R. Miller writes:
>>"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.
1. I'm not saying that definitely there are all these other universes out
there, but if there are, then like the copying experiments, it will seem
probabilistic from a first person perspective because you don't know which
copy you are going to be. It *does* look probabilistic, doesn't it? When you
toss a coin, you only see one result. This could be explained equally well
by saying there is only one universe, or multiple universes which do not
interact at the level of people and coins.
2. & 3. I can only experience being one person at a time. At least, it seems
that way: when I toss a coin, I have never observed both heads and tails
simultaneously. This tells me there is only one of me, or if there are many
versions of me, I can't experience what the other versions are experiencing.
Maybe under very unusual circumstances someone can peer into one or more of
the parallel universes, but it has never happened to me!
--Stathis Papaioannou
_________________________________________________________________
SEEK: Over 80,000 jobs across all industries at Australia's #1 job site.
http://ninemsn.seek.com.au?hotmail
Received on Mon Jun 27 2005 - 00:13:46 PDT