From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Jun 12 2001 - 01:35:18 MDT
John Clark writes
> This matter has come up before, about 6 months ago I proposed
> these thought experiments to the list.
>
> An exact duplicate of the earth, and it's entire ecosystem, is created
What? You mean six years! I clearly remember you starting
off an identity disc on Extropians in Feb or Mar of 96 with
"A Duplicate Me and A Duplicate Earth" or something like that,
in response to my "Repeated Experience" thread. I had been
hoping to hold off an identity shoot out for a while :-)
but you saw where the discussion was headed.
> 1) I know all about the duplicate world and you put a 44 magnum to my head
> and tell me in ten seconds you will blow my brains out, am I concerned?
> You bet I am because I know that your double is holding an
> identical gun
> to the head of my double and making an identical threat.
Right. But boring.
> 2) I find out that for the first time since the Big Bang the worlds will
> diverge, in 10 seconds you will put a bullet in my head but my
> double will
> be spared, am I concerned? Yes, and angry as well, in times of intense
> stress nobody is very logical.
Oh who cares? We are talking identity here, not stress.
My double is no longer exact
> because I am
> going through a traumatic experience and my double is not. I'd
> be looking
> at that huge gun and wondering what it will be like when it
> goes off and
> if death will really be instantaneous. I'd be wondering if my
> philosophy
> was really as sound as I thought it was and I'd also be wondering why I
> get the bullet and not my double and cursing the unfairness of it all.
> My (semi) double would be thinking "it's a shame about that
> other fellow
> but I'm glad it's not me".
This is all obvious. I think that you are playing a
prank. You are going to reveal that this was from
six years ago. Why waste time and space with all
these obvious cases now?
> 3) I know nothing about the duplicate world, a gun is at both our
> heads and
> we both are convinced we're going to die. One gun goes off,
> making a hell
> of a mess, but the other gun, for inexplicable reasons
> misfires. In this
> case NOBODY died and except for undergoing a terrifying experience I am
> completely unharmed. The real beauty part is that I don't even have to
> clean up the mess.
>
> The bottom line is we don't have thoughts and emotions, we are
> thoughts and
> emotions, and the idea that the particular hardware that is rendering them
> changes their meaning is as crazy as my computer making the
> meaning of your
> post different from what it was on yours.
Nobody is saying this. You are playing a prank. Please stop.
Lee
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