From: Bryan Moss (bryan.moss@dial.pipex.com)
Date: Sun Jul 19 1998 - 10:05:51 MDT
In another message, Harvey Newstom wrote:
> John K Clark <johnkc@well.com> wrote:
> > In example with them facing each other the
> > fingers of the two will indeed be pointing
> > toward different walls but I don't find that
> > disturbing, if one copy was in London and the
> > other in Paris they would also be pointing
> > at different walls, but as long as the walls
> > are identical the information received from
> > the walls will be the same and no divergence
> > will happen.
>
> I finally understand what you are saying.
I don't if I'm pleased that you understand, or
infuriated by the fact that I've been saying the
exact same thing all this time!
I wrote:
> Imagine for a minute sitting in a symmetrical
> room looking at your copy from across a
> symmetrical table. You both experience the
> exactly same sensations, you both react to them
> in exactly the same way, and you both behave in
> exactly the same way.
And:
> Both of you point to your left and see the other
> pointing to your right – no divergence.
And then attempted to ask some questions to
determine why you thought they would diverge when
I had clearly stated they experience exactly the
same thing (many times), to which I got:
> I never claimed a divergence in what they see.
> I claimed a divergence in which wall they point
> to. They are not pointing toward the same wall.
And:
> During the upload discussion, many people
> claimed that if two objects were identical
> except for location, that they were the same
> object.
And:
> Some people on this list disagree that there can
> be more than one of any identical objects. They
> seem to count one body, one brain, one wall, one
> hydrogen atom, as long as they are
> indistinguishable.
Anyway, you wrote:
> > As far as I can tell, you believe the walls
> > have an independent location.
>
> Why? Don't you? You agreed above that there
> are four walls. Are you now claiming that all
> four walls are in the same location?
No, I am claiming their location is relative to
other walls (and objects) in the room. For
instance, the left-hand wall is 10 feet from the
right-hand wall, and so on.
> If you are not claiming this, why are you asking
> me to prove that they are different?
Because that is what this entire debate is about,
can you prove the walls are different? Can you
even know the walls are different? You point to
the left-hand wall and your copy does the same,
you see your copy pointing to the right-hand wall
and your copy sees the same.
> Do you not agree that they are different, or are
> merely exercising my proof system to see how I
> define location?
I'm simply trying to find out where you think the
copies will diverge. If they point to the
left-hand wall and see their copy point right and
think, "he's pointing to the wrong wall" there's
still no divergence. This I think, you now
understand.
> They will therefore diverge in thought, deed,
> or experience. The two people will think
> differently, act differently, or experience
> differently. They cannot remain identical.
So if we've established that they will not diverge
in thought, deed, or experience, can they act as
redundancy?
Even though you say you'd agree to being uploaded
"atom by atom" (I'm not quite sure how this would
work in the context of uploading) once you're
on-line it's likely you'll be prone to the usual
computer techniques of back-ups, redundancy and
time-sharing.
BM
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:22 MST