From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@rawbw.com)
Date: Sat Mar 08 2008 - 11:19:52 MST
Mikko writes
> Isomorphic copies aren't separate subjects (rather just representations
> of one really fault-tolerant one), so clearly 1:1. No wonder people are
> confused though with the subject line setting them up for a completely
> incorrect assumption ;]
Yeah, that was my subject line, and I was thereby making a claim :-)
I claim that isomorphic copies separated enough in spacetime
to constitute separate physical processes are separate subjects.
Suppose that there is an absolutely identical you being held
in an Earth-like simulated city near Sirius. It ought to matter
to you that one of them is going to shortly die.
Yes, right now you are "both", i.e., you can't tell whether you're
on Earth or near Sirius, (and I always claim that you actually are
in both places at the same time). But suppose that one atom of the
Earth version is missing. Does that really matter? Surely there
are not suddenly two people where just a second ago there was
just one. Likewise, taking away more atoms, one of them will
have to be damaged a great deal to cease being you.
To return to Eliezer's hypothesis---sorry---instantly after the coin flip,
the one who got heads is duplicated all over the place. If we stop
right there, then *subjectively* you have to figure your odds at
only 1:100 of seeing tails since
>> then, when (all of) you are about to look at the coin, should
>> your subjective anticipation of seeing "heads" be 1:1 or 100:1?
and here is why: For clarity, consider that ten minutes later,
100 out of the 101 suddenly cease to exist. Then this is repeated,
and again ten minutes later instantaneous disintegration comes to
a random 100 of the 101, and this is repeated again and again.
Any particular survivor of this process will remember seeing heads
over and over again, and he'll be very surprised (as he ought to be)
when he sees tails. The measure of his surprise is 100:1.
Lee
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