X-Message-Number: 20993
From: 
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 18:15:44 EST
Subject: metaphors, fungibles

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Another effort to clarify. First a bit of perspective.

Thousands of years ago there were "atomists" who thought that ultimate 
building blocks of matter existed, the atoms or indivisibles. No atom of a 
particular type could be broken down further; all atoms of a particular type 
were exactly alike. However, no one thought this meant that one object could 
be in two places at once. Atoms of a particular species had no internal 
differences, but were still thought of as separate.

Today's typical quantum scientist, beguiled by certain strange behaviors 
(virtual particles, exchange forces etc) says daringly that (for example) all 
electrons have the same identity, and you can think of it as meaning that one 
electron is in many places at the same time. That's an A for audaciousness, 
but an F for foolishness. Messing with the language in that way is just not a 
useful thing to do. The facts are not in doubt, but the interpretation is 
very much in doubt, and some of the greatest names have opposed the majority 
interpretation.

For decades the Bohr or Copenhagen interpretation was dominant, and this 
could be read to mean that (for example) an electron does not even EXIST in 
the ordinary sense. It only has potentialities, partly wave and partly 
corpscular, the manifestation depending on the type of observation made. The 
particle or wave or wavicle in this view is really only a METAPHOR, and the 
only objective things we can talk about are the experiments and their 
outcomes. And some serious people thought that human observation was needed 
to transform a potentiality into an actuality--perhaps even the whole 
universe had to be retroactively materialized by ex post facto human 
observation.  (I'm not making this up.)

Maybe we have to live with metaphor. There is little reason to believe that 
the deepest structure of the world must conform to our primitive, macroscopic 
habits of thought. I don't object to metaphor, but I object to tortured or 
misleading language.

Those who say that all particles of like kind are "identical" don't limit it 
to electrons or even atoms or molecules, but any system at all, including 
people. Of course, people are so complicated that having two in the same 
"quantum state" is out of the question, or at least out of the laboratory, 
but in principle they (Frank Tipler, for example) want to use the "identity" 
of like particles to justify the belief that, if there is a future duplicate 
of you, or even a future computer simulation, you will have survived. This is 
objectionable. 

Mike Perry suggests use of "equivalent" rather than "identical" when dealing 
with duplicates or emulations, and he recognizes the complexities and 
pitfalls. Another possible word, perhaps better in some ways, might be 
"fungible."

Fungibles are things like commodities, say dollar bills or barrels of oil, 
such that one can substitute for another and they are individually faceless.

A physical duplicate of you might indeed be a fungible--as far as strangers 
are concerned, maybe even your own family. Whether you would or should regard 
it so is a different matter. 

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org

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