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 

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