[extropy-chat] Personal Identity Bis

[Eugen Leitl]

On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 12:34:12PM -0400, Randall Randall wrote:

> > Knowledge is information, and information is very important
> > in this unverse, from QM (two systems in the same quantum
> > state are not distinguishable in principle) to singularities.
> 
> I think that this is misapplied, here.  If we had two systems
> in the same quantum state, we might not be able to measure an
> internal difference, but we certainly can distinguish them; if

No. We can't. Both in practice, and in theory. It's not
just a good idea, it's the law. 

I wonder why I keep posting that example, with literature,
but nobody seems to actually care to read it. It's been more
than a decade that we keep having these threads, and they
always go through the same motions. I'm getting tired of this.
I think I'm going to ban these for good.

> we can't, then how do we know we have two?  Taken literally,
> the statement "two systems are indistinguishable" is a logical
> contradiction.

Physics doesn't care a fig about what a monkey thinks is a contradiction. 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_particles
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0305-4470/13/4/008
http://www.engin.umich.edu/~CRE/03chap/html/transition/

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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