X-Message-Number: 14952 Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 11:51:35 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Duplicates Problem Dave Pizer in #14945 says: ... >Both you and your double are told that >one of you has to be destroyed. Would one of you mind which one it was? In terms of a preference as to which one of the two it would be, I would say defininitely not--I would mind that one of us was to be destroyed, but I would have no preference as to which one it was. Why? Because, in my view, I don't know which of the two "I" am (or more correctly, I am not simply one or the other, but my existence incorporates both, while both exist). So how could I have a preference? (And for the sake of argument I'm ignoring the issue that I might be equally upset about "that other guy" being destroyed out of concern for his future welfare too, though that is an issue.) Instead, I would view the situation probabilistically, as equivalent to "there is a 50% chance you will be destroyed." Such odds would worry me, but beyond that I make no distinction between "myself" and a double (or triple, etc.) when "I" have no way of distinguishing them. The different instantiations I do not view as separate selves but equal and interchangeable representatives of one self; that is to say, they form an equivalence class. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14952