From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Nov 14 2002 - 20:17:11 MST
--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> wrote:
> This operation that "we" perform, namely "if we
> follow his stream of consciousness" --- you haven't
> explained what this is.
I was speaking hypothetically. If we had a way to
monitor the subject's experience as he walks through
the chamber in real time, we would monitor his
experience of walking out of one door only. He would
not experience himself to walk out of both doors.
This is so for the same reason that the physicist in
your aforementioned MWI experiment does not experience
the photon to have both polarizations. An alternate
physicist in an alternate universe experiences the
other polarization.
> 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?
I think the above is probably very crucial, because if
I understand you correctly, you think the original
subject would experience himself to walk out of both
doors. (!?!)
I hope I have rephrased my position clearly enough.
> I maintain,
> as you know, that everything that is true for
> one of them is true for the other
Yes I know that is what you maintain, and I maintain
that what you maintain just ain't so. :)
> and so in terms of physics which is the original?
>(Remember too that you are speaking about
> an exit door.)
In terms of their experience after they exit, they are
both equally valid continuations of the original
(*continuations of the orginal*, mind you -- neither
is the original himself).
The original (let's call him Subject-0) is the person
who exists in the moment just prior to the
bifurcation. In the next moment of time there are two
continuations of Subject-0 (the original Subject-0 is
now gone). Let's call those two continuations
Subject-A and Subject-B. They are different from one
another (and from Subject-0) in that they have just
made two contradictory measurements of the doors from
which they are now emerging. Subject-A sees himself
emerging from a door labled "A" while Subject-B sees
himself emerging from a door labled "B." Perhaps they
also see slightly different scenery from beyond the
doors. The atoms and molecules in their retinas are
thus in slightly different states due to the
differences in their measurements, as are the atoms
and molecules in their optic nerves and associated
areas of their brains. They are not perfect
duplicates, though they are nearly so.
They both have equal claim to having *been* the
original subject-0 who entered the chamber, because
they both have equally valid memories of being
Subject-0, but neither of them actually *are* the
original. Each of them can say only that he *was* the
original Subject-0. This verb tense is very important.
The original Subject-0 is gone, just as Monday is gone
on Tuesday.
> Yes, and if you read my story "The Pit and the
> Duplicate"...
Sorry haven't read it.
>> Remember that my bifurcation chamber works by
>> harnessing the mechanism by which the
>> multiverse creates alternate universes.
> 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'm not sure there is any difference. One thing that
should be made clear however: in the chamber the two
duplicates at their moment of creation immediately go
on to experience different realities (different exit
doors) and are thus slightly different even if only in
very subtle ways. They are, as I've said, two
alternates of a person one of which would otherwise
have appeared in different MWI universes but for the
magic of the chamber that retains one of them in this
universe.
> So which would you choose? To tomorrow take the
> dangerous helicopter ride, or to tomorrow enter the
> 1000-way duplication chamber?
The helicopter ride, of course. My odds of surviving
there is .75 vs a miniscule .001 in your chamber of
horrors.
I cannot predict or determine which alternate will
survive your chamber in which 999 of 1000 are
disintegrated. Therefore, (speaking as Subject-0), my
chance of experiencing myself as the surviving
alternate is 1 in 1000.
To put this another way, in 999 of 1000 universes I
will be disintegrated, and I cannot predict in which
of those universes I will experience myself to be.
-gts
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