[extropy-chat] Probability of identity - solution?

[Russell Wallace]

On 10/17/06, John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
>
> After the copying if you asked A he would say there was a 100% probability
> that his identity had been successfully transferred to him, and he would
> be
> correct. If you asked B he would say there was a 100% probability that his
> identity had been successfully transferred to him, and he would be
> correct.
> If you asked one of B's 999 copies he would say there was a 100%
> probability
> his identity had been successfully transferred to copy number 721 and he
> would be correct too. You can't ask C, the person before any copying was
> done, his opinion on which one was him because he was yesterday, he
> doesn't
> exist today.


Right, you seem to be agreeing with the solution I came up with.

None of this is a logical paradox, it's just an odd situation. It's unusual
> because up to now human copying machines are rather few and far between.
> But
> that need not always be true. I have a hunch the Singularity will produce
> far stranger things than that, so you'd better get used to it.
>

*nods* I don't know what the world of 3000 AD will look like, but I suspect
our ideas will look as quaintly naive to our descendants then as spacemen
rescuing Martian princesses from bug-eyed monsters look to us now.
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