RE: Rép : Thought Experiment #269-G (Duplicates)

From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 19:11:05 -0700

Bruno writes

> >>> You are asked to bet on your immediate and less immediate
> >>> future feeling. Precisely: we ask you to choose among the
> >>> following bets:
> >>>
> >>> Immediate:
> >>> A. I will see 0 on the wall.
> >>> B. I will see 1 on the wall.
> >>> C. I will see 0 on the wall and I will see 1 on the wall.
> >>> D. I will see 0 on the wall or I will see 1 on the wall.

> As I said I have no problem with accepting Lee = Lee' = Lee'' (although
> I think this will entail Lee = Bruno at some point, but I have no
> problem with that and we can come back to this notion later). But I was
> not argumentating on personal identity, only on the problem you face
> when predicting your immediate future (or less future) experience. It
> is a different matter.

You asked me to *predict*. I did.

> I duplicate you iteratively, by annihilating (painlessly!) you and
> reconstituting you in the 0-room and the 1-room which differs from
> having a 0 (resp. 1) painted on a wall. And I let you choose between
> the bets A, B, C, D described above.
>
> You choose C, that is: "I will see 0 on the wall and I will see 1 on
> the wall".
> Now, as I said this is ambiguous. So if I am in a bad mood, asking the
> first 0-Lee' about its immediate apprehension if he answers me "I am
> seeing 0 and I am seeing 1" I consider it as false (0-Lee' sees only
> 0!), and the same for the other Lee, so all the 2^n Lee must give 5$.

Now you are asking an instance a question (since there are
two of me), and it seems that you are playing on the ambiguity
of the term "you". When you ask an instance---now, *after*
the copying has been done---whether he is seeing a 1 or seeing
a 0 or seeing both, he has to stop you (I mean I have to stop
you) and ask exactly what kind of information you are after.

Clearly, if you are talking to one instance (so far as that
instance knows) he'll say that he is seeing a "1" or he will
say that he is seeing a "0". This is because he'll take the
usual meaning of terms.

When you then inform him that he has actually been copied and
that there is another instance of him in the other room, then
naturally he should say "Okay, here I am seeing a "0" and in
the other room the opposite."

We know all the facts. What we want are two things: (1) we want
to speak clearly. (2) we want to know whether or not to regard
our duplicates as selves. I think that you've heard all my
arguments.

> Why not choose D, that is "I will see 0 on the wall OR I will see 1
> on the wall."

Okay, now you have switched back to the prior (prediction)
level.

Here is the reason not to say that. As the person who is about
to be duplicated knows all the facts, he is aware (from a 3rd
person point of view) that scientifically there will be *two*
processes both of which are very, very similar. It will be
false that one of them will be more "him" than the other.
Therefore he must identify equally with them. Therefore,
it is wrong to imply that he "I" will be one of them but not
the other of them.

But if you answer "I will see 0 on the wall OR I will see 1 on the wall"
then it makes it sound as though one of those cases will obtain but
not the other. (This is usually how we talk when Bruno admits, for
example, that tonight he either will watch TV *or* he will not watch
TV. But the case of duplicates is not like that. In the case of
duplicates, it is a scientific fact that Bruno will watch TV (in one
room) and will not watch TV (in the other room). In short, it will
be true that Bruno will watch TV and will not watch TV---simply because
there will be two instances of Bruno.)

> I recall you that "p or q" is true if p is true or q is true.
> So with D all the Lee will win. D consists into admitting that
> you are ignorant about your immediate apprehension after the
> duplication. It has nothing to do with the fact that you are
> the two Lee.
>
> OK?

Nope. :-) With D, I am pretending that it is like you watching
television---either 0 or 1. But with duplicates it is not like
that: instead it is like 0 AND 1.

Lee
Received on Sat Jul 09 2005 - 22:10:42 PDT