On Jun 28, 2007, at 5:18 PM, Tom McCabe wrote:
How do you get the "50% chance"? There is a 100% chance of a mind waking up who has been uploaded, and also a 100% chance of a mind waking up who hasn't. This doesn't violate the laws of probability because these aren't mutually exclusive. Asking which one "was you" is silly, because we're assuming they're completely identical at the instant they wake up; they're both you. This is apparently something that needs a lot of explaining; consciousness is not a conserved quantity. If there was some magicky consciousness "stuff" that either was uploaded or not uploaded, then sure, you could talk about a 50% probability of the upload being successful. But if we define "successful" as "you wake up uploaded", and "failure" as "you wake up not uploaded", then there is a 100% (assuming the process always works technically) probability of success and a 100% probability of failure. Both possibilities refer to the *same process*, to the exact same series of atoms getting juggled back and forth. I recognize that this is really confusing, but it seems to match what would happen if you actually tried it.
Your "100%" is half of the total, which means you've just relabeled "50%" as "100%", and claiming that it means something that has to be explained. That isn't the case; it's just a label. In half the cases of an individual (a copy, an instance, or a process -- call it whatever you will) waking up, the individual will be uploaded. In half of such cases, they won't be. I assume that you're correct that there's no "magicky consciousness stuff", which is why no one should expect to wake up simultaneously experiencing both outcomes at the same time. I would expect that even those who are pattern identity adherents will agree that each copy will experience only his or her own existence. -- Randall Randall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Someone needs to invent a Bayesball bat that exists solely for smacking people [...] upside the head." -- Psy-Kosh on reddit.com ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&user_secret=7d7fb4d8
