[ExI] Probability is "subjectively objective".

Damien Broderick thespike at satx.rr.com
Thu Jul 17 23:05:40 UTC 2008


At 03:28 PM 7/17/2008 -0700, Lee

>can imagine meeting an alien for whom all this is such old
>stuff it says, "If I find my photon horizontally polarized,
>then of course my friend who I'll talk to later will also
>find his horizontally polarized, since we live in the same
>world 'rather than in one of the other worlds' where we'd
>find it vertically polarized."  Perhaps it would be as obvious to 
>him as finding himself tomorrow in a world consistent with the world 
>he finds himself today in.

You can imagine that, Lee, but can you imagine how infuriating I find 
it? Suppose the alien asked you, "How come the righthand jutty-out 
bit of South America fits so neatly into the concave bite out of 
Africa, thousands of miles away?" and you airily explained, "Well, of 
course it must. Continents are like that." Never mind ocean floor 
spreading and plate tectonics; it's just obvious that it has to be 
that way. I don't think so.

Damien Broderick





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