, and be on the eliminativist slope.




Your definition of personal identity depends only on memories  
(backed up by personal diaries if necessary).


Exact.



With this definition, and the protocol described, the bodies in W,  
S, and B are all the same person.


That is ambiguous. They are all THE same person AS THE H-GUY, but of  
course the HM-guy and the WM guy have become different from each  
other, despite being both THE H-guy. Identity in modal context does  
not obey Leibniz identity rule.






So it is JC who sees W, JC who sees S, and JC who sees B.


Yes, but not at once, as seeing (from the 1p view) W and seeing S, and  
seeing B, are INCOMPATIBLE 1p experiences.






They are all the same person, so the correct prediction is that JC  
will see all three cities.


In the 3-1 view. But that would be obviously contradicted by all the 1- 
views, which was what we were predicting.





If you now introduce a difference between the copies, then they  
become different persons, and the correct prediction would be that  
JC (who sees H) will see no further cities because he no longer  
exists.


The H-guy knows that both the W and M guys will be version of the H- 
guy having survived two teleportation experiences, and that those  
experiences will be incompatible *experiences*.







JC in Helsinki knows the protocol, so he can easily see that these  
are the correct probabilities. So, as I said, the probability that  
the guy starting from Helsinki gets to Sydney is unity. Any other  
interpretation of this scenario involves an implicit appeal to  
dualism -- there is "one true JC" that goes through these  
duplications, and he can only ever end up in just one place.


Not at all. By comp we agree that they are all the true JC, and  
that they all see, taken together, all cities. But the question is  
about the personal events lived by the H-guy after he will push the  
button, and that makes the events (1p-events) incompatible.


As I said above, the events are not incompatible. You are relying on  
an intuition formed in a world without person duplication.


We duplicate since we are amoebas. The sexual reproduction has just  
add some shuffling in evolution. And, if I introduced those  
duplication, it was for people understanding that a 3-1

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-16 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 15 Jul 2016, at 03:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 15/07/2016 11:03 am, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 7/14/2016 5:07 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 15/07/2016 9:42 am, Jason Resch wrote:
I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave one to  
both John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The questionnaires each  
had 8 questions:


1. What city did you last recall being in?
2. How many cities do you see now?
3. What is the name of the city you see before you?
4. True/False: You see two cities right now:
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was:
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was:
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow  
was:
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow  
was:


When I gave the questionnaire to John-Washington, he filled out  
the following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? Helsinki
2. How many cities do you see now? One
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? Washington
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: False
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: True
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: False
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow  
was: False
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow  
was: True


When I gave the questionnaire to John-Moscow, he filled out the  
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? Helsinki
2. How many cities do you see now? One
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? Moscow
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: False
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: False
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: True
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow  
was: False
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow  
was: True


Both Johns expressed deep regret over insulting people on the  
Everything list, most especially Bruno. It turned out neither  
John-Washington's, nor John-Moscow's prediction that they would  
see both cities was true from their own first person points of  
view.


But you have introduced a distinction between John-W and John-M  
that is not present in the original protocol. Remember that the  
criterion of personal identity you are working with is based on  
person memories (verified by a personal diary if necessary). Both  
copies of John have these memories and these diaries, so they both  
have equal claims to be John. "John", as this duplicated person,  
predicts with certainty that he will see W, and that he will see  
M, so he predicts that he will see both cities.


The fact that this appears odd is that our conventional intuition  
is essentially dualist -- we think that there is a central core  
that is the "real me" that gives me my continuing sense of  
personal identity. This intuition breaks down when you have  
duplication of persons.


Although I think JKC has a point about pronouns, I don't see what  
it has to do with Bruno's theory.  He just proposes this as an  
illustration of first-person-indetermancy as implicit in Everett's  
interpretation of QM.   It has problems with probability, but so  
does Everett's QM - what does probability refer to when everything  
happens.  The question of which JKC just gets mapped to which world.


Exactly. I have made this point before. The first six or seven steps  
of Bruno's argument are not really necessary. It is only when he  
moves the Universal Dovetailer into platonia in step 8


in step 7. (step 8 just eliminates the concrete physical UD involved  
in step 7).




that anything new actually happens. He could have started there and  
argued for the reversal of physics and computationalism directly.  
The duplication of persons is just a distracting irrelevance to the  
main argument, and depends so heavily on a particular theory of  
personal identity as to be essentially useless.


It depends on any identity theory in which you survive completely with  
a brain transplant, that is what the step 1 is all about. You  
illustrate that such an easy step was needed, it seems to me.


Bruno





Bruce


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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-16 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 15 Jul 2016, at 02:07, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 15/07/2016 9:42 am, Jason Resch wrote:
I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave one to  
both John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The questionnaires each had  
8 questions:


1. What city did you last recall being in?
2. How many cities do you see now?
3. What is the name of the city you see before you?
4. True/False: You see two cities right now:
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was:
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was:
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was:
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was:

When I gave the questionnaire to John-Washington, he filled out the  
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? Helsinki
2. How many cities do you see now? One
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? Washington
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: False
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: True
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: False
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow  
was: False
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow  
was: True


When I gave the questionnaire to John-Moscow, he filled out the  
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? Helsinki
2. How many cities do you see now? One
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? Moscow
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: False
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: False
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: True
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow  
was: False
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow  
was: True


Both Johns expressed deep regret over insulting people on the  
Everything list, most especially Bruno. It turned out neither John- 
Washington's, nor John-Moscow's prediction that they would see both  
cities was true from their own first person points of view.


But you have introduced a distinction between John-W and John-M that  
is not present in the original protocol. Remember that the criterion  
of personal identity you are working with is based on person  
memories (verified by a personal diary if necessary). Both copies of  
John have these memories and these diaries, so they both have equal  
claims to be John. "John", as this duplicated person, predicts with  
certainty that he will see W, and that he will see M, so he predicts  
that he will see both cities.


Yes, but only one in all 1p views accessible, and the question is on  
the future 1p view, not on the 3-1 views, for the same reason that  
when we look at 1/sqrt(2)(up + down) in the {up, down} base we can  
predict with certainty that we will see either up, OR down and never  
both at once.






The fact that this appears odd is that our conventional intuition is  
essentially dualist -- we think that there is a central core that is  
the "real me" that gives me my continuing sense of personal  
identity. This intuition breaks down when you have duplication of  
persons.


Then computationalism, and Everett QM breaks down. Computationalism  
guaranties that whoever you will become, it is lived and felt as one  
unique person in one city, or you bring some telepathy of a kind not  
possible with computationalism with the protocol discussed.


Bruno





Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-16 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 14 Jul 2016, at 21:36, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 7/14/2016 7:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 14 Jul 2016, at 02:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 13/07/2016 11:36 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 11 Jul 2016, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:


Holiday Exercise:

A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting  
again from Helsinki.
Then in Moscow, but not in Washington,  he (the one in Moscow  
of course) undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.


I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.

In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.

With one reasoning, he (the H-guy)  thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2,  
and that P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of  
independent probability) that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.


But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications  
give globally a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in  
W, a copy in S and a copy in B, and so, directly conclude P(H- 
S) = 1/3.


So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?


Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki  
gets to Sydney is unity.


Try to convince the guy who gets to Beijing, or the one who  
stayed in Washington. He knows that the probability evaluated in  
Helsinki was not P(Sidney) = 1.


We start with John Clark in Helsinki, so P(JC ~ H) = 1. By  
construction, after the duplication and so on, P(JC ~ W) = P(JC ~  
S) = P(JC ~ B) = 1. (I use '~' as a shorthand for 'in' or 'sees'.)



In the 3-1 view, that is correct. But in my posts I insist that  
"W", "M" denotes the experience of opening the door or the  
reconstitution box, and writting in the personal diary which cities  
is seen. In that case, obviously, P(W), P(S) and P(B) cannot be all  
equal to one as W, S and B are incompatible event.



But they're not incompatible, they just happen to different  
(physical) beings.



But JC agrees that those two different physical being are both the  
same person as the Helsinki person. As a person cannot be, in that  
protocol, two persons at once from the 1p view, and as the next 1p  
view is the object of prediction, the P *are* incompatible.
If not, in QM, we should always predict all outcome at once, which is  
clearly refuted by the experience.









JC in Helsinki knows the protocol, so he can easily see that these  
are the correct probabilities. So, as I said, the probability that  
the guy starting from Helsinki gets to Sydney is unity. Any other  
interpretation of this scenario involves an implicit appeal to  
dualism -- there is "one true JC" that goes through these  
duplications, and he can only ever end up in just one place.


Not at all. By comp we agree that they are all the true JC,


But there is no the true JC in a world with duplicating machines or  
an Everettian multiverse.


They are all the true JC, with the interpretation of the pronouns on  
which everybody has agreed, even ... the true JC.







and that they all see, taken together, all cities. But the question  
is about the personal events lived by the H-guy after he will push  
the button, and that makes the events (1p-events) incompatible.




I thought the hypothesis was that there is no guy in Helsinki after  
he pushes the button?


Then step one is false already. We did agree, even JC, that the W and  
M guys are both witnessing that the H-guy did survive the  
duplications, which follows from step 1 (surviving a simple  
teleportation (annihilation + reconstitution).














As John Clark has correctly pointed out, your intuition and  
formalism simply does not work in the presence of person- 
duplicating machines.


It works very well, but you need to distinguish between the  
outsider view: all JC see all cities, and each personal views  
obtained, which are incompatible.


You simply borrox John Clark confusion between the 3-1 views and  
the 1-views.


I don't see the confusion.  There are three 1-views.


But only one cities is seen by all involved 1-view, and that is what  
the question was about. So to predict that "I will see all cities" is  
a correct 3-1 description, but false for the prediction on the 1-views  
seen by each 1-view.











There is no single 1p view -- there are three possible 1p views in  
the triplication scenario.


Right. The point is that from the first person perspective, those 1- 
views are logically incompatible.


Which proves that, given computationalism and duplicating machines,  
there is no such thing as THE first person perspective.


They are all THE first person views, when we interview the resulting  
copies. If not, there is no Proba in Everett-QM.











So, again, John Clark is right when he says that JC ~ H will see  
three cities (W, S, and B) after the experiment is completed.


yes, he is right, but only on the 3-1 view on those 1-views, not on  
the 1-views seen by the 1-views, which are incopatible, and which  
was what the prediction asked was all about.




If, as you

Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-15 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 15 Jul 2016, at 22:16, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 7:42 PM, Jason Resch   
wrote:


> I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave  
one to both John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The   
questionnaires each had 8 questions:
1. What city did you last recall being in? Helsinki2. How many  
cities do you see now? One

3. What is the name of the city you see before you? Washington
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: False
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: True
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: False
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow  
was: False
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was:  
True


And every single one of those 8 questions had the personal pronoun  
"you" in it, which in a world with people duplicating machines is an  
ambiguous word, and that means they aren't questions at all  
they're just a sequence of words with a question mark at the  
end. And it isn't a thought experiment, it's a thought  
muddle.


 So let me help you out by rewriting those questions so they  
make sense. The answers are in bold:


1. What city did John Clark last recall being in? Helsinki
2. How many cities does John Clark see now? Two



Wrong, no John Clark can ever see two cities.  No John Clark has ever  
become two person at once from the 1p view, which was the obvious  
intent. The duplication does not fuse the resulting 1p experience. You  
fake to misunderstand.


