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

From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 19:07:43 -0700

Bruno writes

> I asked you to predict your immediate first person experience, not a
> bird's view of the situation. This explain why if I'm in good move you
> just win nothing, and if I'm in bad mood you and all the Lees own me
> five dollars!

Of course, I predict that I'll have one 1st person experience
at one location, and a different one at a different location.

Instead of trying to trick me by doubling locations, just ask
yourself the same questions beforehand by doubling times:
"What do you expect, Bruno, to see?" when the situation is
that every day at 9pm next week you will be shown a zero or
a one.

Well, you will naturally distinguish as to *when*, just as I
am trying to distinguish as to *where*. But logically, you
must admit that it is the same thing!

> > 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."
>
> Precisely: here I see without much doubt a 0, and I believe
> intellectually, by trusting you, that another Lee see the opposite in
> the other room. Do you agree it is very different sort of knowledge?
> The question was concerning the first notion of knowledge.

Okay, I'm glad you are making that clearer. But I think
that my answer is still the same. I will be having two
1st person experiences, one in one room and another in
another room.

> > 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.
>
> Right.
>
> > It will be
> > false that one of them will be more "him" than the other.
>
> Right.
>
> > 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.
>
> This is a matter of choice and personal opinion. It does not address
> the question I asked. The question is not who you will be, but what
> will be your immediate feeling. Given that we assume comp it is easy to
> predict that you will either see 0 or see 1. You will not see a zero
> blurred with a one. You can in advance bet you will see only a zero
> (resp. one), and just intellectually know some "other you" will see a
> one (resp. zero).

> > 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.
>
> Actually I was using the non-exclusive OR! But I do think that the
> first person experiences of seeing 1 and 0 *are* indeed alternative
> experience. After one duplication, those experience will be exclusive
> of each other. You are not able to know the experience of the
> doppelganger in the same sense that you will be able to see directly
> the output on the wall.

That's right, of course. If you are speaking of what an
instance knows.

> You shift from 1-person to 3-person, when the question is a bet, before
> the duplication, of the immediate first person experience.
>
> But you know, before the duplication that all the Lee will have
> alternate experiences. So I really don't understand you bet.
> Mathematically your bets make you win 0 dollars. By betting on your
> ignorance (1 OR 0), you will always be confirmed and you win 5 dollars
> at each duplication. You and all the Lee. It seems to me you are hard
> with your (first person) selves.

What do you think about reworking your whole challenge
with *time* instead of *place*? Especially if we allow
memory to be erased. Same thing.

Lee
Received on Mon Jul 11 2005 - 22:07:51 PDT