[ExI] Let's play What If.

[John Clark]

On Oct 29, 2010, at 11:10 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote:

> John Clark wrote:
>> Damien let me ask you something, suppose you were imprisoned in a deep dark dungeon and were told that like it or not tomorrow you would be thrown into the scanning chamber and duplicated and the copy would be horribly tortured, but immediately after the copying the original would receive a full pardon and get to go home. Leaving aside the question of empathy would you be nervous knowing what was going to happen tomorrow or happy at going free? I'd be nervous as hell! I'd rather just stay in the dungeon. 
> 
> You can only get over the problem when you understand that your nervousness is caused by the fact that your concept of "you" and "continuity of self" is broken.

I don't see anything in my thought experiment that gets broken, except perhaps for the kneecaps of one of them; and I don't understand this obsession with continuity so many around here have, and I don't even know what "continuity of self" is supposed to mean or why I should give a damn about it.

> That is why you find this situation so frightening.

My question was do YOU find it frightening, I did not receive an answer.

> If you tried the experiment, one of you would wake up and say "phew!" and the other would wake up and say "uh oh!".

Yes.

>  The question "But which one of those would *I* be?" is strictly meaningless.

No, it is not meaningless and the answer is obvious; both of the two would be you but neither of the two would be each other. There would be a branching, both would have an identical past but a very different future.  

 John K Clark



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