Eric Cavalcanti wrote:
> From: "David Kwinter" <david.domain.name.hidden>
>
>
> > > I mean the absolutely exact same David Kwinter or Eric Cavalcanti as
> > was the moment before.
>
> I agree that a moment from now there will be a number of exactly
>equal copies. Nevertheless, I am sure I will only experience being
>one of them, so this is what I mean by ' me ' - the actual experiences
>I will have. Maybe some copy of me will win the lottery every time
>I play, but that does not give me reason to spend my money on it. I
>still believe that the probability that 'I' win is 1/10^6, even if on a
> multiverse sense, the probability that at least one copy of me wins is 1.
>The same should be the case with death if we assume a materialistic
>position.
But you should no more expect to end up in a branch where you died than in a
branch where you were never born in the first place. Consider, instead of a
branching multiverse, a Star-Trek-style transporter/duplicator in a single
universe, which can deconstruct you and reconstruct exact copies
atom-by-atom in distant locations (assuming the error introduced by the
uncertainty principle is too small to make a difference--if you don't want
to grant that, you could also assume this is all happening within a
deterministic computer simulation and that you are really an A.I.). To use
Bruno Marchal's example, suppose this duplicator recreates two identical
copies of you, one in Washington and one in Moscow. As you step into the
chamber, if you believe continuity of consciousness is "real" in some sense
and that it's meaningful to talk about the probabilities of different
possible next experiences, it would probably make sense to predict from a
first-person-point of view that you have about a 50% chance of finding
yourself in Moscow and a 50% chance of finding yourself in Washington.
On the other hand, suppose only a single reconstruction will be performed in
Washington--then by the same logic, you would probably predict the
probability of finding yourself in Washington is close to 100%, barring a
freak accident. OK, so now go back to the scenario where you're supposed to
be recreated in both Washington and Moscow, except assume that at the last
moment there's a power failure in Moscow and the recreator machine fails to
activate. Surely this is no different from the scenario where you were only
supposed to be recreated in Washington--the fact that they *intended* to
duplicate you in Moscow shouldn't make any difference, all that matters is
that they didn't. But now look at another variation on the scenario, where
the Moscow machine malfunctions and recreates your body missing the head. I
don't think it makes sense to say you have a 50% chance of being "killed" in
this scenario--your brain is where your consciousness comes from, and since
it wasn't duplicated this is really no different from the scenario where the
Moscow machine failed to activate entirely. In fact, any malfunction in the
Moscow machine which leads to a duplicate that permanently lacks
consciousness should be treated the same way as a scenario where I was only
supposed to be recreated in Washington, in terms of the subjective
probabilities. Extending this to the idea of natural duplication due to
different branches of a splitting multiverse, the probability should always
be 100% that my next experience is one of a universe where I have not been
killed.
The big assumption here, as I said earlier, is that there is some sort of
"objective" truth about continuity of consciousness and subjective
probabilities, that it's not just a bunch of isolated observer-moments who
just have an illusion of a consciousness which changes over time due to
memories and expectations. See my thread on "3 possible views of
'consciousness'" here:
http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m2358.html
>If non-observing states are prohibited, then we should never expect to
>be in a coma, or anesthesized, for instance. Whenever you would be
>submitted to a surgery, you would see that the doctor somehow failed
>to apply the anesthesy correctly, and you would have a *very* conscious
>experience.
>
I don't see any justification for that. Why can't your "next"
observer-moment after the anesthesia begins to take effect be of waking up
hours later? That's a lot what waking up from dreamless unconsciousness
feels like, subjectively.
Jesse
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Received on Fri Nov 07 2003 - 14:36:17 PST