Bruno





3. What is the name of a city John Clark sees now ?   
Moscow
4. What is the name of another city John Clark sees  
now?  Washington
5. True/False: John Clark sees two cities right  
now: True
6. True/False: The prediction that John Clark will  
see Washington was: True
7. True/False: The prediction that John Clark will  
see Moscow was: True
8. True/False: The prediction that John Clark see  
Washington and Moscow was: True
9. True/False: The prediction that John Clark will see  
Washington or Moscow was: Dependents on if it's a exclusive  
"or". 


A person duplicating machine duplicates "you". That needs repeating,  
a person duplicating machine duplicates "you".  All of "you" is  
duplicated, there is no essential youness or soul that the machine  
can't duplicate. When "you" is duplicated that means there is more  
than one, so to then ask what one and only one city "you" will see  
is just dumb. Equally dumb is to talk about "THE 1p" as if there  
were only one when that has been duplicated too just like everything  
else about "you".


And neither the John Clark in Washington nor the John Clark in  
Moscow sees the slightest need to apologize for pointing out this  
imbecility.


 John K Clark









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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-15 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016  Brent Meeker  wrote:
>
> > 
> Although I think JKC has a point about pronouns, I don't see what it has
> to do with Bruno's theory.  He just proposes this as an illustration of
> first-person-indetermancy as implicit in Everett's interpretation of QM.
> It has problems with probability, but so does Everett's QM
>

Everett has problems
 coming up with probabilities because it's hard to figure out how an
infinite number of worlds and finite probabilities can coexist; maybe the
number of worlds isn't infinite just enormously large, or maybe somebody
will figure out another way to find a answer, but at least Everett's
question is clear.
 But Bruno can't come up with a probability because he doesn't know what he
even 
wants a probability of. Not every string of words is a question even if it
has a question mark at the end.

It's as if Bruno demanded to know what is the probability "THE banana" will
be in Washington, not any old banana will do Bruno wants to know about "THE
banana" even though Bruno can't say what "THE banana" is or how it differs
from every other banana and nobody can tell one banana from another, not
even bananas.

> > 
> what does probability refer to when everything happens
>

If you were
a 
bookie

and wanted to make money it refers to the odds you would give

that the only chunk of matter in the observable universe that behaves in a
Johnkclarkian way will
say "I have just observed
 X
"
 sometime in the next hour.

 John K Clark

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Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-15 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 7:42 PM, Jason Resch  wrote:

> 
>> I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave one to both
>> John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The
>>  
>> questionnaires each had 8 questions:
>
> 1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*2. How many cities
>> do you see now?
>> *One*3. What is the name of the city you see before you?
>> *Washington*4. True/False: You see two cities right now:
>> *False*5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was:
>> *True*6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was:
>> *False*7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow
>> was:
>> *False*8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow
>> was: *True*
>
>
And every single one of those 8 questions had the personal pronoun "you" in
it, which in a world with people duplicating machines is an ambiguous word,
and that means they aren't questions at
all

they're
just a sequence of words
 with a question mark at the end
.

And
 it isn't a thought experiment

, it's a thought muddle.

 So let me help you out by rewriting
those
 questions so they make sense
.

The
 answers are in *bold*:

1. What city did
John Clark
 last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do
es

John Clark
see now?
*Two*
3. What is the name of
a

city John Clark sees now ?
  *Moscow*
4. 
What is the
name of another city
 John Clark sees now?

*Washington*
5
. True/False:
John Clark
 see
s
two cities right now:
*True*
6
. True/False: The prediction that
John Clark

will 
see Washington was:
* True*
7
. True/False: The prediction that
John Clark

will 
see Moscow was: *True*
8
. True/False: The prediction that
John Clark 
see Washington and Moscow was:
*True*
9
. True/False: The prediction that
John Clark will
 see Washington or Moscow was:
*Dependents on if it's a exclusive "or". *

A person duplicating machine duplicates "you". That needs repeating, a
 person duplicating machine duplicates "you"
.  All of "you" is duplicated, there is no essential youness or soul that
the machine can't duplicate. When "you" is duplicated that means there is
more than one, so to then ask what one and only one city "you" will see is
just dumb. Equally dumb is to talk about "THE 1p" as if there were only one
when that has been duplicated too just like everything else about "you".

And neither the John Clark in Washington nor the John Clark in Moscow sees
the slightest need to apologize for pointing out this imbecility.

 John K Clark

>

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-15 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

The bickering levels reach a fever pitch and the two teams haven't even
reached consensus concerning their status as teams at all in the first
place. Then there are the heretics that question not only the match but
game theory as well.

But the drug is too hard to resist: to bicker... once more... and preside
over the top of the list, reigning supreme defender of one's own biases
over the biases of all other petty bickerers! Pure power. Pure status for
pure text served straight by valiant knights selflessly dropping knowledge
manna from heavens of surveillance. Sex for people deprived of the same.

In general philosophically naive? Well I guess the fuckin gloves are off
then because now the matter hits the fan. No turning back. Cleanup is for
chumps that are addicted to WHATEVER it was that hit the fan, while we do
require the nuance that Plato didn't have toilet papyrus or a pedophile
fountain handy at all times.

So naive then, huh? What a tangled web those weave calling their children
naive for taking what others post on the internet literally. What? You
believe in posts of the interwebs? And you're calling people naive for
posting them through posting another post in the midst of their posts?
Delicious. We want more!

Therefore bickereth forth brave souls; the savior may actually emerge from
this mess with a point, publish it here as a universal scientific
contribution, and there'll be infinite glory and status for all list
members. And zombie virgins and strawberry ice cream too.

Physicalism, Materialism, Computationalism, Ismismismism... the winner is
who farts and invokes the mythomagical linguistic hallucinatory spell of
freedom from the fundamental law of digital bickering: "I have to go." with
the slick implication that I am too popular for my own shmatter. Too many
friends and too much divine work, better places and stuff, you see? Place
needs more seriousness- no space for weekend nominalists. PGC

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 3:33 PM, Bruce Kellett 
wrote:

> On 15/07/2016 8:31 pm, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 3:19 AM, Bruce Kellett
>>  wrote:
>>
>>> On 15/07/2016 11:03 am, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Although I think JKC has a point about pronouns, I don't see what it has
>>> to
>>> do with Bruno's theory.  He just proposes this as an illustration of
>>> first-person-indetermancy as implicit in Everett's interpretation of QM.
>>> It has problems with probability, but so does Everett's QM - what does
>>> probability refer to when everything happens.  The question of which JKC
>>> just gets mapped to which world.
>>>
>>>
>>> Exactly. I have made this point before. The first six or seven steps of
>>> Bruno's argument are not really necessary. It is only when he moves the
>>> Universal Dovetailer into platonia in step 8 that anything new actually
>>> happens.
>>>
>> I don't think the argument would pack the same punch without the
>> previous steps. It's easy to dismiss the move to platonia without
>> them. With them it is not so easy -- unless you resort to linguistic
>> tricks like confusing 1p and 3p on purpose.
>>
>
> It is easy to dismiss the move to platonia at any time. Confusing 1p and
> 3p is not relevant here.
>
> He could have started there and argued for the reversal of physics
>>> and computationalism directly. The duplication of persons is just a
>>> distracting irrelevance to the main argument,
>>>
>> The duplication machines are an excellent device to expose materialist
>> self-contraditions (if you do not assume dualism).
>>
>
> Materialism or physicalism? I don't think I am trying to defend the idea
> that matter excludes the mental. Besides, where is the self-contradiction
> in materialism (or physicalism)?
>
> I don't see how
>> these contradictions would be exposed by outright proposing the move
>> to platonia. This feels like an attempt to "put Bruno in his place" by
>> forcing him to defang his argument.
>>
>
> If you propose the UD in platonia and derive physics from computations
> through conscious persons, the "contradictions of materialism", if there
> are such, become irrelevant.
>
> and depends so heavily on a
>>> particular theory of personal identity as to be essentially useless.
>>>
>> Would you mind restating Bruno's theory of personal identity in your
>> own words (so that we can agree that we are on the same page) and the
>> present a conflicting theory? I think this is the way forward.
>> Otherwise it's just subtle ad hominen: "you are ignorant about the
>> topic of personal identity!"
>>
>
> People on this list seem to be very quick to interpret a lack of
> philosophical insight into anything (theories of personal identity here) as
> an ad hominem, whereas it is often a simple statement of fact. Bruno
> himself is always criticizing his critics for a lack of understanding of
> modal logics and computer science. I find the commenters on this list to
> be, in general, philosophically

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-15 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 15/07/2016 8:31 pm, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 3:19 AM, Bruce Kellett
 wrote:

On 15/07/2016 11:03 am, Brent Meeker wrote:


Although I think JKC has a point about pronouns, I don't see what it has to
do with Bruno's theory.  He just proposes this as an illustration of
first-person-indetermancy as implicit in Everett's interpretation of QM.
It has problems with probability, but so does Everett's QM - what does
probability refer to when everything happens.  The question of which JKC
just gets mapped to which world.


Exactly. I have made this point before. The first six or seven steps of
Bruno's argument are not really necessary. It is only when he moves the
Universal Dovetailer into platonia in step 8 that anything new actually
happens.

I don't think the argument would pack the same punch without the
previous steps. It's easy to dismiss the move to platonia without
them. With them it is not so easy -- unless you resort to linguistic
tricks like confusing 1p and 3p on purpose.


It is easy to dismiss the move to platonia at any time. Confusing 1p and 
3p is not relevant here.



He could have started there and argued for the reversal of physics
and computationalism directly. The duplication of persons is just a
distracting irrelevance to the main argument,

The duplication machines are an excellent device to expose materialist
self-contraditions (if you do not assume dualism).


Materialism or physicalism? I don't think I am trying to defend the idea 
that matter excludes the mental. Besides, where is the 
self-contradiction in materialism (or physicalism)?



I don't see how
these contradictions would be exposed by outright proposing the move
to platonia. This feels like an attempt to "put Bruno in his place" by
forcing him to defang his argument.


If you propose the UD in platonia and derive physics from computations 
through conscious persons, the "contradictions of materialism", if there 
are such, become irrelevant.



and depends so heavily on a
particular theory of personal identity as to be essentially useless.

Would you mind restating Bruno's theory of personal identity in your
own words (so that we can agree that we are on the same page) and the
present a conflicting theory? I think this is the way forward.
Otherwise it's just subtle ad hominen: "you are ignorant about the
topic of personal identity!"


People on this list seem to be very quick to interpret a lack of 
philosophical insight into anything (theories of personal identity here) 
as an ad hominem, whereas it is often a simple statement of fact. Bruno 
himself is always criticizing his critics for a lack of understanding of 
modal logics and computer science. I find the commenters on this list to 
be, in general, philosophically naive.


