Re: another anthropic reasoning paradox

From: George Levy <GLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 10:20:10 -0800

Wei Dai wrote:

> The paradox is what happens if we run Alice and Bob's minds on different
> substrates, so that Bob's mind has a much higher measure than Alice's.

I fail to understand the paradox. In the case where they are on the same
substrate, they are more likely to push button 2. OK
In the case where they run on different substrate, the decision is not any
different: Bob's memory has been erased and his decision will still be to push
button 2, independently of his measure. He will lose, but since he has no
memory of his past, he can't even verify that he is Bob by running the same
experiment 1000 times for example. Erasing their memory puts a big cabosh on
the meaning of who they really are. I could argue that Bob is not really Bob
and Alice is not really Alice. Their identity has been reduced to a *bare* "I"
and they are actually identical!!!! In addition, I think the whole concept
of measure is faulty. If you could measure your measure you would find the
measurement always identical no matter where, when or who you are. I mentioned
this in earlier posts as a kind of Cosmological principle. Substrates and
measures are just red herrings.

George
Received on Wed Feb 28 2001 - 10:55:43 PST