From: Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Sun Jun 03 2001 - 09:24:37 MDT
Ah, the undead thread that keeps coming back, even through
buried with a stake through its heart. RworwouarWRAGgwAGRGG!
I think application of a fresh stake and some gasoline is in
order. Anyone got a match?
Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> Harvey Newstrom provides four aspects of why he (one copy)
> is not him (the other copy). Paraphrased, they are
A copy is not you because there is a measurement process
which can find a difference, since you've forked.
> Now first, I think that you'll agree that all four of your
> reasons depend heavily on exactly what is meant by "I" and
> "me". You may even readily admit that under a somewhat
> broader concept of "I" and "me", they are no longer true.
> Namely, that if "I" is thought to be "Program 2399647199099882",
> then these statements are false.
"I" and "me" are irrelevant: you are a physical system.
If you address the physical layer, you've simultaneously
dealt with any higher-level phenomena of the hardware layer.
We could as well clone a swirling water box, or a running computer
that I/Os with the real world. In fact when you do your
gedanken it is really useful to choose systems which are
not sentient -- the computer with machine vision and robotic
arm assembling something would be actually a pretty good
gedanken (which needs not to remain a gedanken -- just
purchase two identical sets of hardware, program them,
synch them, and let them interact with the real world,
then suspend the processes after a timeout, and compare
the core images and register sets bit for bit).
> I have to convince you that this latter formulation of what
> "I" am---or what a person is---is better for us to adopt.
> With the wider definition, you can see that your 2 and 3
> are patently untrue: the consciousness (objectively speaking)
> is not different, it is the same as yours. The duplicate
> next to you is under "your" control, where "your" now has
> this more objective meaning. (Yes; it is rather counter-
> intuitive.)
Why are you deliberately trying to confuse yourself?
[more advanced confustication & bebotherment snipped]
> 1. physics is complete---there are no additional and peculiar
> axioms involving the soul or its equivalent. Physical
> symmetry between two identical objects is preserved (pace
> the lack of absolute identiticalness in *some* experiments)
Of course you have to assume physics is complete, you'll find
out soon enough whether it's not true. If the cyberworm can't
do in machina what it did in vivo, something is obviously wrong.
(Fat chance).
> 2. equivalence of time and space are preserved: "you" can be
> at the same time in two different places as well as the
> same place at two different times
Panta rhei. You can't be at the same place at two different
times. Unless you make clones, which are resumed with different
time delays: oops, fork again. (A rather nasty instrument, if you
come to think of it: designed to impale bits of dead animals,
and stuff.)
You can't be at two different places at the same time, because
then you've produced a fork. (Btw, the authorities take a very
dim view of unauthorized fabrication of sets of similiar
people, fake IDs included. The police have been notified).
> 3. what is "you" remains constant through experiments involving
> duplicates, memory erasure, teleportation. Your life's work,
> your interfaces with others, relationships, and so on are
> unaffected. You can, for instance, erase some memories,
> then teleport, then acquire new memories to become the
> duplicate sitting next to you, and there is no problem.
Let's define a person as an animated object with a contiguous
worldline (or, at least where the worldline is interrupted,
the interfaces will form a contiguous world line, if brought
together).
> 4. state is all that matters (apologies to several people who
> wondered what I meant by "statist"---I guess the spelling is
> "stateist"); we have path independence which feels very right
Path independence? I can't make sense from this in this context.
> 5. backups become possible and convenient: you can't make a
> backup under the older view, because the nanosecond after its
> made, it isn't "you" any more
I don't know what "older view" is, but of course you can make backups
(the correct term is checkpoints). You resume at last good checkpoint
if the current instance of you managed to get killed (because it insisted
to run Microsoft software, for instance), and thus there is no fork:
the backup is not alive. You still lose all changes since the last
backups, making most people pretty pissed. This isn't murder, unless
the last backup is rather old (like, when you were 13), but it is
definitely not a nice thing to do.
> 6. values vary continuously: in 5., for just one example, the value
> of a backup, which is +1 right up to the nanosecond of duplication
> is carried smoothly over in the nanoseconds following duplication,
> instead of plummeting inexplicably to zero
I don't understand you here, either.
> 7. language of identity is enhanced: two duplicates claim to be
> the same person as they were yesterday, and the person yesterday
> claims to be them, yet they do not claim to be each other---i.e.,
> B is A, C is A, yet somehow B is not C.
It is regardless what they claim. If they claim they're the guy standing
next to him, they need their head examined. If you give one guy a wedgie,
the other one won't look pissed. QED.
> 8. evolution would favor the broader view: duplicates who sacrifice
> for each other from the old view, but who are just being selfish
> from the new view, survive better in a number of scenarios.
Sorry, not feeling particularly suicidal today. The other guy will
continue his life, doing interesting stuff, whereas in my future (what
is left of it) is only a cold cadaver.
> Each of these can be broadened in many thought experiments. Take
> number 3, for example. Suppose that you already agree to teleport
> (there are other, almost impossible obstacles for the materialist
> who refuses even that). So you are teleported into a black box,
> but into a thousand locations within that black box. Then 999 are
> killed (painlessly, of course) and one emerges. Is it you? Only
As long as you did not give them time to fork, it's me, of course.
> the information view of identity is 100% clear that it is. Some
> people say that your odds (even before entering the black box)
> are only 1 in 1000 of surviving. Others say that each of the 1000
> should break into a cold sweat because he has almost no chance of
> survival. But under the state view, such concerns are silly.
There's my worldline. At some point, it enters a very flat black
box, and it leaves on the other side -- the box is so flat that
state change are hardly measurable.
Is it of relevance what occurs in the black box? Whether it
contains branches, which were truncated at creation time, or not,
it is irrelevant.
I'm not sure whether needless destruction of potentiality (the
forks going on, and living lives of their own) is evil, it
might well be. For time being, I have to draw a blank on that.
> Of course, there is a list of disadvantages, but they don't seem so
> telling. They all seem to be based upon identification with very
> low-level types of animal feelings, whereas the state view of
> identity favors identifying with higher things, such as beliefs,
> aspirations, and many other things that make us human.
You'd do really much better if you'd remove the monkey factor
out of your gedanken, as it makes them soggy, and hard to light.
The facts themselves are pretty clear, as it's basic physics
and computer science. It is equally clear that from the facts
themselves no definite ethical advisory can be concocted, as
there are no absolute values.
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