Re: UDA steps 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat Jun 30 11:13:18 2001

Finney wrote:

>Marchal writes:
>> Here is question 6. Perhaps the first not so obvious one.
>> Do you agree that, if I ask you at Brussels, before the
>> Washington-Moscow duplication experiment: "Where will you *feel*
>> to be after the experiment will be completed?" that although
>> you can answer "you will see me at Washington and at Moscow",
>> your first person diary will either contain "I am at Moscow" or
>> I am at Washington" so that you cannot predict with certainty
>> where you will feel to be?"
>
>I don't think this is a meaningful question, because it is not
>"operational", that is, it is just a matter of opinion and does not
>require anyone to take any action.
>
>Suppose you were French and, faced with this experiment, you were asked,
>would you study English or Russian prior to engaging in this experiment?
>That is an operational question. If you think you will be in Moscow,
>you would study Russian; if Washington, English. If neither, then I
>suppose you would not study either one. For me, I would study both.
>
>However I would refuse to answer a question like "where will you feel to
>be", not because I can't predict the answer with certainty, but because
>I don't think "you" is a well defined concept in the context of this
>experiment. It's not that the answer to the question is unpredictable,
>it's that the question is meaningless.


If you answer "yes" to the question 5 (do you survive duplication) it
seems
to me that the question is meaningful. After all if "I" survive
(in grand-mother sense), it is natural to ask myself where I will feel to
be.
I don't see the difference whith the experience where I ask you to
look at a photon in the superposition state a + b, and asking you to go
in W if you find the photon in state a, and to go at Moscow if you find
the photon in state b. Here too there is a sense to ask you where you
will feel to be, and with MWI both alternatives are realised.

Bruno
Received on Sat Jun 30 2001 - 11:13:18 PDT