From: Stathis Papaioannou (stathisp@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Mar 07 2009 - 20:32:13 MST
2009/3/8 Matt Mahoney <matmahoney@yahoo.com>:
>> You are dismissing the significance of the difference between
>> subjective, first person experience and objective, third person
>> description. You may as well argue that going to the cinema is a waste
>> of money since what's *really* projected on the screen is a series of
>> still frames.
>
> In a world where people can't be copied, it makes perfect sense to ask what you can expect to experience. In a world where people can be copied, you need to define what you mean by "you". It comes down to how your brain calculates probabilities, and whether it is using an appropriate algorithm in this new world where probabilities don't have to add up to 1.
Apparent paradoxes of probability can also occur in a single world
where there is no copying, for example the Sleeping Beauty Problem
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_beauty_problem). The
fundamental issue here is that there is no objective theory of
personal identity to which we can refer. The only "theory" of personal
identity that gives an unequivocal answer and eliminates paradoxes is
that there is no persistent identity at all: each observer moment is a
separate entity, and the feeling of continuity is an illusion. But
like watching a film, it is meaningful to ask what sort of illusion I
am going to experience under particular circumstances.
-- Stathis Papaioannou
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