Re: another anthropic reasoning paradox

From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu Mar 1 03:29:32 2001

Wei Dai wrote:

>Consider the following thought experiment.
>
>Two volunteers who don't know each other, Alice and Bob, are given
>temporary amnesia and placed in identical virtual environments. They are
>then both presented with three buttons and told the following:
>
>If you push 1, you will lose $9
>If you push 2 and you are Alice, you will win $10
>If you push 2 and you are Bob, you will lose $10
>
>I'll assume that everyone agrees that both people will push button 2.

Mmh ... OK. (I guess the second two is three).

>
>The paradox is what happens if we run Alice and Bob's minds on different
>substrates,

Different substrates ?

>so that Bob's mind has a much higher measure than Alice's.

Bob is relatively multiplied ?

> If
>they apply anthropic reasoning they'll both think they're much more likely
>to be Bob than Alice, and push button 1.

OK. (for the sake of the argument because TE with amnesia are difficult,
in fact amnesia most probably changes the measure by itself, cf Mitra's
post).
 
>If you don't think this is paradoxical, suppose we repeat the choice but
>with the payoffs for button 2 reversed, so that Bob wins $10 instead of
>Alice, and we also swap the two minds so that Alice is running on the
>substrate that generates more measure instead of Bob. They'll again both
>push button 1.

What is exactly the information you give to them, and what remains whith
the erasing of memory?

>But notice that at the end both people would have been
>>better off if they pushed button 2 in both rounds.

I don't understand why. It seems to me that it will depend on the exact
information you give them before and after erasing the "personal"
memories.


Jacques Mallah wrote:

>Of course, hardware doesn't make the man. Nothing does, really:
>"Bobness" is just a loose set of traits. This shows the hurluberlu nature
>of "1st person" merde.

I hope your are talking about your self (which certainly seems to
include some hurluberlu set of traits).
I agree with you: hardware doesn't make the man. ("of course" *with*
comp).
Something does. Though. If only just first and third personal memories.


Bruno
Received on Thu Mar 01 2001 - 03:29:32 PST