RE: More is Better (was RE: another puzzle)

From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 14:22:18 -0700

Stathis writes

> >I think that if it is given that either you or your duplicate
> >must die, then you should willingly sacrifice yourself if it will
> >enrich your duplicate.
> >
> >Either way, I think you wake up the next morning very satisfied
> >with the outcome.
>
> How do you wake up the next morning if you're the one who died? Unless you
> can effect some sort of mind merge just before dying, you lose all the
> experiences that you have had since you and your duplicate diverged...

Well, Stathis, for heaven's sake! You've already admitted that a
little memory loss does not threaten your identity! Recall the Aussies
you wrote about who customarily lose an entire evening's inebriation :-)

So remember: your duplicate in the next room is *exactly* in the
same state you are in right now if you lose a little recent memory,
and then have some new experiences that are identical to his over
the last few minutes. So he *is* you! That's what I mean when I
say that we must regard duplicates as selves.

> I still don't really understand why you are so insistent that your duplicate
> is you and should be considered on a par with yourself when it comes to
> deciding what is in your self-interest. You have arrived at this conclusion
> from the fact that you and he were physically and mentally identical at the
> moment of duplication, and will remain more similar than a pair of identical
> twins despite diverging post-duplication. However, I don't see why it is any
> less valid or less rational if I say that I find the idea of having a
> duplicate around disturbing, and would prefer not to be duplicated,
> especially if there is a chance the two of us might meet.

I've always considered it interesting psychologically how people
would react to their duplicates. It happens that so far as I know,
my duplicate and I would get along splendidly. (Of course, with
our luck, we would discover a completely intolerable mannerism
that we each have :-(

But whatever. G. H. Hardy could not stand the sight of himself
in the mirror, and the first thing he'd do when arriving at a hotel
is put towels over any of the mirrors. I've even noted a recent
tendency for me to avoid eye contact in a mirror! But seriously,
these idiosyncrasies aren't important in the high-stakes games,
e.g., will you die now so that your duplicate in the next room
gets $10,000,000, (given that one of you must die).

And let's go back to this crazy "transfer" that seems (from my
viewpoint) to occupy the attention of those who believe in
"continuers". So you expect to be the person who arrives at
the other end if you are disintegrated here and teleported
there. You even expect to be him if the original here is
not disintegrated. (Here I must lash out at the bizarre
probability calculus that ensues for many at this point:
whether or not they *are* the remote version seems to depend
on what happens locally here. Sheese.)

So if all the 1000 Stathis's in the various rooms are to die
but one, then that one "continues" all the others. Now we
play a trick. The 1000 don't actually die but are placed in
instantaneous suspended animation.

Oops! The big Bean-Counter Upstairs who keeps track of where
the serial numbers go is confused! He had better have all
1000 Stathis's continue in the one, just in case something
goes wrong with the suspended animation machinery. But then...
what to do when nothing goes wrong? How to send all the souls
back into the original bodies??? (Of course, here in this paragraph
I am just attempting to ridicule a point of view in which I do not
believe. The truth is, of course, is that no "transfers" take place,
and the whole idea of a "continuer" is wrong.)

If you believe that the 1000 will continue in the one (what, I
wonder, with probability 1000?), then they'll "continue" in the
one whether or not they're disintegrated.

And what about this, as a further attack on the probability idea:
We start with 1000 Stathis's in 1000 hotel rooms, all happily
looking forward to the afternoon. Then during 1 millisecond all
but one are killed off, and in the next millisecond the random
one who survived is copied into the remaining 999 hotel rooms.
I suppose---if you believe in that silly probability thing---
that you figure your odds (as a particular person, say in room
506) as being 1 in 1000.

:-) Then let whole scenario repeat every 50th of a second,
and pretty soon your odds of surviving are less than one in
a billion???

No: we have to accept the simple solution I suggest: you are
your duplicates, near and far, future and past, whether or not
your instance is collecting memories of their own particular
locales. A few minutes', or even a few months', worth of
memories doesn't really matter much so far as SURVIVAL is
concerned. This is simple, and it seems to me, obviously true.

Lee
Received on Fri Jul 01 2005 - 17:23:55 PDT