RE: valuable errors

From: Higgo James <james.higgo.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 17:12:20 +0100

I see, it is a good attempt at restricting the difinition of identity but it
has two main problems:
1. It excludes what Bruno and I would include.
2. Must each molecule be mapped on to another molecule in the subsequent
universes one planck-time hence? How much deviation is allowed before we say
that the correlation is so poor that it is not 'you' in that universe?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gilles HENRI [SMTP:Gilles.Henri.domain.name.hidden]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 1999 5:00 PM
> To: Higgo James
> Cc: 'everything-list.domain.name.hidden'
> Subject: RE: valuable errors
>
> À (At) 14:47 +0100 20/04/99, Higgo James écrivait (wrote) :
> >No, I think that both are possible and (2) hapens every planck-time. But
> as
> >Jacques has rudely pointed out the problem is that we have yet to define
> >'you'.
> >
>
> Right. As there is no objective definition of individuality, you can
> assume
> many different ones. You are allowed to think that you can be a computer,
> or that you were another person in another life, or even that you are any
> other human being. What I propose is to RESTRICT the definition of
> identity
> to a set of organized subsystems of macroscopic (classical-like) worlds
> that are physically continuous (i.e. connected by a chain of Planck times
> with Planck length separations ) and hence which can be thought as a
> temporal evolution of a single individual, including all possible quantum
> branching points. This is quite comparable to the problem of determining
> if
> some branch belongs or not to some tree. This EXCLUDES the possibility of
> discontinuous copies in a macroscopic world ("teleportation"), or rather
> such copies wouldn't preserve the identity in this sense. So (1) is
> excluded by definition. But it keeps the idea of many "you" in MWI (2).
>
> I think that Bruno himself thinks that this position is tenable. I agree
> that you can adopt a larger definition of identity, making (1) possible,
> although I think that it would inevitably lead you to accept that you
> could
> be also something VERY different from your present state, which I find
> quite strange. I tried to convince you that if you expect that your copy
> behaves EXACTLY like yourself in ANY circumstance, it imposes that he IS
> yourself, i.e; you are unique in our world. If you don't think that, you
> could also accept to commit suicide thinking that you will reincarnate on
> Sirius, like the members of Solar Temple order. It is not logically
> refutable, although most people agree that it is foolish.
>
> Gilles
>
>
>
>
Received on Tue Apr 20 1999 - 09:51:52 PDT