The theory of personal identity behind the duplication protocols is not 
clearly spelled out, but it is basically a psychological theory, that 
places heavy emphasis on personal memories, though no doubt does give 
some import to things like character, values, beliefs, desires, 
intentions and so forth. There are several alternative theories of 
personal identity, none is without some problems, but I think that the 
closest continuer theory comes closest to surmounting the obstacles.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-15 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 3:19 AM, Bruce Kellett
 wrote:
> On 15/07/2016 11:03 am, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
> On 7/14/2016 5:07 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>
> On 15/07/2016 9:42 am, Jason Resch wrote:
>
> I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave one to both
> John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The questionnaires each had 8 questions:
>
> 1. What city did you last recall being in?
> 2. How many cities do you see now?
> 3. What is the name of the city you see before you?
> 4. True/False: You see two cities right now:
> 5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was:
> 6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was:
> 7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was:
> 8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was:
>
> When I gave the questionnaire to John-Washington, he filled out the
> following answers (in bold):
>
> 1. What city did you last recall being in? Helsinki
> 2. How many cities do you see now? One
> 3. What is the name of the city you see before you? Washington
> 4. True/False: You see two cities right now: False
> 5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: True
> 6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: False
> 7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was: False
> 8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: True
>
> When I gave the questionnaire to John-Moscow, he filled out the following
> answers (in bold):
>
> 1. What city did you last recall being in? Helsinki
> 2. How many cities do you see now? One
> 3. What is the name of the city you see before you? Moscow
> 4. True/False: You see two cities right now: False
> 5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: False
> 6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: True
> 7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was: False
> 8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: True
>
> Both Johns expressed deep regret over insulting people on the Everything
> list, most especially Bruno. It turned out neither John-Washington's, nor
> John-Moscow's prediction that they would see both cities was true from their
> own first person points of view.
>
>
> But you have introduced a distinction between John-W and John-M that is not
> present in the original protocol. Remember that the criterion of personal
> identity you are working with is based on person memories (verified by a
> personal diary if necessary). Both copies of John have these memories and
> these diaries, so they both have equal claims to be John. "John", as this
> duplicated person, predicts with certainty that he will see W, and that he
> will see M, so he predicts that he will see both cities.
>
> The fact that this appears odd is that our conventional intuition is
> essentially dualist -- we think that there is a central core that is the
> "real me" that gives me my continuing sense of personal identity. This
> intuition breaks down when you have duplication of persons.
>
>
> Although I think JKC has a point about pronouns, I don't see what it has to
> do with Bruno's theory.  He just proposes this as an illustration of
> first-person-indetermancy as implicit in Everett's interpretation of QM.
> It has problems with probability, but so does Everett's QM - what does
> probability refer to when everything happens.  The question of which JKC
> just gets mapped to which world.
>
>
> Exactly. I have made this point before. The first six or seven steps of
> Bruno's argument are not really necessary. It is only when he moves the
> Universal Dovetailer into platonia in step 8 that anything new actually
> happens.

I don't think the argument would pack the same punch without the
previous steps. It's easy to dismiss the move to platonia without
them. With them it is not so easy -- unless you resort to linguistic
tricks like confusing 1p and 3p on purpose.

> He could have started there and argued for the reversal of physics
> and computationalism directly. The duplication of persons is just a
> distracting irrelevance to the main argument,

The duplication machines are an excellent device to expose materialist
self-contraditions (if you do not assume dualism). I don't see how
these contradictions would be exposed by outright proposing the move
to platonia. This feels like an attempt to "put Bruno in his place" by
forcing him to defang his argument.

> and depends so heavily on a
> particular theory of personal identity as to be essentially useless.

Would you mind restating Bruno's theory of personal identity in your
own words (so that we can agree that we are on the same page) and the
present a conflicting theory? I think this is the way forward.
Otherwise it's just subtle ad hominen: "you are ignorant about the
topic of personal identity!"

Telmo.

> Bruce
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Everything

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 15/07/2016 12:38 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 14 Jul 2016, at 02:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 13/07/2016 11:36 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 11 Jul 2016, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:


*Holiday Exercise:*

A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting again 
from Helsinki.
Then in Moscow, but not in Washington,  he (the one in Moscow of 
course) undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.


I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.

In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.

With one reasoning, he (the H-guy)  thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2, and 
that P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of independent 
probability) that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.


But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications give 
globally a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in W, a copy 
in S and a copy in B, and so, directly conclude P(H-S) = 1/3.


So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?


Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets 
to Sydney is unity.


Try to convince the guy who gets to Beijing, or the one who stayed 
in Washington. He knows that the probability evaluated in Helsinki 
was not P(Sidney) = 1.


We start with John Clark in Helsinki, so P(JC ~ H) = 1. By 
construction, after the duplication and so on, P(JC ~ W) = P(JC ~ S) 
= P(JC ~ B) = 1. (I use '~' as a shorthand for 'in' or 'sees'.)


In the 3-1 view, that is correct.


There is no such thing as "the 3-1 view" distinct from the first person 
view. That is just a piece of jargon that you made up to cover the fact 
that you have assumed a distinction where none exists.


But in my posts I insist that "W", "M" denotes the experience of 
opening the door or the reconstitution box, and writting in the 
personal diary which cities is seen. In that case, obviously, P(W), 
P(S) and P(B) cannot be all equal to one as W, S and B are 
incompatible event.


These are not incompatible events: there are three physical bodies, one 
in each city. Your definition of personal identity depends only on 
memories (backed up by personal diaries if necessary). With this 
definition, and the protocol described, the bodies in W, S, and B are 
all the same person. So it is JC who sees W, JC who sees S, and JC who 
sees B. They are all the same person, so the correct prediction is that 
JC will see all three cities. If you now introduce a difference between 
the copies, then they become different persons, and the correct 
prediction would be that JC (who sees H) will see no further cities 
because he no longer exists.


JC in Helsinki knows the protocol, so he can easily see that these 
are the correct probabilities. So, as I said, the probability that 
the guy starting from Helsinki gets to Sydney is unity. Any other 
interpretation of this scenario involves an implicit appeal to 
dualism -- there is "one true JC" that goes through these 
duplications, and he can only ever end up in just one place.


Not at all. By comp we agree that they are all the true JC, and that 
they all see, taken together, all cities. But the question is about 
the personal events lived by the H-guy after he will push the button, 
and that makes the events (1p-events) incompatible.


As I said above, the events are not incompatible. You are relying on an 
intuition formed in a world without person duplication. Yourclaim that 
they are incompatible relies on an implicit dualism -- there is only one 
"true" JKC.


As John Clark has correctly pointed out, your intuition and formalism 
simply does not work in the presence of person-duplicating machines.


It works very well, but you need to distinguish between the outsider 
view: all JC see all cities, and each personal views obtained, which 
are incompatible.


You simply borrox John Clark confusion between the 3-1 views and the 
1-views.


There is no such thing as the 3-1 view -- that is just a piece of jargon 
invented to save your argument. It does not correspond to any true 
distinction.


There is no single 1p view -- there are three possible 1p views in 
the triplication scenario.


Right. The point is that from the first person perspective, those 
1-views are logically incompatible.


No they are not. They all refer to the experience of John Clark, as 
defined by you.


So, again, John Clark is right when he says that JC ~ H will see 
three cities (W, S, and B) after the experiment is completed.


yes, he is right, but only on the 3-1 view on those 1-views, not on 
the 1-views seen by the 1-views, which are incopatible, and which was 
what the prediction asked was all about.


See above. I think you have given the correct explanation in one of your 
replies to John Clark:
"We have testimony from John Clark that John Clark saw Moscow and not 
Washington, and that John Clark saw Washington and not Moscow, and by 
computationalism, those experience cannot be lived together, and both 
John Clark have differentiated into different person,

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 15/07/2016 11:03 am, Brent Meeker wrote:


On 7/14/2016 5:07 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 15/07/2016 9:42 am, Jason Resch wrote:
I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave one to 
both John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The questionnaires each had 8 
questions:


1. What city did you last recall being in?
2. How many cities do you see now?
3. What is the name of the city you see before you?
4. True/False: You see two cities right now:
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was:
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was:
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was:
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was:

When I gave the questionnaire to John-Washington, he filled out the 
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do you see now? *One*
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? *Washington*
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: *False*
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: *True*
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: *False*
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow 
was: *False*
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: 
*True*


When I gave the questionnaire to John-Moscow, he filled out the 
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do you see now? *One*
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? *Moscow*
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: *False*
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: *False*
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: *True*
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow 
was: *False*
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: 
*True*


Both Johns expressed deep regret over insulting people on the 
Everything list, most especially Bruno. It turned out neither 
John-Washington's, nor John-Moscow's prediction that they would see 
both cities was true from their own first person points of view.


But you have introduced a distinction between John-W and John-M that 
is not present in the original protocol. Remember that the criterion 
of personal identity you are working with is based on person memories 
(verified by a personal diary if necessary). Both copies of John have 
these memories and these diaries, so they both have equal claims to 
be John. "John", as this duplicated person, predicts with certainty 
that he will see W, and that he will see M, so he predicts that he 
will see both cities.


The fact that this appears odd is that our conventional intuition is 
essentially dualist -- we think that there is a central core that is 
the "real me" that gives me my continuing sense of personal identity. 
This intuition breaks down when you have duplication of persons.


Although I think JKC has a point about pronouns, I don't see what it 
has to do with Bruno's theory.  He just proposes this as an 
illustration of first-person-indetermancy as implicit in Everett's 
interpretation of QM.   It has problems with probability, but so does 
Everett's QM - what does probability refer to when everything 
happens.  The question of which JKC just gets mapped to which world.


Exactly. I have made this point before. The first six or seven steps of 
Bruno's argument are not really necessary. It is only when he moves the 
Universal Dovetailer into platonia in step 8 that anything new actually 
happens. He could have started there and argued for the reversal of 
physics and computationalism directly. The duplication of persons is 
just a distracting irrelevance to the main argument, and depends so 
heavily on a particular theory of personal identity as to be essentially 
useless.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/14/2016 5:07 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 15/07/2016 9:42 am, Jason Resch wrote:
I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave one to 
both John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The questionnaires each had 8 
questions:


1. What city did you last recall being in?
2. How many cities do you see now?
3. What is the name of the city you see before you?
4. True/False: You see two cities right now:
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was:
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was:
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was:
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was:

When I gave the questionnaire to John-Washington, he filled out the 
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do you see now? *One*
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? *Washington*
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: *False*
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: *True*
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: *False*
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was: 
*False*
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: 
*True*


When I gave the questionnaire to John-Moscow, he filled out the 
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do you see now? *One*
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? *Moscow*
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: *False*
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: *False*
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: *True*
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was: 
*False*
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: 
*True*


Both Johns expressed deep regret over insulting people on the 
Everything list, most especially Bruno. It turned out neither 
John-Washington's, nor John-Moscow's prediction that they would see 
both cities was true from their own first person points of view.


But you have introduced a distinction between John-W and John-M that 
is not present in the original protocol. Remember that the criterion 
of personal identity you are working with is based on person memories 
(verified by a personal diary if necessary). Both copies of John have 
these memories and these diaries, so they both have equal claims to be 
John. "John", as this duplicated person, predicts with certainty that 
he will see W, and that he will see M, so he predicts that he will see 
both cities.


The fact that this appears odd is that our conventional intuition is 
essentially dualist -- we think that there is a central core that is 
the "real me" that gives me my continuing sense of personal identity. 
This intuition breaks down when you have duplication of persons.


Although I think JKC has a point about pronouns, I don't see what it has 
to do with Bruno's theory.  He just proposes this as an illustration of 
first-person-indetermancy as implicit in Everett's interpretation of 
QM.   It has problems with probability, but so does Everett's QM - what 
does probability refer to when everything happens.  The question of 
which JKC just gets mapped to which world.


