From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sun Dec 16 2001 - 10:56:48 MST
Eugene Leitl wrote,
> I don't see why the concept of a bifurcation vs. total sync is so hard to
> understand. All these extra details you consider as embellishments (GPS,
> name tags, same input, trajectory forcing) are constraints preventing the
> two perfect clones from forking, and starting to diverge.
>
> So they *are* the same beings as long as they stay in synch, and they
> *will* become different beings as soon as you remove the constraints
> keeping the trajectories in perfect overlap.
I don't dispute any of this. Just because I think this is unlikely to
impossible does not mean I don't understand it. I submit that the
controlled copy is not a conscious being. Its thoughts that are trying to
form are constantly being overwritten with thoughts from the other. Its
perceptions are being blocked and replaced with input from the other. I
would claim that there is one conscious being and one meat-puppet. There
are not two identical individuals. I would rather be the free-thinker with
the thought reading devices rather than the meat-puppet with the
thought-control devices.
> Is it rare? Yes. Is it contrieved? Of course. But if you claim the
> described conditions cannot occur, you're wrong.
Do you understand that it is currently thought to be impossible to measure
the exact position and motion of a particle without changing it? Therefore
it may not be possible to duplicate every single atom in the environment.
Random motion, carbon-14 decay, external radiation and the like will make
the environments subtly different. If both copies flip a coin, I doubt they
will always get the same result in all cases. Not only are these conditions
rare and contrived, they are unstable to the point of unmaintainability.
These are like transuranium elements which only last for a fraction of a
second before dissipating into something else.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant, Newstaff Inc. <www.Newstaff.com> Board of Directors, Extropy Institute <www.Extropy.org> Cofounder, Pro-Act <www.ProgressAction.org>
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