From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Sun Jun 03 2001 - 22:55:39 MDT
Eugene writes
>1) of course we're patterns
>2) spatiotemporal patterns of physical systems
>
>If you have the physical system (bolts, nuts, blood, guts and
>all), you have the means to discover the pattern (the observable).
>It might not be trivial, but the information is all in there.
Then you are a statist. Damn it all! I was right about the
spelling to begin with. Stupidly I thought that the reason
that some people weren't understanding was that it was spelled
wrong. NO: it's "statist" derived from the word "state". In
politics, a statist is someone who believes in the powers
of the state and thinks it good. Here, it is someone who
believes that
All important qualities of a system depend only upon the
present configuration of the system, and in principle any
given characteristic of the system can be captured by some
(perhaps extremely large) description.
I hope that this isn't too philosophical for you when it
comes time to apply it to personal identity. :-) From
what I've read, Eugene Leitl adheres to the state conception
of physical identity, although not consistently so.
First, thanks very much, Eugene. You are making a serious
effort to understand this other point of view, and I really
appreciate it, even if you do end up concluding that it's
hogwash.
You reacted to each separate line of my previous post. I'm
not sure that you're making it easier to understand what I'm
saying that way. It's possible that you have to consider a
whole paragraph at a time.
First point: we were talking about the possibility of being
at two times in the same place. Now first, this is a no brainer.
In ordinary life we all acknowledge that one can be in the same
place at two different times.
>> What do you mean? I certainly can be at home today, and also
>> at home tomorrow. Or any other convenient place that you say.
>
>Which "I" is I? Identity as in state at t (but what to compare
>to? there is only one instance of you active, so identity
>predicate is true, anytime, as you're doing a diff on a singleton),
>or identity as contiguous worldline?
:-) This part is so simple that I think you're wondering what
I could mean. If you were on a witness stand and the prosecutor
asked you if you were sitting in a certain chair on Wednesday
then left the city and then were later also sitting in that same
chair, you would understand him exactly. That's all it means
"for someone to be at two different times in the same place".
(The obverse, "being in two different places at the same time"
is another story, and is very debatable, although I won't go
into it now.)
>> the path doesn't matter, only the final state. The best example
>> is Max More's "The Luckiest Man in the Universe", a story of the
>> sudden appearance of a set of atoms that just happens to be an
>> exact match of the atoms constituting Sir Francis Bacon on a
>> certain day in history. Those of us who are statists...
>
>That be stateists, I presume [no]. I'm still not quite getting
>it, as state is static, and personhood is a (contiguous, or
>contiguousable by worldline surgery) spatiotemporal pattern.
It's merely that the current state contains all the information.
Think thermodynamics. Or think that if you were uploaded, then
you could be restarted from a single state. Or if your brain
was frozen to almost absolute zero, then you could in principle
be restarted from that frozen state.
>> [We] say that since there is no difference between this and the
>> actual Sir Francis from 1626, then it really is him and he should
>> be glad to be alive. He should not listen to people who say that
>> he's not the "real" Sir Francis, [just] because the real Sir Francis
>> died in 1626, and there is no continuity between him and that
>> historical personage. We, however, say that paths don't matter
>> (just as in thermodynamic state).
>
>Okay, I agree with that. I'm not sure whether we're heading
>for serious havoc with worldline salami (sliced as thin as it
>gets, of course). I'm not sure whether this is Egan country,
>but it sure smells like one.
Yes. Things could be heading there, but it turns out
that they're not. I know of no paradoxes in the
information theory of personal identity.
>I very much suggest we limit the discussion to fully
>deterministic uploads, because it allows you a far more
>rigorous treatment. For once, determinstic uploads don't
>suffer from intrinsic noise, and hence don't need
>trajectory forcing to keep being synched while in presence
>if identical input (which in case of deterministic
>uploads can be truly identical, while this is not possible
>for flesh puppets).
I totally concur. To grasp the principles involved, and to
know where others are coming from, we should do exactly that.
>> If I were uploaded, and there was some stupid law that said
>> that I couldn't be executed in two places at the same time,
>
>You can do it, if it floats your boat. But I think the
>other person should definitely have the veto on decisions
>concerting his (not yours, not anymore) future trajectory.
>It's a question of personal lifestyle, some people might find
>it easy popping in and out of existence, because the information
>loss is not large, but you'll might find out some people will
>violently object on principles.
I agree, but I am of course suggesting that if people think
these things through, then there will be some scenarios that
easily and transparently reduce to others, and so if you
are not alarmed by the former, then you shouldn't be alarmed
by the latter. But whatever.
>> That's exactly so! Now imagine that you've alreadly walked into
>> the black box and you start thinking, "Gee, there are 999 other
>
>Bzzzzt. The box is flat, I can't start thi... anything. That's why
>I explicitly made it a *very* flat blackbox. If it had more
>depth, I would not be longer be so tolerant of its opaqueness,
>as then some fancy version of hell might be lurking in there.
>The boundary condition of splicable worldline leaving the
>box will make me forget, but I will definitely not enjoy
>anything which happenes in that hellish little box while
>it happens, in vivid technicolor.
I understand. But the very flat case doesn't present a problem.
Let's say instead that you have to do this, and have to do it
every day, and it's always one minute in duration (not a very
flat box). So before entering the black box every day you say,
"I'm definitely going to come out of this okay no matter which
one walks out of it. They're all future continuers of me."
Incidentally, I despise the "continuer" concept---it fools
even very good statists sometimes. But nonetheless, you will
probably be thinking something along those lines.
Then you enter the black box and
>> You pause to examine the wallpaper and you think a random
>> thought. "Oh, oh! Yikes! My odds now are only one in a
>> 1000 of surviving!", and you break into a cold sweat and
>> indeed fear that you are going to die.
>
>If you have time to think, and realize that you've forked, you
>indeed are going to face the consequences of 1:1000 odds.
Well, I don't think that it is worth worrying about, and
for the following reason
>Do not try pulling that trick on me. Assuming one of the
>instances of me will survive it, and make you live long
>enough to regret it.
If this happened every day, you'd get very used to it.
All 1000 would actually spend the minute thinking about
other things, because it would get boring. And the you
that emerged would remember that every day he emerges,
and it's not a problem. (We'll look into the box in
a second, see below.)
Let's look closely from a physical perspective as to WHY
Eugene Leitl survives this daily event. The reason is
that the entity that emerges from the black box is by
all physical criteria Eugene Leitl. And physical criteria
is all that there is. The 1000 should understand that
what is going to happen to them is equivalent to being
replaced by a checkpoint, and then with memories added.
Now I'm being perhaps unclear again, and so I better slowly
elaborate. I claim that even if during the moment in the box
the 999 were identified as those going to be disintegrated
and the 1 was identified as the one who was going to survive,
it wouldn't make any difference. Suppose that I was one of
the 999. Here is what I would say to myself: "Well, if
I knew that I were going to be replaced by a backup that
was one minute old, that wouldn't worry me. So what do
we have here, this guy whose going to survive, as opposed
to me who is going to die? That guy is the same as me
a minute ago, but with some extra memories added. Big
deal. One minute's memories mean nothing. The state is
all that matters. His state and mine are identical for
all practical purposes."
and I wouldn't think anything of it. The important point
is this: I would know that Lee Corbin is going to walk
out of the box just fine, and that tomorrow a groggy Lee
Corbin staggers out of bed into the shower just as usual.
**And that is all that I want of the physics of tomorrow**.
Namely that a certifiable Lee Corbin exist. (Actually, I'd
like as many to exist as possible, but that's another story.)
Thanks again for your patience,
Lee
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