X-Message-Number: 11093 Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 16:39:25 -0500 From: Brook Norton <> Subject: Quantum Mechanics, Turing Machines, Identity To Mike Perry, It seems on the one hand you argue that an extremely unlikely event should be discounted, and on the other hand that an extremely unlikely event must be considered.... consider the two following passages: The first passage is in regards to QM effects on using a knife to spread butter or kill one's self. >> Don't forget that events don't just happen one-at-a-time, but many, many events are happening in parallel, each of which have their own probabilities of going one way or another. So in some (maybe only a relative few) of the parallel universes some extraordinarly coincidences could lead to strikingly different outcomes. A normally non-suicidal person could experience the right, short progression of brain events that would make suicide seem attractive, etc. >> and the second passage in regards to the Turing Test. >> It's very, very unlikely that a "random letter generator" could just spit out text that would seem to be coming from an intelligent person who understands what you are saying and is responding in turn. So unlikely you can discount this possibility, like water freezing in the summer heat, which is possible by quantum mechanics, but not likely to be observed in billions of years. >> Perhaps it could be said that while a random-letter generator would very, very, rarely spit out an intelligent conversation, it would in fact do so in a very low percentage of the universes. Therefore the Turing Test is proven to give false results in a very few universes. But if the Turing Test is proven wrong in any universe, it is therefore wrong in principle in all universes. If you and Bob Ettinger continue to refuse to publish your books I may soon be forced to go to another universe where they have been published! Perhaps in that same universe, 21st Century Medicine will have made a stock offering as well... Looking forward to all these events, Brook Norton Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11093