On 30 Oct 2008, at 23:58, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
> Kory Heath wrote:
>>
>> On Oct 30, 2008, at 10:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> 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).
>>
>> This is the position I was arguing against in my earlier post. Let's
>> stick with simple teleportation, without duplication. If the data is
>> scrambled so much that the thing that ends up on the other side is
>> just a puddle of goo, then my probability of surviving the
>> teleportation is 0%. It's functionally equivalent to just killing me
>> at the first teleporter and not sending any data over. (Do you
>> agree?)
>> If the probability of me surviving when an imperfect copy is made is
>> still 100%, then there's some point of "imperfection" at which my
>> chances of surviving suddenly shift from 100% to 0%. This change will
>> be marked by (say) the difference of a single molecule (or bit of
>> data, or whatever). I don't see how that can be correct.
>>
>> -- Kory
>
> But there are many ways for what comes out of the teleporter to
> *not* be you.
> Most of them are "puddles of goo", but some of them are copies of
> Bruno or
> imperfect copies of me or people who never existed before.
>
> Suppose it's a copy of you as you were last year - is it 100% you.
> It's not
> 100% the you that went into the machine - but if you're the same
> person you were
> last year it's 100% you. Of course the point is that you're not the
> same "you"
> from moment to moment in the sense of strict identity of information
> down to the
> molecular level, or even the neuron level.
Yes. And if a teleporter transforms me into a copy of me as I was last
year, I will say that although I have 100% survive, I suffer from an
amnesia bearing on one year of experience, and indeed I will have to
relearn what "I" have done and update myself accordingly.
I can complain about the doctor or about the teleportation company of
course, like someone who did survive a train accident, with injuries,
perhaps amnesia, can complain about the railroad society (if he
remembers the name).
--Bruno Marchal
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Fri Oct 31 2008 - 13:37:28 PDT