I've always thought - and this might just be betraying my lack of
understanding - that these are simply two sides of the same coin: we can't
distinguish between these quantum events, so we can consider ourselves as
either being a classical being 'above' a sea of quantum noise, or as being a
bundle of identical consciousnesses generated in many different interacting
universes. In the 1st interpretation, we don't split. In the second we do,
but the split doesn't change us.
--------------------------
- Did you ever hear of "The Seattle Seven"?
- Mmm.
- That was me... and six other guys.
2008/11/14 Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
>
> Kory Heath wrote:
> > 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.
>
> I think there is a misunderstanding of the MWI. Although the details
> haven't
> been worked out (and maybe they won't be, c.f. Dowker and Kent) it is
> generally
> thought that you, as a big hot macroscopic body, do not split into
> significantly
> different Korys because your interaction with the environment keeps the
> Kory
> part of the wave function continuously decohered. So in a Feynman
> path-integral
> picture, you are a very tight bundle of paths centered around the classical
> path. Only if some microscopic split gets amplified and affects you do you
> "split".
>
> I doubt that it will ever be possible to build a teleporter. Lawrence
> Krauss
> wrote about the problem in "The Physics of Star Trek". I'm not sure what
> it
> would mean for Bruno's argument if a teleporter were shown to be strictly
> impossible; after all it's just a thought experiment.
>
> On the other hand, I think it's probably not that hard to duplicate a lot
> of
> your brain function, enough to instantiate a "consciousness" that at least
> thinks it's Kory and fools Kory's friends. But would such an approximate
> Kory
> create the ambiguity in the history of Korys that is inherent in Bruno's
> argument?
>
> Brent
>
> >
>
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Received on Fri Nov 14 2008 - 08:55:13 PST