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Nick_Tarleton comments on MWI, copies and probability - Less Wrong
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Comments (127)
These different subjective states correspond to different physical states: different patterns of photons impinge on your retinas, causing different neural activity in your visual cortex, and so forth.
I've left space for misinterpretation in my root post. I meant world physical state, not a state of particular copy. World state: original-body exists and copy-body exists. Subjective state: either I am original, or I am copy.
As far as I can see both those subjective states exist simultaneously, it's not an "either or".
You-before-copying wakes up as both original-you and copy-you after the copying. From there the subjective states diverge. Analogously, in the grenade example before-grenade you continues as both dead-you* and you-with-$100**
*(who doesn't experience anything, unless there's an afterlife)
**(as well as all other possible quantum-yous. But that's another issue entirely)
I suspect I'm rather missing the point. What point are you in fact trying to make if I may ask?
Yes, both subjective states exist. It is not the point.
You wake up after copying, at what point should you experience being both copy and original?
Before you open your eyes, you can't know if you copy or original, but it is not experience of being both, because physical states of both brains at this point are identical to state of brain that wasn't copied at all. After you open your eyes you will find youself being either copy or original, but again not both by obvious reason.
It is not true if subjective experience isn't ontologically fundamental. As existense of e.g. paricular kind of Boltzmann brain seem in that case sufficient for continuation of subjective experience (very unpleasant experience in this case).
Again, what point are you actually trying to make here?
A continuation of subjective experience after death is an afterlife.
Did you read "Anthropic trilemma"? I am trying to
Convince someone that Eliezer Yudkowsky wasn't that confused, or at least that he had a reason to be.
Check if I am wrong and there is satisfactory answer to trilemma, or that the question "What I will experience next?" has no meaning/doesn't matter.
As far as know word afterlife implles dualism, which is not the case here.
This has nothing to do with 'splitting' per se. If your point was valid then you could make it equally well by saying:
A and B are different people in the same universe. World state: "A exists and B exists". Subjective state: "Either A is thinking or B is thinking." Same physical state, different subjective states. Therefore, "it seems there is something beyond the physical state".
But this 'either or' business is nonsense. A and B are both thinking. You and copy are both thinking. What's the big deal?
(Apparently, you think the universe is something like in the film Aliens where in addition to whatever's actually happening, there is a "bank of screens" somewhere showing everyone's points of view. And then after you split, "your screen" must either show the original's point of view or else it must show the copy's.)
If you're saying that you don't have subjective experiences, I'll bite the bullet, and will not trust your view on the matter. However I doubt that you want me to think so. What is subjective experience or "one's screen", as you put it, to you?
Of course we have subjective experience: it's just that both copies of you have it, and there is no special flame of consciousness that goes to one but not the other. After the copy, both copies remember being the original. They're both "you".
They are both me for external observer. But there's no subjective experience of being both copies. Imagine youself being copied... Copying... Done. Now you find youself standing either in scanner chamber, knowing that there's another "you" in construction chamber, or in construction chamber, knowing that there's another "you" in scanner chamber. If you think that you'll experience someting unimaginable, you need to clarify what causes your/copy's brain to create unimaginable experience.
The problem is with the word "you," which usually refers to one specific mind. In this case, when I am copied, the end result will be two identical minds, each of which will have identical memories and continuity with the past. The self in the scanner chamber will find itself with the subjective experience of looking at the copy in the construction chamber, and the self in the construction chamber will find itself with the subjective experience of looking at the copy in the scanner chamber. They are both equally "you", but from that point on they will have separate experiences.
"You" in this context is ambiguous only for external observer. Both minds will know who "you" refers to. Right?
Your rephrasing seems to dissociate situation from subjective experience. I can't see how it helps however. It will be not "the self" standing in scanner/construction chamber, it will be you (not "you") standing there. Once again. They are both equally "you" for external observer, but you will not be external observer.
When you say "you", mind 1 will think of mind 1, and mind 2 will think of mind 2. One entity and one subjective experience has split into two separate ones. They are both you.
If you prefer: your subjective experience stops when the copy is created. Two new entities appear and start having subjective experiences based from your past. There is no more you. It makes more sense to me to think of them both as me, but it's the same thing. The past you no longer exists, so you can't ask what happens to him.
I think your problem is with the word "you". The question is "what happens next after the split?" Well, what happens to who? Mind 1 starts having one subjective experience, and Mind 2 starts having a slightly different one. It's tricky, because there's a discontinuity at the point of the split, and all our assumptions about personal identity are based on not having such a discontinuity.
And even without copying "past you" no longer exist in that sense. If we agree that subjective experiences are unambiguously determined by physical processes in brain, than it must be clear that creation of copy doesn't create any special conditions in subjective experience, as processes in both brains evolve in usual manner but with different inputs.
There is, er, uncertainty in our expectations, yes. But I can't see discontinuity of what you are speaking of? Which entity is discontinuous at the point of copying?
Edit: Just for information. I am aware that inputs to copy-brain is discontinuous in a sense (compare it with sleep).