Brent

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On 15 July 2016 at 08:28, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 7/14/2016 2:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, 14 July 2016, Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
>> On 13/07/2016 11:36 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> On 11 Jul 2016, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>>
>> On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> *Holiday Exercise:*
>>
>> A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting again from
>> Helsinki.
>> Then in Moscow, but not in Washington,  he (the one in Moscow of course)
>> undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.
>>
>> I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.
>>
>> In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.
>>
>> With one reasoning, he (the H-guy)  thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2, and that
>> P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of independent probability)
>> that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.
>>
>> But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications give globally
>> a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in W, a copy in S and a copy
>> in B, and so, directly conclude P(H-S) = 1/3.
>>
>> So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?
>>
>>
>> Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets to
>> Sydney is unity.
>>
>>
>> Try to convince the guy who gets to Beijing, or the one who stayed in
>> Washington. He knows that the probability evaluated in Helsinki was not
>> P(Sidney) = 1.
>>
>>
>> We start with John Clark in Helsinki, so P(JC ~ H) = 1. By construction,
>> after the duplication and so on, P(JC ~ W) = P(JC ~ S) = P(JC ~ B) = 1. (I
>> use '~' as a shorthand for 'in' or 'sees'.) JC in Helsinki knows the
>> protocol, so he can easily see that these are the correct probabilities.
>> So, as I said, the probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets to
>> Sydney is unity. Any other interpretation of this scenario involves an
>> implicit appeal to dualism -- there is "one true JC" that goes through
>> these duplications, and he can only ever end up in just one place.
>>
>
> That is the source of the effect being discussed: JC and all of us
> feel that personal identity only transfers to the one true JC, despite the
> evidence of all the other clearly visible JC's. This is because "I" am
> the person who has my experiences
>
>
> Which only means that "I who sees Washington."  is different from "I who
> sees Moscow."
>

Yes, a straightforward fact; it does not involve "an implicit appeal to
dualism" as Bruce said.

> , and I am not telepathically linked to my copies.
>
>
> But you have to be linked by memories to your past self, otherwise you
> will have no identity.
>

The link with past selves is somewhat stronger, in that if their
experiences had been different my memories and current experiences would
also be different, whereas with the other copies their experiences cannot
directly affect me.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 15/07/2016 9:42 am, Jason Resch wrote:
I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave one to both 
John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The questionnaires each had 8 questions:


1. What city did you last recall being in?
2. How many cities do you see now?
3. What is the name of the city you see before you?
4. True/False: You see two cities right now:
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was:
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was:
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was:
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was:

When I gave the questionnaire to John-Washington, he filled out the 
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do you see now? *One*
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? *Washington*
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: *False*
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: *True*
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: *False*
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was: 
*False*
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: 
*True*


When I gave the questionnaire to John-Moscow, he filled out the 
following answers (in bold):


1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do you see now? *One*
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? *Moscow*
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: *False*
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: *False*
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: *True*
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was: 
*False*
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: 
*True*


Both Johns expressed deep regret over insulting people on the 
Everything list, most especially Bruno. It turned out neither 
John-Washington's, nor John-Moscow's prediction that they would see 
both cities was true from their own first person points of view.


But you have introduced a distinction between John-W and John-M that is 
not present in the original protocol. Remember that the criterion of 
personal identity you are working with is based on person memories 
(verified by a personal diary if necessary). Both copies of John have 
these memories and these diaries, so they both have equal claims to be 
John. "John", as this duplicated person, predicts with certainty that he 
will see W, and that he will see M, so he predicts that he will see both 
cities.


The fact that this appears odd is that our conventional intuition is 
essentially dualist -- we think that there is a central core that is the 
"real me" that gives me my continuing sense of personal identity. This 
intuition breaks down when you have duplication of persons.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-14 Thread Jason Resch

I printed the following "Duplicate Questionnaire" and gave one to both
John-Washington, and John-Moscow. The questionnaires each had 8 questions:

1. What city did you last recall being in?
2. How many cities do you see now?
3. What is the name of the city you see before you?
4. True/False: You see two cities right now:
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was:
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was:
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was:
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was:

When I gave the questionnaire to John-Washington, he filled out the
following answers (in bold):

1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do you see now? *One*
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? *Washington*
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: *False*
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: *True*
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: *False*
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was:
*False*
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: *True*

When I gave the questionnaire to John-Moscow, he filled out the following
answers (in bold):

1. What city did you last recall being in? *Helsinki*
2. How many cities do you see now? *One*
3. What is the name of the city you see before you? *Moscow*
4. True/False: You see two cities right now: *False*
5. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington was: *False*
6. True/False: The prediction that you see Moscow was: *True*
7. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington and Moscow was:
*False*
8. True/False: The prediction that you see Washington or Moscow was: *True*

Both Johns expressed deep regret over insulting people on the Everything
list, most especially Bruno. It turned out neither John-Washington's, nor
John-Moscow's prediction that they would see both cities was true from
their own first person points of view.

Jason

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 5:15 PM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>
> 
>>> >> 
>>> 1) Each
>>> 
>>>  copy saw only one city.
>>
>>
>> > 
>> Excellent! That is the correct 1-view description. Now, you just need to
>> interview each copy about the prediction made in Helsinki and written in
>> the diary to evaluate the better one.
>>
>
> How? Which turned out to be the better prediction, Moscow or Washington?
> And was the prediction about John Clark or was it about some mysterious
> figure named "you"?
>
> 2) All the copies together saw 2 cities.
>>
>>
>> > 
>> Correct 3p description of the experiences of all copies. That is the 3-1
>> view. We need it to get the correct "1)", but "all the copies" is not a
>> person,
>>
>
> Then asking the Helsinki Person "what city will *you* see?" or "how many
> cities will *you *see?" is a nonsense question because this is a world
> with people duplicating machines. 
>
>
> > 
>> that is why you correctly add "together"
>> 
>> (which is the 3-1 view, in which we are not interested).
>>
>
> I know, you're interested in "THE 1p view" but as you just pointed out
> in a world with people duplicating machine  "THE 1p view" is meaningless,
> there is only "A 1p view".
>
>
>> > 
>> we are asked about the 1-views.
>>
>
> You are asking about what one and only one city was seen by "
> the 1-views
> " and that is a incoherent question with no coherent answer. Garbage in
> garbage out.
>
> >> 
>>> 4) The statement "John Clark will see two cities" turned out to be
>>> unambiguously true.
>>
>>
>> > 
>> In the 3-1 view, sure.
>>
>
> If they were logical it would be true from true from ANYBODIES view,
> Helsinki man Moscow Man Washington man you name it; John Clark will see two
> cities.
>
>
>> > 
>> But we asked about the 1-views.
>>
>
> There are 2 "1-views", and Bruno Marchal demands to know which *ONE* and
> only *ONE* *you* will see, and that demand is pure gibberish.
>
> >> 
>>> So which one was right?
>>
>>
>> > 
>> Trivially both when in Helsinki the prediction written in the diary was
>> "W v M",
>>
>
> But what exactly was the prediction about? If it was about how many
> cities John Clark will see there would be universal agreement that answer
> turned out to be 2, but if was about how many cities you will see there
> will never be universal agreement on what the answer turned out to be
> because in a world with people duplicating machines the personal pronoun
> used will be ambiguous.
>
>
> *> Holiday Exercise:  [...]*
>>
>
> Adding more cities and more duplicates of "you" will not clarify the
> situation about what one and only one thing will happen to "you".
>
> > 
>> So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?
>>  
>> Can you modify a bit the protocol so that we get any of those results?
>>
>
> Bruno, as long as the question has a personal pronoun in it any
> probability for getting

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/14/2016 2:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



On Thursday, 14 July 2016, Bruce Kellett > wrote:


On 13/07/2016 11:36 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 11 Jul 2016, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:


*Holiday Exercise:*

A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting
again from Helsinki.
Then in Moscow, but not in Washington,  he (the one in Moscow
of course) undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.

I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.

In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.

With one reasoning, he (the H-guy)  thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2,
and that P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of
independent probability) that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.

But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications
give globally a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in
W, a copy in S and a copy in B, and so, directly conclude
P(H-S) = 1/3.

So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?


Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki
gets to Sydney is unity.


Try to convince the guy who gets to Beijing, or the one who
stayed in Washington. He knows that the probability evaluated in
Helsinki was not P(Sidney) = 1.


We start with John Clark in Helsinki, so P(JC ~ H) = 1. By
construction, after the duplication and so on, P(JC ~ W) = P(JC ~
S) = P(JC ~ B) = 1. (I use '~' as a shorthand for 'in' or 'sees'.)
JC in Helsinki knows the protocol, so he can easily see that these
are the correct probabilities. So, as I said, the probability that
the guy starting from Helsinki gets to Sydney is unity. Any other
interpretation of this scenario involves an implicit appeal to
dualism -- there is "one true JC" that goes through these
duplications, and he can only ever end up in just one place.


That is the source of the effect being discussed: JC and all of us 
feel that personal identity only transfers to the one true JC, despite 
the evidence of all the other clearly visible JC's. This is because 
"I"am the person who has my experiences


Which only means that "I who sees Washington."  is different from "I who 
sees Moscow."



, and I am not telepathically linked to my copies.


But you have to be linked by memories to your past self, otherwise you 
will have no identity.


Brent

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Thursday, 14 July 2016, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On 13/07/2016 11:36 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 11 Jul 2016, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>
> On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> *Holiday Exercise:*
>
> A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting again from
> Helsinki.
> Then in Moscow, but not in Washington,  he (the one in Moscow of course)
> undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.
>
> I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.
>
> In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.
>
> With one reasoning, he (the H-guy)  thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2, and that
> P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of independent probability)
> that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.
>
> But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications give globally
> a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in W, a copy in S and a copy
> in B, and so, directly conclude P(H-S) = 1/3.
>
> So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?
>
>
> Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets to
> Sydney is unity.
>
>
> Try to convince the guy who gets to Beijing, or the one who stayed in
> Washington. He knows that the probability evaluated in Helsinki was not
> P(Sidney) = 1.
>
>
> We start with John Clark in Helsinki, so P(JC ~ H) = 1. By construction,
> after the duplication and so on, P(JC ~ W) = P(JC ~ S) = P(JC ~ B) = 1. (I
> use '~' as a shorthand for 'in' or 'sees'.) JC in Helsinki knows the
> protocol, so he can easily see that these are the correct probabilities.
> So, as I said, the probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets to
> Sydney is unity. Any other interpretation of this scenario involves an
> implicit appeal to dualism -- there is "one true JC" that goes through
> these duplications, and he can only ever end up in just one place.
>

That is the source of the effect being discussed: JC and all of us
feel that personal identity only transfers to the one true JC, despite the
evidence of all the other clearly visible JC's. This is because "I" am the
person who has my experiences, and I am not telepathically linked to my
copies.


> As John Clark has correctly pointed out, your intuition and formalism
> simply does not work in the presence of person-duplicating machines. There
> is no single 1p view -- there are three possible 1p views in the
> triplication scenario. So, again, John Clark is right when he says that JC
> ~ H will see three cities (W, S, and B) after the experiment is completed.
> If, as you claim, he will see only one city, you have to have some dualist
> 'nut or core' that survives in only one of your copies.
>
> Of course, as I said some time ago, the easiest resolution of you logical
> conundrums is that JC ~ H does not survive, and that there are three new
> persons, one in each city, so the probability that JC in H will see Sydney
> is exactly zero.
>
> Looking at the more realistic quantum realization of this triplication
> scenario, we can formulate that as follows. We prepare a spin-half atom
> with spin along the x-axis, then pass it through an S-G magnet oriented
> along the y-axis, getting two possibilities, which we can call up and down.
> We then take the up channel and pass that through a further S-G in the
> x-direction, getting two further possibilities of left or right.
>
> Let us perform this experiment many times and count the number of
> particles in each of the three possible final states (down, left, and
> right). If this is a real laboratory experiment, in which detection of a
> particle in any channel leads to irreversible decoherence and the formation
> of a separate world containing just that result, we will find approximately
> half the particles end up in the down state, and approximately a quarter in
> each of the left and right states. This gives the most reliable estimate of
> the real probabilities for the outcome from the given initial state.
>
> If you take the MWI view, then you get one down, one left, and one right
> in every run of the experiment, so the probability for each outcome is
> unity. In order to get probability of 1/4 for left, say, you have to detect
> the absence of a particle in the down state (so that the particle is
> certainly in the up state) for which the probability is 1/2.
>
> Actually, your preferred answer -- that the probability P(H->S) = 1/3, is
> possible only in a fully dualist model. You are essentially claiming that
> as the scenario puts John Clark's in all three cities, it is purely a
> random chance that selects one of them to be the "true" John Clark -- a
> dualist "core" is assigned to one of these copies purely by chance.
>
>
> This is the problem with probabilities in the MWI -- how do you interpret
> probabilities when all possible outcomes occur with probability one?
>
>
> The probabilities concern the relative first person experiences.
> Computationalism guaranties that there will be only one outcome.
>
>
> You are simply talking

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/14/2016 10:54 AM, John Clark wrote:
How could anybody not be fine with that? What could me surviving into 
tomorrow mean other than at least one thing tomorrow remembers being 
me today? If more than one thing remembers then even better.


