From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Tue Jun 11 2002 - 11:33:04 MDT
"Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
> you surely have doubts.
Well sure I have doubts, especially with your first thought experiment
because that involves other people so I might always have the thought in the
back of my mind that I did the wrong thing; there would be no way I'd ever
know for sure. However your second thought experiment involves only me and I
could see for myself when I pushed the button that nothing happened so there
would be no need to give it another thought. But the truth is I have doubts
about everything; at least I think I do.
> Of course, "determining how one would feel in various situations"
> is hardly an air-tight guide to belief, but it can be helpful!
Not very. The only exception is when there is absolutely no way to tell if a
change has been made then I can say with some confidence I will not feel
much of anything about it.
>your comparison of an actual physical denouement (the torture
>of a little girl) with a video recording of it is absurd
Perhaps, but I'll bet Stephen Wolfram author of the just published book "A
New Kind Of Science" would not say it's totally off the wall.
> I assume that you would express **extreme** disapproval of the
> events the *first* time that they occur.
CERTAINLY!
>It's possible that you should review the reasons that you
> disapprove so much.
Because that's the way my brain is wired.
>But the pain the little girl experiences is *exactly* the same
>as it was the first time.
That's my point, it make no difference because it's *exactly* the same. If I
punch you in the nose twice the punches are different and even more
important your mental state is different after the first punch so two
punches are worse than one. But in your thought example everything, and I do
mean everything, is *exactly* the same.
>suppose that the re-enactment of the original torture
> session is *almost* identical, except that one atom in one of
> the eyelashes of the little girl is absent.
And if I said it still made no difference you'd ask about 2 atoms then 3, 4,
5,6...
In general how many trivial changes does it take to make a profound change
in something? I know a 70 pound man is thin and a 700 pound man is fat but I
can't tell you exactly where the dividing line is.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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