RE: Many Pasts? Not according to QM...

From: Jonathan Colvin <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 14:10:51 -0700

Bruno wrote:
> >>> Jonathan Colvin: Beyond the empathetic rationale, I don't see any
> > convincing argument
> >>> for favoring the copy over a stranger. The copy is not, after
> >> all, *me*
> >>> (although it once was). We ceased being the same person
> the moment
> >>> we were copied and started diverging.
> >>
> >> Yes, this is exactly my position, except that I'm not sure I would
> >> necessarily care more about what happens to my copy than to a
> >> stranger.
> >> After all, he knows all my secrets, my bank account details, my
> >> passwords...
> >> it's not difficult to see how we might become bitter enemies.
> >>
> >> The situation is different when I am considering my copies in the
> >> future. If I know that tomorrow I will split into two
> copies, one of
> >> whom will be tortured, I am worried, because that means
> there is 1/2
> >> chance that I will "become" the torture victim. When
> tomorrow comes
> >> and I am not the torture victim, I am relieved, because now I can
> >> feel sorry for my suffering copy as I might feel sorry for a
> >> stranger. You could argue that there is an inconsistency
> here: today
> >> I identify with the tortured copy, tomorrow I don't. But
> whether it
> >> is inconsistent or irrational is beside the point:
> >> this is how our minds actually work. Every amputee who experiences
> >> phantom limb pain is aware that they are being
> "irrational" because
> >> there is no limb there in reality, but knowing this does
> not make the
> >> pain go away.
> >
> > This is incorrect, I think. At time A, pre-split, there is a 100%
> > chance that you will *become* the torture victim. The
> torture victim
> > must have once been you, and thus you must become the
> torture victim
> > with probability 1.
> > There's no inconsistency here; you are quite right to be worried at
> > time A, because you (at time A) *will* be tortured (at time B). The
> > inconsistency comes with identifying (you at time A,
> pre-split) with
> > (one of the you's at time B, post-split). There can be no
> one-to-one
> > correspondence.
>
> To sum up I am duplicated, and one of the copy will be
> tortured, the other will not be tortured. You say that there
> is 100% chance I will be tortured. If we interview the one
> who is not tortured he must acknowledge his reasoning was
> false, and the proba could not have been = to 100% chance.
> Are you not identifying yourself with the one who will be
> tortured (in this case you make the error you pretend Stathis
> is doing. If not, it means you identified yourself with both,
> but this would mean you do the confusion between 1 and 3
> person, given that we cannot *feel* to be two different individuals.

There's a third possibility, which is that the "I" pre-split can not be
identified with either of the post-split individuals. As per my reponse to
Stathis, the question is ill-posed. You can interview the non-tortured
individual post-split, and while it may feel to him that he is "me", the
same will be true for the other individual. So which is "me"? The most
sensible response is that the question is ill-posed.

If I take a loaf of bread, chop it half, put one half in one room and one
half in the other, and then ask the question "where is the loaf of bread?",
we can likely agree that the question is ill-posed.

The question "what will I feel tomorrow" only has an answer assuming that
tomorrow there is a unique "me". If I have been duplicated, there is no
longer a definite answer to the question.

Jonathan Colvin
Received on Thu Jun 09 2005 - 17:35:48 PDT