I think that's probably a failure of imagination. :-)

Brent
"Indeed, I would personally find the idea of clones of myself that I 
could run into quite disturbing, and the more like me they were, the 
worse it would be."

--- Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread spudboy100 via Everything List

There was a scifi short by writer Wil McCarthy several months back, which was 
titled, Wyatt Earp on Mars. This is where several centuries from now, a person 
gets produced who has the personal identity, and yes memories, of the great 
American gunfighter. This version 2.0 was created by an employee of a Martian 
corporation, trying to stop thefts of minerals processed by this mars companies 
mines. A person with the background of the historical, original, Wyatt Earp, 
the memories, etc is generated, to create a law enforcement division to halt 
the robberies and thefts. The spoiler now follows in which  skip down a line...

Earp and his deputies that he trained, end up being killed by well armed 
robbers, and being re-created by the Ceo, with their memories intact, right up 
to the moment they were slain. The deputies are appalled at having been killed, 
as being disturbing, but Earp is disgusted by their complaints since he is 
based on a person who came from and age when dead was dead-no second chances. 
Earp is never convinced that he is the real Wyatt, but ponders about how he has 
all these specific memories, that the science of this day could never have 
known? Earp, then tells the CEO, "Look, you want these robberies, stopped, what 
I need is a budget!"  My whole point is Johns notion of personal identity goes 
well   with McCathy's storyline, and yes, the story relies also on the magical 
tech of teleportation. 

Sent from AOL Mobile Mail

-Original Message-
From: John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thu, Jul 14, 2016 01:54 PM
Subject: Re: Holiday Exercise

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 9:40 PM, Bruce Kellett <mailto:bhkell...@optusnet.com.au;>bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> 
wrote:
>
 So you were duplicated yesterday? One, quite reasonable, way of regarding our 
continuing existence from day to day, moment to moment, is that in every 
instant we die, to be reborn in the next instant.
Yes, dying yesterday means nothing provided I am reborn 
today, and dying today means nothing provided I am reborn tomorrow. And by 
"reborn" I mean something comes into existence tomorrow that remembers being me 
today. 
>> If I know that something tomorrow will remember being John Clark 
today then I'm content, after all that procedure worked pretty well in 
conserving what I want conserved during the transition form yesterday to today, 
so if the same thing happens in the transition from today to tomorrow I should 
be OK. And if tomorrow more than one thing remembers being John Clark today 
then that's even better. The more the merrier  . 

 >
 If you are happy, then fine.

How could anybody not be fine with that? What could me surviving 
into tomorrow mean other than at least one thing tomorrow remembers being me 
today? If more than one thing remembers then even 
better.

> But are your dopplegangers equally 
happy
Good for them, 
I'm pleased.  
> they no longer exist, after 
all.

I don't know what you mean by that. I John Clark here in 
Washington exist and have vivid memories of being the Helsinki Man yesterday, 
but as I understand it John Clark is also in Moscow also exists and also has 
vivid memories of being the Helsinki man just as I do. What that other John 
Clark has done in Moscow after he got to that city I have no idea but I wish 
him well and I'm sure he feels the same way about me.

 Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns (The Broken 
Empire #1):

 "I
 think maybe we die every day. Maybe we're born new each dawn, a little 
changed, a little further on our own road. When enough days stand between you 
and the person you were, you're strangers. Maybe that's what growing up is. 
Maybe I have grown up."

I pretty much agree with that. 

> Saibal Mitra:

 "The person I was when I was 3 years old is 
dead. He died because too much new information was added to his 
brain."

I have a few vague memories when I was 3 but none when I was 2 
so in a sense the 2 year old John Clark is dead, however he never exactly died; 
I define dying as having a last thought and the  2 year old John Clark never 
have that.

 John K Clark 
 -- 

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Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-14 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 10:10 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> >>> 
> The better prediction was "W v M and I have no clue which one".

> >> 
> The better prediction about WHAT?
>
> > 
> About the first person experience
>

There is no such thing as *THE* first person experience, there is only A
first person experience.

> > 
> that is accessible to the candidate in Helsinki.
>

Both Moscow AND Washington
 are accessible
because there are people in BOTH Washington and Moscow who remember being
the Helsinki Man and neither city is
more 
favored because both memories are equally vivid.

>> 
>> Even after the experiment is over nobody knows what was the better
>> prediction because nobody knows who exactly the prediction was supposed to
>> be about. 
>
>
> > 
> Then you are already abandoning computationalism.
>

Bullshit. C
omputationalism
 can't make predictions about gibberish and neither can anything else. 

>
> With computationalism, the guy in Helsinki knows that he will survive,
>

The
 guy in Helsinki knows
 that
the guy in Helsinki
 will survive, but
the guy in Helsinki knows nothing about "he".

> > 
> and that he will feel being experiencing the direct seeing of only one
> city.
>

That's right Bruno, keep sweeping those foggy thoughts and fractured logic
under the "he" colored personal pronoun rug.

> 
> We don't ask which one will have THE 1p view,
>

Because there is no such thing as *THE* 1p view.

> > 
> given that we know that both will live A 1p view.
>  
> But we know that the two 1p view are logically incompatible.
>

No, it would be 
logically incompatible
 only if people 
duplicating machines

did not exist. For heaven's sake m
aking those two views logically compatible is the very thing that makes a
people duplicating machine a
people duplicating machine
! It's what they do!

>> >> 
>> The next state of what?I assume you mean the next state of something
>> that remembers being in Helsinki, if so then there is certainly no law of
>> physics that demands only one state can meet those specifications. If  you
>> means something else then I repeat my question, the next state of what?
>
>
> > 
> The next mental state of the guy in Helsinki, from his/her first point of
> view.
>

That should be "states" not "state" because people duplicating machines
are involved and ensuring that there are at least 2 such states is what
a people duplicating machine
 does. If it didn't then it wouldn't be 
a people duplicating machine
. There is nothing paradoxical or logically inconsistent in having 2
answers to that question, we just find it odd because up to now our
technology hasn't been good enough to build a people duplicating machine,
but there is no law of logic or physics that says it can't be done or that
odd things can't happen.  

>> >> 
>> All the 1-views that saw all those cities have an equal right to call
>> themselves John Clark, so the answer
>> to the question "what is the probability John Clark will see city X?" is
>> 100%.
>>
>
> > 
> Only in the 3p view.
> 
>

What the hell does that mean?

> 
> > 
> You agree that for the cities which are not X, the guy will not see X,
>  
> and so refute already what you say here.
>

I neither agree nor disagree because I have no idea who "*THE* guy" is.

>> 
>> if you ask just one John Clark how many cities he saw and he just says
>> only one that does NOT disprove the statement "John Clark will see 2
>> cities" because there is still another John Clark out there that you
>> haven't asked yet.
>
>
> > 
> That is why to get the prediction, the guy in Helsinki has to put itself
> in the place of all copies (mentally), and then just take into account the
> impossibility of the 1p-feeling of seeing the two cities at once.
>

There is no such thing as *THE* 1p-feeling. 

> 
> So just get the conclusion from this. If the two people remember having
> wondering about what city they will end up, by using computaionalism, they
> know that any specific city prediction will be refuted by one guy,
>

People duplicating machines make it logically impossible for just one guy
to refute the prediction that John Clark the Helsinki Man will see 2
cities, otherwise it wouldn't be a people duplicating machine.

> 
> The answer is crystal clear: it is: " Washington or Moscow, and I can't be
> more precise than that".
>

The answer may be crystal clear but that's not the problem. To hell with
the answer, John Clark want's to know what the question was.

> >
>>> >>
>>> as we have agree that all John Clark are John Clark, but after the
>>> duplication, each John Clark will see only one city. So if the question is
>>> "how many city will you see",
>>
>>
> 
>> >> 
>> Bruno Marchal uses "John Clark" 3 times and then sneaks in a "he" in the
>> most important place as if nobody would notice. Who the hell is "he"?  
>
> > 
> John Clark. That was

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/14/2016 7:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 14 Jul 2016, at 02:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 13/07/2016 11:36 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 11 Jul 2016, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:


*Holiday Exercise:*

A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting again 
from Helsinki.
Then in Moscow, but not in Washington,  he (the one in Moscow of 
course) undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.


I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.

In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.

With one reasoning, he (the H-guy)  thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2, and 
that P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of independent 
probability) that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.


But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications give 
globally a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in W, a copy 
in S and a copy in B, and so, directly conclude P(H-S) = 1/3.


So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?


Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets 
to Sydney is unity.


Try to convince the guy who gets to Beijing, or the one who stayed 
in Washington. He knows that the probability evaluated in Helsinki 
was not P(Sidney) = 1.


We start with John Clark in Helsinki, so P(JC ~ H) = 1. By 
construction, after the duplication and so on, P(JC ~ W) = P(JC ~ S) 
= P(JC ~ B) = 1. (I use '~' as a shorthand for 'in' or 'sees'.)



In the 3-1 view, that is correct. But in my posts I insist that "W", 
"M" denotes the experience of opening the door or the reconstitution 
box, and writting in the personal diary which cities is seen. In that 
case, obviously, P(W), P(S) and P(B) cannot be all equal to one as W, 
S and B are incompatible event.



But they're not incompatible, they just happen to different (physical) 
beings.





JC in Helsinki knows the protocol, so he can easily see that these 
are the correct probabilities. So, as I said, the probability that 
the guy starting from Helsinki gets to Sydney is unity. Any other 
interpretation of this scenario involves an implicit appeal to 
dualism -- there is "one true JC" that goes through these 
duplications, and he can only ever end up in just one place.


Not at all. By comp we agree that they are all the true JC,


But there is no /*the *//*true*//*JC*/ in a world with duplicating 
machines or an Everettian multiverse.


and that they all see, taken together, all cities. But the question is 
about the personal events lived by the H-guy after he will push the 
button, and that makes the events (1p-events) incompatible.




I thought the hypothesis was that there is no guy in Helsinki after he 
pushes the button?









As John Clark has correctly pointed out, your intuition and formalism 
simply does not work in the presence of person-duplicating machines.


It works very well, but you need to distinguish between the outsider 
view: all JC see all cities, and each personal views obtained, which 
are incompatible.


You simply borrox John Clark confusion between the 3-1 views and the 
1-views.


I don't see the confusion.  There are three 1-views.






There is no single 1p view -- there are three possible 1p views in 
the triplication scenario.


Right. The point is that from the first person perspective, those 
1-views are logically incompatible.


Which proves that, given computationalism and duplicating machines, 
there is no such thing as THE first person perspective.






