Re: Have all possible events occurred?

From: rmiller <rmiller.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 14:58:21 -0500

At 10:22 AM 6/26/2005, Norman Samish wrote:

>"Stathis Papaioannou" writes: Of course you are right: there is no way to
>distinguish the original from the copy, given that the copying process works
>as intended. And if you believe that everything possible exists, then there
>will always be at least one version of you who will definitely experience
>whatever outcome you are leaving to chance. Probability is just a first
>person experience of a universe which is in fact completely deterministic,
>because we cannot access the parallel worlds where our copies live, and
>because even if we could, we can only experience being one person at a time.
RM Comments: (1) I'll have to disagree with Stathis' (apparent) statement
that "probability is just a first person experience of a universe."
No proper foundation. (2) Additionally, Stathis assumes that we cannot
access the parallel worlds where our copies live. Since no one
can even define consciousness, or isolate precisely where memory is located
(or even what it is), there is no way we can preclude simultaneous
experience. The best we can say is, "we simply don't know." And, (3), for
the same reasons, we cannot say that we "experience being one person
at a time." There are numerous psychological models---neodissociationism
being just one---that posit a personality made up of multiple modules, all
interacting (somewhat) under the guidance of an executive, Hilgard's
"hidden observer." Unless and until we fully understand how consciousness
is linked to personality, we probably shouldn't preclude multiple or
simultaneous experience.
Received on Sun Jun 26 2005 - 16:00:29 PDT