Kory,
what you wrote makes in ALL probability perfect 'sense', but does it make
sense (human - common that is) at all?
Do we have a 'sense' of infinite? (It is a 'word' in the vocabulary).
I don't see 'probability' either, as a definable concept. Anything can
happen and in any sequence in your 'infinite' variability. The rest is
"words only".
Worst concept: statistical, depending on the chosen aspects we compare and
on the boundaries of the observational domain. The 'infinite' in this sense
washes out statistical and probability words.
(I am sorry, if I read something: I try to put sense into it).
John M
On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 10:38 PM, Kory Heath <kory.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> On Oct 23, 5:34 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <stath....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> > If I am copied to two
> > locations A and B, with each copy being identical, it seems reasonable
> > to say that I have a 1/2 probability iof finding myself at A and a 1/2
> > probability of finding myself at B. But if I am copied perfectly at A
> > and with half my memories (or personality, or whatever) to two
> > locations B and C, what does that mean for the probabilities?
>
> That's a great question. I don't know the answer, but it seems to me
> that it must affect the probabilities in some sense. If I'm copied to
> two locations A and B, but something goes wrong with the B-copy,
> causing it to end up as a non-conscious puddle of goo, it seems
> reasonable to say that I have a 100% probability of finding myself at
> A and a 0% chance of finding myself at B. However, if I'm copied to
> two locations A and B over and over again, with A always being a
> perfect copy and B being a successively less perfect copy until it's
> just a puddle of goo, it *doesn't* seem reasonable to say that, at
> some point, the removal of a single molecule causes the probabilities
> to switch from 50/50 to 100/0. So even though I don't know how to
> quantify the effect, I feel forced to conclude that the probabilities
> gradually shift from 50/50 to 100/0 as the B-copy gets less and less
> "similar" to me.
>
> Some will argue that it's not correct to talk about probabilities in
> this context - that If I'm copied identically to two locations A and
> B, it's not correct to speak in terms of probabilities of finding
> myself in A or B. But even if that's true, it doesn't change my
> conclusion that there must be a spectrum of cases. There's still
> clearly something different about the cases when both A and B
> represent copies of me, compared to the cases when B is a puddle of
> goo and I am certainly going to find myself at A. It's impossible (for
> me) to believe that the addition or removal of a single molecule could
> cause one case to flip to the other, so I must believe that there's a
> spectrum between the two cases.
>
> This conclusion has some bearing on the "white rabbit" problem. Many
> people on this list think that the solution to the white rabbit
> problem has something to do with "measure" - in other words, the
> reason that I don't see talking white rabbits hopping through my room
> right now is that in the ensemble of all my possible futures, the ones
> in which talking white rabbits suddenly appear are less *numerous*
> than those in which they don't. That theory has never seemed correct
> to me, because I think I have an infinite number of possible futures
> with talking white rabbits, and an infinite number without. The above
> conclusion suggests an alternate theory based on *similarity* rather
> than measure.
>
> -- Kory
>
> >
>
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Received on Mon Oct 27 2008 - 15:54:17 PDT