From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Mon Jun 10 2002 - 22:52:53 MDT
"Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com> Wrote:
> 1. Some terrible person manages to determine exactly the
> courses of all the atoms in an actual historical event
> in which some Nazis tortured a little girl to death.
> This perverted soul then causes an exact re-enactment
> of this particular horror.[...] Yet as you listen to the terrible
> cries of pain emanating from the torture chamber,
> part of you is unsure, I submit.
Yes, I would be uncomfortable with that, part of me would feel it somehow
increases the suffering, but then part of me would feel exactly the same way
if I was just watching a recording of the torture. In fact that's what I am
seeing, and anyway, trying to determine how one would feel in various
situations is not a valid method in determining what reality is like because
the emotions of even the best of us are a mass of illogic and
contradictions.
)> 2. You are informed by the OS that you have been scheduled
> to run exactly twice in the history of the universe.
> Thus, *this* may be the first or second time from your
> perspective [...] if you press button A then
> the second run will be terminated precisely at the moment
> that the button is pressed. [...] Do you press the button
> for ten dollars?
I'd do it for ten cents. The only problem is that I'd have no way of telling
if the button really did what you claimed it did because when I pressed it I
would observe absolutely no change except that now I have an extra dime.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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