So, again, John Clark is right when he says that JC ~ H will see 
three cities (W, S, and B) after the experiment is completed.


yes, he is right, but only on the 3-1 view on those 1-views, not on 
the 1-views seen by the 1-views, which are incopatible, and which was 
what the prediction asked was all about.




If, as you claim, he will see only one city, you have to have some 
dualist 'nut or core' that survives in only one of your copies.


Of course not. Just do the tought experience, and consider all 
1-views, as seen from each of them.


Do you agree that if you are promised a cup of coffee in both W and in 
M, you can bet in Helsinki that you will get a cup of coffee with 
certainty? if yes, it is the same for the question "how many city will 
the H-guy seen, from its personal pov, after pushing the button?". The 
answer is "only one city", or "I will drink a cup of cofffe in ONE 
city with P = one, but I cannot know which one".


Depends on what you mean by "I".  You could also say "I will drink 
coffee in both cities with P=1."










Of course, as I said some time ago, the easiest resolution of you 
logical conundrums is that JC ~ H does not survive, and that there 
are three new persons, one in each city, so the probability that JC 
in H will see Sydney is exactly zero.


Then you predict that you will not survive either with a simple 
(non-duplicating) teleportation, or with a brain transplant, and we 
die ar each instant. That is OK (G and G* concures, but again, it is 
in a 3p picture,

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 9:40 PM, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> > So you were duplicated yesterday? One, quite reasonable, way of
> regarding our continuing existence from day to day, moment to moment, is
> that in every instant we die, to be reborn in the next instant.

Yes, dying yesterday means nothing provided I am reborn today, and dying
today means nothing provided I am reborn tomorrow. And by "reborn" I mean
something comes into existence tomorrow that remembers being me today.

> >> If I know that something tomorrow will remember being John Clark today
>> then I'm content, after all that procedure worked pretty well in
>> conserving what I want conserved during the transition form yesterday
>> to today, so if the same thing happens in the transition from today to
>> tomorrow I should be OK. And if tomorrow more than one thing remembers
>> being John Clark today then that's even better. The more the merrier  .
>
>

> If you are happy, then fine.

How could anybody not be fine with that? What could me surviving into
tomorrow mean other than at least one thing tomorrow remembers being me
today? If more than one thing remembers then even better.

> But are your dopplegangers equally happy

Good for them, I'm pleased.

> > they no longer exist, after all.

I don't know what you mean by that. I John Clark here in Washington exist
and have vivid memories of being the Helsinki Man yesterday, but as I
understand it John Clark is also in Moscow also exists and also has vivid
memories of being the Helsinki man just as I do. What that other John Clark
has done in Moscow after he got to that city I have no idea but I wish him
well and I'm sure he feels the same way about me.

 Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire #1):
>

*"I think maybe we die every day. Maybe we're born new each dawn, a little
> changed, a little further on our own road. When enough days stand between
> you and the person you were, you're strangers. Maybe that's what growing up
> is. Maybe I have grown up."*

I pretty much agree with that.

> Saibal Mitra:
>

*"The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He died because too much
> new information was added to his brain."*

I have a few vague memories when I was 3 but none when I was 2 so in a
sense the 2 year old John Clark is dead, however he never exactly died; I
define dying as having a last thought and the  2 year old John Clark never
have that.

 John K Clark

 --

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-14 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 14 Jul 2016, at 02:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 13/07/2016 11:36 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 11 Jul 2016, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:


Holiday Exercise:

A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting again  
from Helsinki.
Then in Moscow, but not in Washington,  he (the one in Moscow of  
course) undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.


I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.

In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.

With one reasoning, he (the H-guy)  thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2, and  
that P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of independent  
probability) that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.


But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications give  
globally a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in W, a  
copy in S and a copy in B, and so, directly conclude P(H-S) = 1/3.


So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?


Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets  
to Sydney is unity.


Try to convince the guy who gets to Beijing, or the one who stayed  
in Washington. He knows that the probability evaluated in Helsinki  
was not P(Sidney) = 1.


We start with John Clark in Helsinki, so P(JC ~ H) = 1. By  
construction, after the duplication and so on, P(JC ~ W) = P(JC ~ S)  
= P(JC ~ B) = 1. (I use '~' as a shorthand for 'in' or 'sees'.)



In the 3-1 view, that is correct. But in my posts I insist that "W",  
"M" denotes the experience of opening the door or the reconstitution  
box, and writting in the personal diary which cities is seen. In that  
case, obviously, P(W), P(S) and P(B) cannot be all equal to one as W,  
S and B are incompatible event.





JC in Helsinki knows the protocol, so he can easily see that these  
are the correct probabilities. So, as I said, the probability that  
theguy starting from Helsinki gets to Sydney is unity. Any other  
interpretation of this scenario involves an implicit appeal to  
dualism -- there is "one true JC" that goes through these  
duplications, and he can only ever end up in just one place.


Not at all. By comp we agree that they are all the true JC, and that  
they all see, taken together, all cities. But the question is about  
the personal events lived by the H-guy after he will push the button,  
and that makes the events (1p-events) incompatible.








As John Clark has correctly pointed out, your intuition and  
formalism simply does not work in the presence of person-duplicating  
machines.


It works very well, but you need to distinguish between the outsider  
view: all JC see all cities, and each personal views obtained, which  
are incompatible.


You simply borrox John Clark confusion between the 3-1 views and the 1- 
views.





There is no single 1p view -- there are three possible 1p views in  
the triplication scenario.


Right. The point is that from the first person perspective, those 1- 
views are logically incompatible.




So, again, John Clark is right when he says that JC ~ H will see  
three cities (W, S, and B) after the experiment is completed.


yes, he is right, but only on the 3-1 view on those 1-views, not on  
the 1-views seen by the 1-views, which are incopatible, and which was  
what the prediction asked was all about.




If, as you claim, he will see only one city, you have to have some  
dualist 'nut or core' that survives in only one of your copies.


Of course not. Just do the tought experience, and consider all 1- 
views, as seen from each of them.


Do you agree that if you are promised a cup of coffee in both W and in  
M, you can bet in Helsinki that you will get a cup of coffee with  
certainty? if yes, it is the same for the question "how many city will  
the H-guy seen, from its personal pov, after pushing the button?". The  
answer is "only one city", or "I will drink a cup of cofffe in ONE  
city with P = one, but I cannot know which one".







Of course, as I said some time ago, the easiest resolution of you  
logical conundrums is that JC ~ H does not survive, and that  
thereare three new persons, one in each city, so the probability  
that JC in H will see Sydney is exactly zero.


Then you predict that you will not survive either with a simple (non- 
duplicating) teleportation, or with a brain transplant, and we die ar  
each instant. That is OK (G and G* concures, but again, it is in a 3p  
picture, contradicted by the 1-views, boith intuitively, and  
mathematically.






Looking at the more realistic quantum realization of this  
triplication scenario, we can formulate that as follows. We prepare  
a spin-half atom with spin along the x-axis, then pass it through an  
S-G magnet oriented along the y-axis, getting two possibilities,  
which we can call up and down. We then take the up channel and pass  
that through a further S-G in the x-direction, getting two further  
possibilities of left or right.


Let us perform this experiment many times and count the number

Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-14 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 14 Jul 2016, at 00:52, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 10:35 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

>> Which turned out to be the better prediction, Moscow or  
Washington? And was the prediction about John Clark or was it  
about some mysterious figure named "you"?

> The better prediction was "W v M and I have no clue which  
one".

The better prediction about WHAT?

About the first person experience that is accessible to the candidate  
in Helsinki.

Even after the experiment is over nobody knows what was the better  
prediction because nobody knows who exactly the prediction was  
supposed to be about. 

Then you are already abandoning computationalism. With  
computationalism, the guy in Helsinki knows that he will survive, and  
that he will feel being experiencing the direct seeing of only one city.

>> Then asking the Helsinki Person "what city will you see?"  
or "how many cities will you see?" is a nonsense question because  
this is a world with people duplicating machines. 

> Yes, but it should be obvious to anyone understand the  
difference between the 1p and the 3p views

Then answer the question! After the experiment was over what  
ONE city turned out to be the correct answer, Moscow or Washington?

In helsinki, the guy can predict "W v M". He can predict "(W & ~M) v  
(M & ~W). He can predict that (W & M) will be false.

If you can't answer that question then it's not a experiment or even  
a thought experiment and so it's not science and assigning a  
probability to anything concerning it is just ridiculous.

I can predict, as well as I can predict that if I throw a dice, and  
the usual default assumption, I will get with certainty 1 v 2 v 3 v 4  
v 5 v 6. In the step 3 protocol, I predict W v M, and I can prove  
(using computaionalism) that it is the best bet.

As for being obvious, if modern physics and mathematics has taught  
us anything it's that common sense is not always a reliable guide,  
and a lot of obvious things would not be true in a world with  
people duplicating machines. We didn't evolve in a environment  
where things move close to the speed of light so out intuition  
in that area is poor, common sense tells us that Einstein's  
relativity just can'r be true, but it is.

> When the H-guy pushes on the button in Helsinki, he knows  
with certainty (assuming computationalism and the protocol and the  
default hypotheses) that such a guy will find itself in a box, in  
front of a door, behind which only one city will be seen (in the 1p  
view).

If after it's all over you can't name what one city "he" ended  
up seeing then "the" 1p view does not exist, only "a" 1p view does.

Read cautiously what you just said above.

>> you're interested in "THE 1p view" but as you just  
pointed out in a world with people duplicating machine "THE 1p view 
" is meaningless, there is only "A 1p view".

> Exactly, that is the root of the 1p indeterminacy.

We agree, although not very profound it is certainly true that a  
meaningless question (like which ONE will have the THE 1p view) has  
no answer, and that is the root cause of "1p indeterminacy". 

We don't ask which one will have THE 1p view, given that we know that  
both will live A 1p view. But we know that the two 1p view are  
logically incompatible. We ask to one precise guy (the H-guy) what he  
can expect to live after pushing on the button.

> You are asking about what one and only one city was seen

> The question concerns the future, or the next state.

The next state of what? I assume you mean the next state of  
something that remembers being in Helsinki, if so then there is  
certainly no law of physics that demands only one state can meet  
those specifications. If  you means something else then I repeat my  
question, the next state of what?

The next mental state of the guy in Helsinki, from his/her first point  
of view. As he does not die, and is reconstituted only in W and in M,  
it can only be W, or M.

And please, no personal pronouns with no clear referent in the answer.

>> John Clark will see two cities.

> That is the 3-1-view.

All I know is that John Clark in his 1-view sees Moscow and  
John Clark in his 1-view sees Washington and I have no idea what Mr.  
3-1-view sees. 

It is "John Clark in his 1-view sees Moscow and John Clark in his 1- 
view sees Washington"

With only that you can get that the best Helsinki prediction is "W v M".

> As you are John Clark, you need to go out of your body to  
conceive it. But to complete the thought experience, you need to re- 
integrate your body after the duplication.

OK even better, after the re-integration I have vivid memories of  
BOTH Washington and Moscow
and so I John K Clark from John K Clark's 1p ended up seeing  
Washington and Moscow. 

Assuming telepathy, or another notion of "integration" with no

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-13 Thread Brent Meeker




On 7/13/2016 6:50 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 14/07/2016 11:40 am, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 14/07/2016 11:31 am, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016  Bruce Kellett wrote:

 > 
Of course, as I said some time ago, the easiest resolution of
you logical conundrums is that JC ~ H does not survive, and that
there are three new persons, one in each city, so the
probability that JC in H will see Sydney is exactly zero.


