RE: the Duplication Chamber

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Nov 21 2002 - 16:49:31 MST


gts writes

> >> Perhaps you need to review standard QM. It is in the moment of
> >> measurement that the wave function collapses, (or in which the
> >> universe splits under MWI). There is no delay.
> >
> > What are you talking about? Since no neurons have had time
> > to fire, then for a while in the duplication chamber there
> > are 1000 identical copies.
>
> That is not so if we define the measurement as taking place at the
> moment of observation, which is how I define measurement (along with
> Hugh Everett). Subject-0 splits into 1000 copies *in the act of
> measurement*, not before it or after it.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Forget measurements
and observation in the QM sense. I'm asking how any of the
duplicates can observe anything if none of their neurons have
time to fire?

> > At time zero there is one person in the chamber. That person is you.
> > Then at some small time later there are 1000. You claim that you
> > who will enter the chamber tomorrow will continue to survive in
> > only *one* of those 1000. The rest won't be you. Why not? What is
> > different about them?
>
> As I've stated several times, the other 999 are alternates of me, or
> copies of me if you prefer (though I don't consider myself less of a
> copy than them).

Look. This is pretty simple, Gordon. No great ideas here.
At time t=0 you fork into 1000 copies. You say that some
trait or characteristic possessed by the original before
the fork goes into one of the 1000, but not into the other
999. Then, if 999 are selected at random afterwards, the
chance that the original survives is only .001. You need
to say what this soul or spirit is that goes from the
original pre-fork to a specific *one* of the duplicates,
so that the original won't survive except 1 time in 1000.

> They are effectively no different from the alternates
> of me that would exist in 999 alternate universes, though they exist
> here with me in this universe thanks to the technology of the chamber.
> They are not me.

That's not what our present argument is about. The present
discussion is about whether the pre-fork entity survives or
not. About whether you will, if you enter the duplication
chamber tomorrow, survive to the day after. What *one* of
the duplicates would say when *in* the chamber is another
story.

Lee



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