[ExI] Let's play What If.

[Damien Broderick]

On 10/27/2010 12:02 PM, Damien Broderick wrote:

> Bearing this crucial distinction in mind, and changing the rules so the
> torture can also be a risk for all the instances (since that seems
> important to you), the probabilities are actually 1/1,000,001 and 1/3
> (since you stipulated a million copies versus two copies).

Damn it, I got myself tangled there because I was trying to make 
Stathis's proposition make sense. What he initially proposed was:

<If you were given the choice of being duplicated a million times with
one of the copies being tortured or once with one of the copies being
tortured would you have any preference for one or the other case,>

To be *duplicated* does mean "original instance plus one duplicate/copy" 
and this is clearly what's meant, since "once with one of the copies 
being tortured" has p=1 when there's only one copy, and this can't be 
what's meant.

So this just demonstrates how tangled the use of ordinary language gets 
with such thought experiments. In any event, to "duplicate" means to 
create an additional instance of the original.

Damien Broderick