Well... if that's what survival means then I don't care if I 
survive or not, if we use your easy resolution then I died 
yesterday, but my death doesn't seem to have cramped my style any.


So you were duplicated yesterday? One, quite reasonable, way of 
regarding our continuing existence from day to day, moment to moment, 
is that in every instant we die, to be reborn in the next instant. In 
fact, I am sure that someone else has already made this point (I 
can't, at the moment, remember who).


I found a relevant quote:
"I think maybe we die every day. Maybe we're born new each dawn, a 
little changed, a little further on our own road. When enough days 
stand between you and the person you were, you're strangers. Maybe 
that's what growing up is. Maybe I have grown up."

Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire #1)


Or looked at another way:

The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He died because
too much new information was added to his brain.
 -- Saibal Mitra

Brent

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-13 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 14/07/2016 11:40 am, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 14/07/2016 11:31 am, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016  Bruce Kellett wrote:

 > 
Of course, as I said some time ago, the easiest resolution of you
logical conundrums is that JC ~ H does not survive, and that
there are three new persons, one in each city, so the probability
that JC in H will see Sydney is exactly zero.


Well... if that's what survival means then I don't care if I survive 
or not, if we use your easy resolution then I died yesterday, but my 
death doesn't seem to have cramped my style any.


So you were duplicated yesterday? One, quite reasonable, way of 
regarding our continuing existence from day to day, moment to moment, 
is that in every instant we die, to be reborn in the next instant. In 
fact, I am sure that someone else has already made this point (I 
can't, at the moment, remember who).


I found a relevant quote:
"I think maybe we die every day. Maybe we're born new each dawn, a 
little changed, a little further on our own road. When enough days stand 
between you and the person you were, you're strangers. Maybe that's what 
growing up is. Maybe I have grown up."

Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire #1)

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-13 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 14/07/2016 11:31 am, John Clark wrote:
On Wed, Jul 13, 2016  Bruce Kellett >wrote:


 > 
Of course, as I said some time ago, the easiest resolution of you
logical conundrums is that JC ~ H does not survive, and that there
are three new persons, one in each city, so the probability that
JC in H will see Sydney is exactly zero.


Well... if that's what survival means then I don't care if I survive 
or not, if we use your easy resolution then I died yesterday, but my 
death doesn't seem to have cramped my style any.


So you were duplicated yesterday? One, quite reasonable, way of 
regarding our continuing existence from day to day, moment to moment, is 
that in every instant we die, to be reborn in the next instant. In fact, 
I am sure that someone else has already made this point (I can't, at the 
moment, remember who).


If I know that something tomorrow will remember being John Clark today 
then I'm content, after all that procedure worked pretty well in 
conserving what I want conserved during the transition form yesterday 
to today, so if the same thing happens in the transition from today to 
tomorrow I should be OK. And if tomorrow more than one thing remembers 
being John Clark today then that's even better. The more the merrier

 .


If you are happy, then fine. But are your dopplegangers equally happy -- 
they no longer exist, after all.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-13 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016  Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> 
> Of course, as I said some time ago, the easiest resolution of you logical
> conundrums is that JC ~ H does not survive, and that there are three new
> persons, one in each city, so the probability that JC in H will see Sydney
> is exactly zero.

Well... if that's what survival means then I don't care if I survive or
not, if we use your easy resolution then I died yesterday, but my death
doesn't seem to have cramped my style any.

If I know that something tomorrow will remember being John Clark today then
I'm content, after all that procedure worked pretty well in conserving what
I want conserved during the transition form yesterday to today, so if the
same thing happens in the transition from today to tomorrow I should be OK.
And if tomorrow more than one thing remembers being John Clark today then
that's even better. T
he more the merrier
.

 John K Clark

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-13 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 13/07/2016 11:36 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 11 Jul 2016, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:


*Holiday Exercise:*

A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting again 
from Helsinki.
Then in Moscow, but not in Washington,  he (the one in Moscow of 
course) undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.


I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.

In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.

With one reasoning, he (the H-guy)  thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2, and 
that P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of independent 
probability) that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.


But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications give 
globally a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in W, a copy 
in S and a copy in B, and so, directly conclude P(H-S) = 1/3.


So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?


Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets to 
Sydney is unity.


Try to convince the guy who gets to Beijing, or the one who stayed in 
Washington. He knows that the probability evaluated in Helsinki was 
not P(Sidney) = 1.


We start with John Clark in Helsinki, so P(JC ~ H) = 1. By construction, 
after the duplication and so on, P(JC ~ W) = P(JC ~ S) = P(JC ~ B) = 1. 
(I use '~' as a shorthand for 'in' or 'sees'.) JC in Helsinki knows the 
protocol, so he can easily see that these are the correct probabilities. 
So, as I said, the probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets 
to Sydney is unity. Any other interpretation of this scenario involves 
an implicit appeal to dualism -- there is "one true JC" that goes 
through these duplications, and he can only ever end up in just one place.


As John Clark has correctly pointed out, your intuition and formalism 
simply does not work in the presence of person-duplicating machines. 
There is no single 1p view -- there are three possible 1p views in the 
triplication scenario. So, again, John Clark is right when he says that 
JC ~ H will see three cities (W, S, and B) after the experiment is 
completed. If, as you claim, he will see only one city, you have to have 
some dualist 'nut or core' that survives in only one of your copies.


Of course, as I said some time ago, the easiest resolution of you 
logical conundrums is that JC ~ H does not survive, and that there are 
three new persons, one in each city, so the probability that JC in H 
will see Sydney is exactly zero.


Looking at the more realistic quantum realization of this triplication 
scenario, we can formulate that as follows. We prepare a spin-half atom 
with spin along the x-axis, then pass it through an S-G magnet oriented 
along the y-axis, getting two possibilities, which we can call up and 
down. We then take the up channel and pass that through a further S-G in 
the x-direction, getting two further possibilities of left or right.


Let us perform this experiment many times and count the number of 
particles in each of the three possible final states (down, left, and 
right). If this is a real laboratory experiment, in which detection of a 
particle in any channel leads to irreversible decoherence and the 
formation of a separate world containing just that result, we will find 
approximately half the particles end up in the down state, and 
approximately a quarter in each of the left and right states. This gives 
the most reliable estimate of the real probabilities for the outcome 
from the given initial state.


If you take the MWI view, then you get one down, one left, and one right 
in every run of the experiment, so the probability for each outcome is 
unity. In order to get probability of 1/4 for left, say, you have to 
detect the absence of a particle in the down state (so that the particle 
is certainly in the up state) for which the probability is 1/2.


Actually, your preferred answer -- that the probability P(H->S) = 1/3, 
is possible only in a fully dualist model. You are essentially claiming 
that as the scenario puts John Clark's in all three cities, it is purely 
a random chance that selects one of them to be the "true" John Clark -- 
a dualist "core" is assigned to one of these copies purely by chance.



This is the problem with probabilities in the MWI -- how do you 
interpret probabilities when all possible outcomes occur with 
probability one?


The probabilities concern the relative first person experiences. 
Computationalism guaranties that there will be only one outcome.


You are simply talking nonsense, here. "Relative first person 
experiences"? Relative to what? The scenario, and computationalism 
guarantees that there will be all three outcomes. If there is only one 
"1p" experience, then that can only be chosen dualistically. If there is 
duplication (triplication) then your intuitions break down. I have to 
say it -- John Clark has been right all along.


Bruce

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Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-13 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 10:35 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>> 
>> Which turned out to be the better prediction, Moscow or Washington? And
>> was the prediction about John Clark or was it about some mysterious figure
>> named "you"?
>
>
> > 
> The better prediction was "W v M and I have no clue which one".
>

The better prediction about WHAT? Even after the experiment is over nobody
knows what was the better prediction because nobody knows who exactly the
prediction was supposed to be about. 

>> >> 
>> Then asking the Helsinki Person "what city will *you* see?" or "how many
>> cities will *you *see?" is a nonsense question because this is a world
>> with people duplicating machines. 
>
>
> > 
> Yes, but it should be obvious to anyone understand the difference between
> the 1p and the 3p views
>

Then answer the question!

After the experiment was over what ONE city turned out to be the correct
answer, Moscow or Washington? If you can't answer that question then it's
not a experiment or even a thought experiment and so it's not science

and assigning a probability to anything concerning it is just ridiculous.

As for being obvious, if modern physics and mathematics has taught us
anything it's that common sense is not always a reliable guide,

and

a lot of obvious things would not be true in a world with people
duplicating machines.

We didn't evolve in a environment

where

things move close to the speed of light so out intuition in that area is
poor, common sense tells us that Einstein's relativity just can'r be true,
but it is.

> > 
> When the H-guy pushes on the button in Helsinki, he knows with certainty
> (assuming computationalism and the protocol and the default hypotheses)
> that such a guy will find itself in a box, in front of a door, behind which
> only one city will be seen (in the 1p view).
>

If after it's all over you can't name what one city "he" ended up seeing
then "*the*" 1p view does not exist, only "*a*" 1p view does.

>> >> 
>> you're interested in "THE 1p view" but as you just pointed out in a
>> world with people duplicating machine "THE 1p view" is meaningless, there
>> is only "A 1p view".
>
>
> > 
> Exactly, that is the root of the 1p indeterminacy.
>

We agree, although not very profound it is certainly true that a
meaningless question (like which ONE will have the THE 1p view)
has no answer, and that is the root cause of "1p indeterminacy". 

> 
>> > 
>> You are asking about what one and only one city was seen
>
>
> > 
> The question concerns the future, or the next state.
>

The next state of what?

I assume you mean the next state of something that remembers being in
Helsinki, if so then there is certainly no law of physics that demands only
one state can meet those specifications. If  you means something else then
I repeat my question, the next state of what? And please, no personal
pronouns with no clear referent in the answer.

>> 
>> John Clark will see two cities.
>
>
> > 
> That is the 3-1-view.
>

All I know is that
John Clark
in his 1-view sees Moscow and John Clark in his 1-view sees Washington and
I have no idea what Mr. 3-1-view sees. 

> 
> As you are John Clark, you need to go out of your body to conceive it. But
> to complete the thought experience, you need to re-integrate your body
> after the duplication.
>

OK even better, after the re-integration I have vivid memories of BOTH
Washington and Moscow and so I John K Clark from John K Clark's 1p ended up
seeing Washington *and* Moscow. 

>> >>
>> There are 2 "1-views", and Bruno Marchal demands to know which *ONE* and
>> only *ONE* *you* will see, and that demand is pure gibberish.
>
>
> > 
> You seem to be unable to understand that despite there are many 1-views
> obtained, all the 1-views feel to be one individual in a specific city.
>

So what? A
ll the 1-views that saw all those cities have an equal right to call
themselves John Clark, so the answer
to the question "what is the probability John Clark will see city X?" is
100%. And if you ask just one John Clark how many cities he saw and he just
says only one that does NOT disprove the statement "John Clark will see 2
cities" because there is still another John Clark out there that you
haven't asked yet.

> 
> By computationalism, you know that you will survive, and that you can only
> feel to survive as a unique individual in
>  
> only one city. You *know* that in advance. 
>

Ah, more

duplicate people and more duplicate personal pronouns

with no clear referent!

> > 
> remembering that the question was about that "future personal memory".
>

I'm not the one who has forgotten that in the future 2 people not just one
will have memories of being in Helsinki, and 2 people not just one will
remember wondering about what city they will end up in; I think you're the
one who has forgotten about that and that's why you call *both* of these
people

Re: Holiday Exercise (was: self (was Re: Aristotle the Nitwit

2016-07-13 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 12 Jul 2016, at 00:15, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>> 1) Each  copy saw only one city.

