Re: Sincere Questions on Identity

From: Andrew Clough (aclough@mit.edu)
Date: Sun Dec 16 2001 - 10:13:57 MST


I think to conduct this thought experiment properly you'd really have to
give both clones the sensory input of a third person. If one clone looked
left while the other looked right, then they'd start to diverge. Likewise,
if one noticed that vis eyes moved the way ve wanted them to, and the other
didn't there would also be divergence. Or we could just assume a
deterministic universe. But in any event, I do agree in principle.

At 10:37 AM 12/16/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> Wrote:
>
> > If you allowed them to use a GPS, they could easily determine their
> > positions.
>
>Well sure, but then they'd no longer be identical because they'd have
>different memories of what they read on their GPS machine. You can
>certainly do things to make them diverge, but my point was that doesn't
>have to happen.
>
> > If you stopped feeding them optic signals from the other, they
> would see
> > reality instead of VR.
>
>I'm not using VR, it's just that the room looks symmetrical, one is looking
>north the other looking south but the view is the same.
>
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net



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