X-Message-Number: 25572
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 08:17:33 -0800
Subject: Even More of the Duplicates Paradox
From: <>

Dear Mike:

You wrote:

"To me, 'survival' of a past individual occurs because some present
individual has suitable brain information, memories and such, which 
when
scanned or accessed produce an appropriate effect, that the present
individual *was* (once) that past individual."

You cannot use the word 'was' in such a way without first defining 
it. What does it mean to say an individual A 'was' an individual B? 

[snip]

You wrote:

"To me Richard's form of survival is something that may not occur 
at all, or may be very brief. I can think of no objective means of 
esolving
the matter--how do I *really* know, when I lay down to sleep, that 
I will not simply experience eternal oblivion while someone who 
only thinks they are me wakes up?"

You simply observe the brain with MRI: did anything happen to it, 
to destroy its ability to experience qualia? No, then you survive. 
You think there is something mystical about the qualia experiencer. 
There is not. It is a hunk of brain matter in your skull.

Let's say we want to see if an apple we place on the countertop 
survives until the next day, and is not replaced by some other 
apple while we sleep. How do we do this? We place a video camera on 
the apple, so we can check it in the morning. If we see it is not 
replaced by another apple, then we are justified in concluding it 
is the same apple.

I have explained on many occassions what it means for an apple to 
exist, or to continue existing (and hence survive). I will not 
delve into it again. But keep in mind what I have said before, it 
is highly relevant.

[snip]

You wrote:

"It cannot occur if the original splits into two or more copies 
that have to be treated on an equal footing rather than identifying 
one as an unchanged or little-changed "original" and the other as a 
newly-produced "copy." So (as one possibility) if the many-worlds 
scenario is correct (and it has significant support from the 
physics community, albeit some opposition too) we clearly don't 
survive long in this way."

The many worlds scenario has no scientific evidence, and can have 
none, until someone devises falsifiable hypotheses, which are found 
to hold, and better explain the observations than the 'cleaner' 
alternatives. That some (a minority) of scientists support the MWI 
is immaterial.

In any case, whether or not MWI is compatible with survival is a 
different question entirely, one that could not be resolved without 
much better understanding of the process by which MRI occurred. Do 
whole universes actually come into existence, with an identical set 
of properties (excepting the different QM outcome?)? Or do all 
possible universes exist, and simply interact? Both possibilities 
are (on the surface) compatible with survival.

You wrote:

"(If you can't remember your past self, then it seems to me that 
the past self does not survive, notwithstanding whatever it is that 
does survive."

I can clear my mind of all memories and all personality during deep 
meditation. It is clear I still exist. This is qualitatively 
different than not existing. If reincarnation (of the Buddhist 
variety) were true, I would contend this would be different than 
annihilation. Of course, I would still be afraid of death, just not 
as much.

[snip]

You wrote:

"Much of the difficulty, as I see it, centers around the issue of 
saying I *was* that past individual (my viewpoint) versus I *am* 
that past individual (Richard's if I understand correctly)."

I counter that to say you 'were' the past individual is concept 
smuggling, unless you can supply me with a cogent explanation. You 
mean to associate the past individual with the present by using the 
were 'was', but in this context, 'was' doesn't make any sense, so 
your attempt at association is dishonest. If I am wrong, prove it 
to me by defining 'was' in this context, in a way that justifies 
your use of it (i.e. it must bear a close resemblance to the 'was' 
of ordinary usage).

You wrote:

"Of course you cannot have two separate, subjectively different 
people who both *are* (identical to) something, for then (by 
transitivity of identity) they must be one and the same."

You are one of the few patternists who tries to be intellectually 
honest.

You wrote:

"Hence the paradox if one sees the sun and the other sees the moon. 
But if you only allow that they *were* some one thing, they can now 
be different and there is no paradox."

If I go to sleep, and wake up facing the moon, then I can and do 
say that I went to sleep, and woke up facing the moon. I do not 
say, someone who I was went to sleep, and someone else who I was 
woke up facing the moon. If by 'was' you mean had such and such a 
brain arrangement, then clearly, your concept of survival is both 
tautological and irrelevant to my self-interest. In fact, it makes 
me wonder why you wrote a book about immortality. No one is 
interested in such a notion of survival. You are selling something 
you can't deliver on. Everyone who reads such a book will come away 
thinking you are promising them a survival you only imply with your 
word choice, but cannot actually deliver by the meaning of your 
words.

If I asked you, in the moon-sun scenario, when I fall asleep, 'What 
will I see when I wake up?', you can give me no answer. That's 
because I won't wake up at all. Two people who 'were' me will wake 
up, 'were' meaning their brain arrangements are somewhat similar to 
mine when I fell asleep. That is not useful to me. I don't care 
about people who 'were' me, in the sense that their atoms had 
similar relative positionings to mine. I just care about me---i.e. 
this brain in my skull.

In fact, if I ask you, what will I see when I wake up after falling 
 asleep tonight, you would not say, 'the ceiling'. To be 
consistent, you would have to say I won't wake up at all. Rather, 
someone with a similar brain arrangement to my pre-sleep state will 
wake up. Yet most people consider this case different than the one 
in which I have a heart attack shortly after falling asleep. 

You deny the notion of survival (which, also denies the notion of 
existence of nouns, something I may explain later) because it is 
not compatible with your desired universe.

You wrote:

"Okay, but now we are separate individuals, who only *were* some 
one entity, not presently *are* that entity. So if you kill one, 
the one does not survive, only the other."

So I take it you would never have a major operation in which the 
anesthesiologist gave you an amnesiac? As I said before, the cases 
are identical.

[snip]

"No, the version getting the knife might could value its own, 
independent existence that started after the duplication occurred 
(reasonable, in fact)."

Surely you realize that no matter how closely you copy a 'pattern', 
it will have numerous imperfections and the limitations of QM and 
chaos theory, especially if the pattern has been disrupted by 
freezing. So how you would ever expect to 'survive' cryonics and 
uploading is a mystery.

[snip]

You wrote:

"Again, we have two distinct notions of survival, and their 
differences must be understood. My version is testable, in 
principle,"

Your notion of survival is not testable, it's just a definition, a 
useless one at that (from the perspective of my self-interest).

[snip]

Best Regards,

Richard B. R.

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