From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Feb 03 2009 - 19:04:05 MST
Read the rest of the paragraph. (It's still attached.) This, however,
isn't a statement to be justified so much as a matter of definition.
Certainly other definitions are possible, and some would even have
equivalent utility.
I'll agree that my definition doesn't help me decide who you are. It
presumed a stance of observation from within the model. I.e., I am
myself now, and two minutes from now I will be those sufficiently
connected to myself by a consistent chain of events. I can't say
isomorphism at the quantum level, because it's not a one-to-one and onto
mapping. If I put a coin in a slot machine, then I'm both the
individual two minutes from now who has lost the coin, and the other one
who has won. With different probability density. When two minutes from
now arrives I'll only be one of them.
Andrew Hay wrote:
> "all sufficiently indistinguishable versions of myself are me" seems
> to be a rather strong statement without the required strong
> evidence/reasoning backing it up.
>
> Not that I'm helping, because I don't know the answer. Perhaps it is a
> fault at 'indistinguishable'? in any case, I can't be safe to assume
> that unless we have a good understanding of what the meaning behind
> "me" is.
>
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Charles Hixson
> <charleshixsn@earthlink.net <mailto:charleshixsn@earthlink.net>> wrote:
>
> Matt Mahoney wrote:
>
> ....
>
> What's not so clear is whether the outcome is good or bad. It
> is like asking whether you benefit from a teleportation device
> that makes a copy of you at your desired destination and
> slowly crushes the original to death. It depends on how you
> define "you".
>
> -- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com
> <mailto:matmahoney@yahoo.com>
>
> Why in the world "slowly"? Unless there's some required reason,
> then any device that slowly tortures someone, anyone, to death
> *HAS* to be considered unethical. It doesn't matter whether it's
> you or not.
>
> P.S.: From my point of view, all sufficiently indistinguishable
> versions of myself are me. Note that before I enter the
> transporter, both resulting copies will be "me". Afterwards, each
> of them will be me to itself, and the other will not. But the
> other will be an "extremely close blood relation"...closer than
> either a parent or a sib. Me is the entity that can control the
> peripherals that I can control. An example might be a hand, but
> it might also be a car that I'm driving. (If I can't control it,
> I'm not driving it.) This is (part of) the basis of the phantom
> limb problem.
>
>
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