Sorry for the long delay on this reply.
On Nov 2, 2008, at 7:04 PM, Brent Meeker wrote:
> Kory Heath wrote:
>> In this mundane sense, it's perfectly sensible for me to say, as I'm
>> sitting here typing this email, "I expect to still be sitting in this
>> room one second from now". If I'm about to step into a teleporter
>> that's going to obliterate me and make a perfect copy of me in a
>> distant blue room, how can it not be sensible to ask - in that
>> mundane, everyday sense - "What do I expect to be experiencing one
>> second from now?"
> It's sensible to ask because in fact there is no teleporter or
> duplicator or simulator that can provide the continuity of experiences
> that is Kory. So the model in which your consciousness is a single
> unified "thing" works. But there are hypothetical cases in which it
> doesn't make sense, or at least its sense is somewhat arbitrary.
If something like the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics is
correct, then this kind of duplication is actually happening to me all
the time. But I should still be able to ask a question like, "What do
I expect to be experiencing one second from now?", and the answer
should still be "I expect to still be sitting at this computer, typing
this email." If the many-worlds theory simply disallows me from making
statements like that, then there's something wrong with the many-
worlds theory. But if the many-worlds theory *allows* me to make
statements like that, then in that same sense, I should be able to ask
"What am I about to experience?" when I step into a duplicating machine.
-- Kory
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Received on Fri Nov 14 2008 - 00:10:44 PST