From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Oct 30 2002 - 23:57:58 MST
gts writes
> Lee Corbin,
>
> I think I understand the reason you cannot seem to see things as I do (and
> as others like Eugene do). It seems that I am looking at the forking problem
> consistently from a completely objective "bird's eye view," while you are
> not.
Amazing. I think that it is *you* who don't take the God's eye
point of view, i.e., consider an objective view from on-high;
a "bird's eye view", if you will.
> Allow me to explain with an illustration:
>
> 1) You, Lee, are a friend of someone named Bob.
>
> 2) Unbeknownst to you, Bob is considering a forking procedure.
>
> 3) You have lunch with Bob before he departs on his secret journey to visit
> a reputable fork-master in a nearby town.
>
> 4) You reason that after Bob's forking there are now two people of relevance
> in the nearby town. (Let us call them Bob-A and Bob-B.)
Okay, so I have no idea that Bob is off getting duplicated.
> 5) You reason [correctly] that if Bob-A returns to your town to visit you,
> you will have no way to know anything happened to Bob. Bob-A will appear to
> be the same Bob you've always known..
Yes, I won't be aware of the A-B situation.
> 6) Similarly, you reason [correctly] that if Bob-B returns to visit you, you
> will have no way to know anything happened to Bob. Bob-B will appear to be
> the same Bob you've always known.
Well, isn't that a tautology? Remember, I don't know that any
forking has occurred.
> 7) You reflect upon 5) and 6) and conclude [incorrectly] that Bob-A and
> Bob-B must have the same identity.
Huh? I didn't know! (Pre-reading didn't help! That was still a jolt.)
> If you read the above very carefully, you'll see that your perspective on
> the problem changes midstream. In 1) through 3) you have no knowledge of
> Bob's impending forking procedure. In 4) through 6) you suddenly take the
> all-knowing bird's eye view. And here is the real problem: in 5) and 6) you
> think of yourself as having the unwitting non-bird's eye view when in fact
> you are thinking and reasoning as one with the all-knowing bird's eye view.
Oh, yes, yes. That's elementary. No, that's not the "mistake"
I'm making. The issue is infinitely more difficult than this!
> Assuming you really believe what you are saying to us, I think your
> confusion is due to a shifting of your perspectives similar to that which I
> describe above. If you take the bird's eye view throughout the *entire*
> problem, (as I and Eugene do)...
In the first place, you and Eugen are at entirely different
levels in my hierarchy. There are two or three operations
to which Eugen accedes that you do not. He will teleport,
and finds backups entirely suitable. In other words, if
*you* walk into a backup facility and stare at your
(metaphorically) frozen backup, you'll say "That's not me!".
But Eugen has stated that backups are fine, provided that they
get no run time *prior* to the deanimation of his primary.
(Just why it matters so much when they get run time is
of course the whole problem with *time* that causes many of
us to disagree. Eugen is now saying that the idea only makes
him uncomfortable now, but he may get used to it later.)
So which level of my hierarchy are you on? Do you agree to
teleport where information is sent and different atoms used?
> We can and should see the problem from a bird's eye view.
Oh, absolutely. A bird's eye view comes closest to an
objective physical description. You see, from an objective
physics description, your duplicate is just as much you as
you are. It's when you allow this truth into your heart
(i.e. your intuition) then you can shake off the non-objective
view looking out of your own skull towards your duplicate,
saying "he's not me!", and rise to the bird's eye view.
Lee
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