From: Stathis Papaioannou (stathisp@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Mar 07 2008 - 18:02:38 MST
On 08/03/2008, Lee Corbin <lcorbin@rawbw.com> wrote:
>> So if two computers implement Monday and Tuesday in isolation from
>> each other, i.e. purely by chance, there *won't* be subjective
>> continuity between them, while if two similar computers implement
>> Monday and Tuesday in a similar way, except the programmer set up
>> Tuesday having knowledge of Monday, there *will* be subjective
>> continuity between them? How is this discrepancy possible, if mental
>> states supervene on physical states?
>
> I'm sorry, everyone! The programmer *did* convey the
> causal information from the end of Monday's run to the
> beginning of Tuesday's run. I was thinking of, like, dust
> in space where the state of a patch of dust near the Virgo
> cluster (over a few light years in extent) is not conveyed
> to a state near the Andromeda galaxy.
As Nick commented, I don't see how the history of how the physical
states came about could have anything to do with the ensuing mental
states. How could you possibly know if your Monday and your Tuesday
were implemented on separate computers a zillion light years apart or
in neighbouring rooms? In either case, you would wake up on Tuesday
morning with a memory of what you did yesterday, since that memory is
encoded in the physical state of your present moment. You might argue
that it is unlikely that Tuesday will be implemented unless there is
information flow from Monday, but that is a different matter.
-- Stathis Papaioannou
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