> Excellent! That is the correct 1-view description. Now, you  
just need to interview each copy about the prediction made in  
Helsinki and written in the diary to evaluate the better one.

How? Which turned out to be the better prediction, Moscow or  
Washington? And was the prediction about John Clark or was it  
about some mysterious figure named "you"?

The better prediction was "W v M and I have no clue which one".

In that case, both copies agrees with each other and all subsequent  
similar experiences.

2) All the copies together saw 2 cities.

> Correct 3p description of the experiences of all copies. That  
is the 3-1 view. We need it to get the correct "1)", but "all the  
copies" is not a person,

Then asking the Helsinki Person "what city will you see?" or "how  
many cities will you see?" is a nonsense question because this is a  
world with people duplicating machines. 

Yes, but it should be obvious to anyone understand the difference  
between the 1p and the 3p views, that the 1p views are not duplicated  
from the 1p view (the 1-1-view as opposed to the 3-1-views, and the  
3-1-1 views) etc.

When the H-guy pushes on the button in Helsinki, he knows with  
certainty (assuming computationalism and the protocol and the default  
hypotheses) that such a guy will find itself in a box, in front of a  
door, behind which only one city will be seen (in the 1p view).

> that is why you correctly add "together" (which is the 3-1  
view, in which we are not interested).

I know, you're interested in "THE 1p view" but as you just  
pointed out in a world with people duplicating machine  "THE 1p  
view" is meaningless, there is only "A 1p view".

Exactly, that is the root of the 1p indeterminacy. There will be at  
all moments only one 1p view, from the points of you of all copies.

> we are asked about the 1-views.

You are asking about what one and only one city was seen

The question concerns the future, or the next state. Then, the  
verification is asked to all copies, and those which are verified by  
all copies, when discussing together for example, are the correct one.

by "the 1-views" and that is a incoherent question with no  
coherent answer. Garbage in garbage out.

There is nothing incoherent, and indeed, those writing "W or M, and I  
have no clue which one" all win. and all other prediction fails.
In the finite case, just one fail refutes the prediction. In the  
infinite iteration of duplication, we can dismiss the negligible set  
(in the analytical or computer-science theoretical sense).

>> 4) The statement "John Clark will see two cities"  
turned out to be unambiguously true.

> In the 3-1 view, sure.

If they were logical it would be true from true from ANYBODIES  
view, Helsinki man Moscow Man Washington man you name it;

Yes, and only "W v M" is true from anybodies views when of course they  
keep in mind we are talking about the 1-views, and not the 3-1-views.  
All the copies agree that they expected and eventually verified to see  
only once city, and not knowing in advance which one.

John Clark will see two cities.

That is the 3-1-view.

As you are John Clark, you need to go out of your body to conceive it.  
But to complete the thought experience, you need to re-integrate your  
body after the duplication. As you have two bodies now, you have to do  
a choice, or more seriously, you need to develop just enough empathy  
toward BOTH copies, and listen to them: and both say that they see  
only one city, and could not have guessed that one city in advance,  
nor could they guess it again if we repeat the experience.

> But we asked about the 1-views.

There are 2 "1-views", and Bruno Marchal demands to know which ONE  
and only ONE *you* will see, and that demand is pure gibberish.

You seem to be unable to understand that despite there are many 1- 
views obtained, all the 1-views feel to be one individual in a  
specific city.

By computationalism, you know that you will survive, and that you can  
only feel to survive as a unique individual in only one city. You  
*know* that in advance. The gibberish is only apparent to you because  
you stop in the middle of the experience: you get first the correct  
3-1 view, but you don't complete the thought experience, by, notably  
looking at the personal memory of each copy, and remembering that the  
question was about that "future personal memory". If you do that, you  
can see easily that "W v M" win, and all others fail.

>> So which one was right?

> Trivially both when in Helsinki the prediction written in the  
diary was "W v M",

But what exactly was the prediction about?

Given that the guy knows he will survive, and that he will feel to be  
in one city, the

Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-13 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 11 Jul 2016, at 18:56, smitra wrote:


On 11-07-2016 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

HOLIDAY EXERCISE:
A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting again
from Helsinki.
Then in Moscow, but not in Washington, he (the one in Moscow of
course) undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.
I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.
In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.
With one reasoning, he (the H-guy) thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2, and
that P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of independent
probability) that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.
But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications give
globally a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in W, a copy
in S and a copy in B, and so, directly conclude P(H-S) = 1/3.
So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?

Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets to
Sydney is unity. This is the problem with probabilities in the MWI --
how do you interpret probabilities when all possible outcomes occur
with probability one?
Bruce
In duplication experiments the prior probability to exist at all in  
any of the possible states increases after the duplication, while in  
unitary QM this is conserved (except if one or more of the possible  
outcomes is death).


It is plausibly conserved with Mechanism too, if the arithmetical  
quantum logics (the one extracted from Z1*, or X1*, or S4Grz1)  
justifies the linear rule Y = II. And normally, if QM is empirically  
correct, and computationalism is correct, they should match.





The correct way to analyze Bruno style duplication arguments is to  
start with assigning some measure m to the observer before any  
duplication is carried out, in this case the observer at H.


The probabilities are relative, and conditioned implicitly by P(H) = 1.





Then H gives rises to two copies in states W and M (we can call them  
copies, but they are actually different observers as they have  
different memories stored in their brains, so they are different  
algorithms).


They are the same programs, but with different input. By the SMN  
theorem, you *can* conceive them as different programs. OK.



The measures will be m for each of these observers. Then W is not  
going to be copied, while M gives rise to S and B, so we end up with  
3 observers each with measure m. The probability is thus 1/3.


That is the correct answer  if the guy remains unconscious in  
Moscow. But I doubt it is 1/3 in case he does wake up. In that case I  
would say it is 1/4.  (To be sure, I use Gödel-Löb and self-reference,  
which works only for the case P=1, already non trivial, and quantum- 
like, to avoid such probability question which are premature, but we  
can also speculate a bit).







In an analogue MWI setting, the outcome is different, at each  
duplication the measure for a particular outcome is halved. W thus  
has a measure of m/2, while S and B each have a measure of m/4, the  
probability is thus 1/4.


Hmm... I would like to see the analogue. I think the devil is in the  
details here. The analogue of letting the Moscow guy unconscious is  
the interference when we don't make a measurement at some intermediate  
state of a quantum computation (say).


My opinion is P(H->S) = 1/4, if the guy in Moscow remains awake, and  
P(H->S) = 1/3 if he remains unconscious there.


Bruno





Saibal

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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-13 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 11 Jul 2016, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:


Holiday Exercise:

A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting again  
from Helsinki.
Then in Moscow, but not in Washington,  he (the one in Moscow of  
course) undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.


I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.

In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.

With one reasoning, he (the H-guy)  thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2, and  
that P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of independent  
probability) that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.


But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications give  
globally a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in W, a copy  
in S and a copy in B, and so, directly conclude P(H-S) = 1/3.


So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?


Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets to  
Sydney is unity.


Try to convince the guy who gets to Beijing, or the one who stayed in  
Washington. He knows that the probability evaluated in Helsinki was  
not P(Sidney) = 1.




This is the problem with probabilities in the MWI -- how do you  
interpret probabilities when all possible outcomes occur with  
probability one?


The probabilities concern the relative first person experiences.  
Computationalism guaranties that there will be only one outcome.


Bruno





Bruce


Can you modify a bit the protocol so that we get any of those  
results?



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Re: Holiday Exercise

2016-07-11 Thread Bruce Kellett


On 12/07/2016 11:36 am, smitra wrote:

On 12-07-2016 02:00, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 12/07/2016 2:56 am, smitra wrote:

On 11-07-2016 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 11/07/2016 9:31 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:


HOLIDAY EXERCISE:

A guy undergoes the Washington Moscow duplication, starting again
from Helsinki.
Then in Moscow, but not in Washington, he (the one in Moscow of
course) undergoes a similar Sidney-Beijing duplication.

I write P(H->M) the probability in H to get M.

In Helsinki, he tries to evaluate his chance to get Sidney.

With one reasoning, he (the H-guy) thinks that P(H-M) = 1/2, and
that P(M-S) = 1/2, and so conclude (multiplication of independent
probability) that P(H-S) = 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.

But with another reasoning, he thinks that the duplications give
globally a triplication, leading eventually to a copy in W, a copy
in S and a copy in B, and so, directly conclude P(H-S) = 1/3.

So, is it 1/4 or 1/3 ?


 Neither. The probability that the guy starting from Helsinki gets to
Sydney is unity. This is the problem with probabilities in the MWI --
how do you interpret probabilities when all possible outcomes occur
with probability one?

 Bruce

In duplication experiments the prior probability to exist at all in 
any of the possible states increases after the duplication, while in 
unitary QM this is conserved (except if one or more of the possible 
outcomes is death). The correct way to analyze Bruno style 
duplication arguments is to start with assigning some measure m to 
the observer before any duplication is carried out, in this case the 
observer at H.


What has a measure got to do with it?

There exists a probability to exist at all, in case of duplication 
experiments this is non-trivial, the probability to find yourself 
alive increases after duplication.


The probability that you find that you exist is one. This probability is 
not increased by duplication. If you do not exist, the probability that 
you exist is zero. If you are looking to see if you exist, then the 
probability you exist is exactly one -- it cannot be anything else.


Then H gives rises to two copies in states W and M (we can call them 
copies, but they are actually different observers as they have 
different memories stored in their brains, so they are different 
algorithms). The measures will be m for each of these observers. 
Then W is not going to be copied, while M gives rise to S and B, so 
we end up with 3 observers each with measure m. The probability is 
thus 1/3.


If they are different observers (different algorithms) then the only
possible answer for the prior probability is P(H->S) = 0. The original
is destroyed and does not go anywhere.


Yes, but then we're a bit too pedantic, what it means is that you have 
different observers which have the same history up to the duplication, 
and if they were to go to sleep, wake up and at that moment not 
remember where they are, then you have again identical observers for a 
few seconds who then will diverge again when they access their memories.


But in principle, you could say that each instant always gives rise to 
a  new observer, as I'm typing this sentence I'm constantly changing, 
so strictly speaking this email was written by many different people.


The closest continuer theory (with new identities in the case of ties) 
removes this confusion.


In an analogue MWI setting, the outcome is different, at each 
duplication the measure for a particular outcome is halved. W thus 
has a measure of m/2, while S and B each have a measure of m/4, the 
probability is thus 1/4.


In MWI, P(H->S) = 1. The only way you can get P(H->S) = 1/4 is in a
collapse model: H has to definitely go to M in order for S to become a
possibility. In non-collapse models, H goes to both M and W, so
P(H->M) = 1. Subsequent duplication in the non-collapse model leads to
copies in S and B, with both probabilities equal to one.

To get any probability other than unity or zero, you require either a
collapse or a dualist model. (The dualist model is the implicit
assumption that there is some hidden label whereby we can distinguish
the observers at W, S and B -- observers have to carry a unique
identity with them.) In a more reasonable interpretation of personal
identity in the duplication cases, each duplication creates two new
persons, so the probabilities become P(H->W) = P(H->M) = P(H->S) =
P(H->B) = 0.


MWI  yields the same probabilities as other interpretations of QM.


The concept of probability is problematic in MWI. That is why people are 
spending so much effort to derive the Born rule from within MWI (to 
avoid imposing it from outside). Probabilities only make sense if you 
have unique outcomes -- if all possible outcomes are realized, then the 
probability for any particular outcome is necessarily one.


Bruce

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