Fwd: Re: Are we simulated by some massive computer?
Forwarded at the request of the author:
>From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <stathispapaioannou.domain.name.hidden>
>
>On 25 April 2004 Kory Heath wrote:
>
>QUOTE-
>Yes, your theory states that the chances are 100% that some copy will find
>itself in the non-bizarre world. But the theory also states that the
>chances are very low - one in a billion - that *I* will be that copy. Why
>isn't this second probability important? It seems to me that you only care
>about the first probability, and disregard the second as irrelevant.
>-ENDQUOTE
>
>Lets go over this again. There is a 100% chance that some copy of Kory
>Heath will find himself in the non-bizarre world, even though there will
>be one billion copies which find themselves in the bizarre worlds. If that
>single, lucky copy is not *you*, then who is he? Or rather, I should ask,
>if you are not *you*, then who are you? Force of habit makes us think that
>only one copy can be the "real" you, which is what you are assuming when
>you say that "the chances are very low - one in a billion - that *I* will
>be that copy". If all these copies exist, then each is equally entitled to
>claim to be the "real" you, and each will probably stamp his foot and
>insist that he (and he alone) *is* the real you. This is what I tried to
>show with my teleportation vacation thought experiment. The stay-home copy
>believes he has been cheated because he (the "real" he, in his opinion)
>missed out on seeing the planets, whereas in fact two thousand copies with
>equal claim to being the "real" person did find themselves off Earth.
>
>I suppose our minds really are not designed to deal with the concept of
>multiple copies of ourselves. We insist that there can only be one copy
>extant at a time, and reason as if this is the case. It becomes less
>problematic if we talk only about third person probabilities.
>
>Incidentally, this point applies to any "many worlds" theory, not just the
>Platonia idea.
>
>--Stathis Papaioannou
Received on Mon Apr 26 2004 - 00:25:13 PDT
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