From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Nov 14 2002 - 18:32:07 MST
gts writes
> Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> > Of course, since we are involved in philosophically
> > new territory (at least for most people), your notion
> > here of "following the stream of consciousness" may or
> > may not make sense conceptually. But perhaps you only meant
> > to emphasize the last part of your sentence: "he [recalls]
> > walking out of one door, not two".
>
> No, I mean that if we follow his stream of consciousness -- his
> experience in real time -- then we will find that he experiences
> himself to walk of out one door, not two.
This operation that "we" perform, namely "if we follow his
stream of consciousness" --- you haven't explained what this
is. I'm not sure that it's crucial, but we should examine
every possibility. Is there a different way to phrase what
you mean here?
> > > The exit door experienced by the original would be selected
> > > randomly as per QM, and cannot be predicted in advance.
> >
> > Yes and no. If the subject enters into the bifurcation chamber
> > repeatedly, and examines his memory or records, yes, it will
> > consist of a random sequence of A's and B's. This corresponds
> > exactly to a physicist recording beam splitter experiments.
>
> What do you mean by no?
I mean that when you refer to the item "The exit door
experienced by the original" it is not clear that only
one door is the reference. I maintain, as you know,
that everything that is true for one of them is true
for the other, and so in terms of physics which is
the original? (Remember too that you are speaking about
an exit door.)
> You will experience yourself emerging from one door of the chamber, not
> the other door and not both doors. Your alternate, emerging from the
> other door, will be related to you in the same way that alternates in
> alternate universes are related to you under MWI; that is, your
> alternate will share your nominal identity but he will be slightly
> different from you in non-nominal ways. Those differences will grow with
> time, just as they do under MWI.
Yes, and if you read my story "The Pit and the Duplicate" then
must understand that that Yevgeni should put on his coat before
he presses the button, or else HE will get cold. By the same
token, if he does put on his coat HE will also be too warm
by and by down in the pit.
> Remember that my bifurcation chamber works by harnessing the mechanism
> by which the multiverse creates alternate universes. It is a wonder of
> technology; by some unforeseen quirk of physics its inventor found a way
> to retain an alternate continuation of a person, such that two alternate
> continuations of a person can exist in the same universe.
How is this any different from the person walking into
the duplication chamber (set of atoms 1) and having a
duplicate made (set of atoms 2)?
> > I ask two questions: (1) What if you take a dangerous
> > helicopter ride to the other side of the canyon, where
> > the chance is .25 that the helicopter will fail, and fall
> > a mile to the canyon floor? (2) what if you will enter
> > the 1000 way bifurcation chamber tomorrow where only
> > 1 in a thousand exits the chamber and the other 999
> > are disintegrated? In each case, of course, the question
> > really is, what do you think that your chances are, and
> > if you had to choose between them, which would you choose?
>
> I'm not sure what you're asking in the first question
> or how it relates to my bifurcation chamber.
The first situation (1) is a normalizer, a control. It's
so that a definite choice can be made "...which would you
choose?"
> As for the second question, if all 1000 alternates are made in the
> chamber then there is a .999 chance that the original's stream of
> consciousness will end then with disintegration. The one continuation
> that emerges unscathed will think he is a continuation of the original,
> and rightly so, but there is a .999 probability that the original's
> experience of living will have ended.
So which would you choose? To tomorrow take the dangerous
helicopter ride, or to tomorrow enter the 1000-way duplication
chamber?
Lee
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