From: Stuart Armstrong (dragondreaming@googlemail.com)
Date: Fri Feb 06 2009 - 03:05:28 MST
A rather fun speculation (I've had it several times myself - and I've
wondered if central symmetry of replective symmetry would be more fun.
Verdict: replective symmetry, because of how it would feel like to
touch the "mirror plane": there is no real mirror, but every time you
touch it, and every breath you take, colids with its equivalent on the
other side and is reflected).
But in practice, irrelevant, as quantum and chaos effects will soon
break down the symmetry.
>They are identical and both received the same input, so they would both
do the same thing, they would both point at Stuart Armstrong.
No, they would both point at themselves. Similalrly, if I gave one a
choice - who would for prefer to die: yourself or the other copy - he
would choose to live and let the other copy die.
But all this is actually word chopping - if you want, you can decree
that they are the same person. This doesn't fit with our standard
definition of being the same person - they won't share experiences,
will have different trajectories in life, will probably pursue
different careers, develop different opinions, will give themselves
precedence over their copies and may end up hating each other. So
being called "the same person" streches the definition of "same
person" to breaking point.
Stuart
2009/2/5 John K Clark <johnkclark@fastmail.fm>:
> On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 "Filipe Sobreira"
> <warlordbcm1@yahoo.com.br> said:
>
>> you just poke your would-be exact copy. Thats it.
>
> As both of you are identical you both decide to poke each other and both
> receive a poke in the ribs.
>
>> all observers in the world may share the same belief that
>> they are indeed the same person, based on their own
>> perceptions and on the fact that they share the same
>> characteristics. But this ignore the simple fact that
>> the person in question is an observer also, and they
>> DO NOT agree on the fact that they are the same person.
>
> But they don't disagree. You are the copy and are standing an equal
> distance from the center of a cylindrically symmetrical room with the
> original. I now use a Star Trek brand transporter to instantly exchange
> your position with the original, or if you prefer I leave your bodies
> alone and just exchange the two brains. There is no way subjectively you
> or the original would notice that anything had happened,
> and objective outside observers would not notice anything had happened
> either. There would not even be a way to tell if the machine was
> actually working, I could be lying about having a transporter. Who
> cares?
>
> If objectively it makes no difference and subjectively if makes no
> difference then I can only conclude it makes no difference. There are 2
> bodies in that room but only one you.
>
> John K Clark
> --
> John K Clark
> johnkclark@fastmail.fm
>
> --
> http://www.fastmail.fm - mmm... Fastmail...
>
>
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