At some point, doesn't it just become far more likely that the teleporter
just doesn't work? I know that might seem like dodging the question, but it
might be fundamentally impossible to ignore all possibilities.
2008/10/30 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
>
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> 2008/10/30 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>:
>
> The seven first steps of the UD Argument show this already indeed, if
>
> you accept some Occam Razor. The movie graph is a much subtle argument
>
> showing you don't need occam razor: not only a machine cannot
>
> distinguish real from virtual, but cannot distinguish real from
>
> arithmetical either. Many people does not know enough in philosophy of
>
> mind to understand why the movie graph argument is necessary to
>
> complete the proof, so I rarely insist. Maudlin's 1989 paper can be
>
> said answering to the "counterfactual- objection" against the MGA
>
> (Movie-Graph Argument).
>
>
> Bruno, I'm not sure why you de-emphasise step 8 of the UDA. The other
> steps are relatively straightforward and uncontroversial compared to
> step 8. People who encounter the argument will naturally ask, how can
> you have a computation without a computer or a mind without a brain? I
> think I understand your reasoning (and Maudlin's) here, but it needs
> to be spelled out if the UDA is not to be dismissed on the grounds
> that it proves nothing about reality, assumed to be at the bottom
> level comprised of hard physical objects.
>
>
>
> Stathis, you see I cannot doubt about consciousness, so I can doubt only
> matter, and my research is in big part motivated by explaining what is
> matter without taking granted it exists or what it can be, i.e. my goal
> consists in explaining matter from non material entities which I can
> understand; like numbers and simple sets (of numbers). It took some time for
> me to realize that most people really take the existence of matter for
> granted. But then what is it? Despite appearance, physics never relies on
> the materialist assumption, except in the background, as an excuse for not
> dwelving into what they take, with Aristotle, as metaphysics. Physical
> theories are mathematical theories, with conventional and relative
> "unities". To invoke "matter" as an explanation for actuality or reality
> seems to me as erroneous as using the notion of God for justifying the
> creation. At the origin, the Movie Graph Argument (MGA) was an attempt to
> explain the mind body problem once we assume comp, and to show the
> difficulties of the notion of matter to the materialists. But your remark is
> fair enough, and eventually we have to spelled out all the details for
> having a proof or completely convincing argument.
> I will try to build an argument developed through little steps; like I have
> done for the UDA, but note that even for UDA it is rare people tells the
> step where they stop to understand. We will see. I guess sometimes that
> people are a bit anxious with those matter and I don't want to push them too
> much. yet I am very glad you understand it, so perhaps you will be able to
> help. I will send, in a new MGA thread, a first step. OK. I will go slowly
> (if only because I am a bit busy).
>
>
> You wrote also:
>
>
> 2008/10/30 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>:
>
> To make a prediction on the future from the past you have to remember
>
> the past (or at least some relevant part of the past). If you allow
>
> (partial) amnesia, it could depend on many things including the type
>
> of computations allowing the amnesia: it makes almost no sense a
>
> priori. It would be like asking what is probability to get six
>
> (subjectively or as first person experience, like we have to do
>
> assuming comp) when throwing a dice knowing in advance that once you
>
> have thrown the dice you will forget that you have thrown the dice!
>
> So I am not sure the question can even make sense. I said to George
>
> Levy a long time ago (in this list) that all first person
>
> probabilities in self-multiplication experiments presuppose that the
>
> level of substitution (of brain material) has been chosen correctly,
>
> and thus serendipitously given that we cannot known for sure our own
>
> substitution level.
>
>
> Your teleportation thought experiments seem quite straightforward and
> intuitive to me: if I am copied to two separate locations, then I
> should have a 1/2 first person probability of finding myself in one or
> other location. We can assume for the sake of the experiment that the
> copying is close enough to perfect, and dismiss the possibility that
> the copies will be zombies. So, will the probability of finding myself
> in each location still be 1/2 if one of the copies is perfect but the
> other is 99% or 50% or 1% faithful, by whatever criterion you care to
> define these percentages?
>
>
>
> Hmmm... Sometime ago I would have refuse to answer this question. I know
> that for the exact and precise derivation of physics from computer
> (mathematical) science, we need to be able to answer this, but my point has
> never been to derive physics from comp, it consists just to explain why,
> assuming comp, we *have to* derive physics from comp (independently of the
> difficulty of the task).
> But ok, perhaps I have make some progress lately, and I will answer that
> the probability remains invariant for that too. The probability remains
> equal to 1/2 in the imperfect duplication (assuming 1/2 is the perfect one).
> But of course you have to accept that if a simple teleportation is done
> imperfectly (without duplication), but without killing you, the probability
> of surviving is one (despite you get blind, deaf, amnesic and paralytic, for
> example). OK? What do you think?
> Sometimes ago I would have equate total amnesia with death, but I have
> change my mind on this. What is your opinion on this, doctor?
>
> Note also that eventually the measure of uncertainty are not really
> probabilities but coefficient of credibility. They don't compose
> transitively. The notion of probability can be used only for the immediate
> experience, despite they are defined by a weight on, most probably, infinite
> histories (for not getting paradoxes we have already discussed).
>
> - Bruno Marchal
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/>
>
>
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Thu Oct 30 2008 - 14:12:08 PDT