> >How many quanta do you need to simulate a quanta?
>
> One.
Okay, tell me your algorithm for storing all the information describing a
object in one bit, the world needs to know!
> I can say it, we won't need that level of detail or anything close to it.
> If tiny changes, even as tiny as a quantum jump, would turn me into a
> completely new person then I die and a different person is created every
time
> I drink a cup of coffee, that changes me a hell of a lot more than quantum
> uncertainty.
Your physical state is destroyed and replaced for every quantum uncertainty,
and many times when drinking a cup of coffee. But it isn't physical state
we're trying to preserve, it's consciousness.
> >at the exact moment you're cloned the two of you start recieving
> >different input. You can't occupy the same space, so you can't
> >share the same input,
>
> Only the position of your senses is important the position of your brain
is
> irrelevant, unless it's so far away you get a bad time lag due to the
speed
> of light. No reason 2 brains couldn't receive exactly the same input, just
> put a split on the line.
Since a quantum uncertainty can destroy and replace you, then it can also
change the input between two instances of the same object. Input goes beyond
your senses, the entire arrangement of the universe and every particle in it
contributes.
> >we would have to simulate that input to introduce your
consciousness
> >to your new software existence.
>
> You could but you wouldn't have to, you could get input from meatspace
just
> as you do now, and incidentally you and I already have a software
existence,
> but we need new hardware.
I agree that we do have a software existence, and that's the basis of my
argument. The point is, consciousness does not exist as one point in time,
it exists across time. It is created by past experience and fueled by future
experience, if there exists a lapse in logic between these, (being destroyed
at one point in time and recreated in another place/time, not to mention
another hardware system constitutes as a lapse in logic) then the conscious
thread is terminated.
> In these thought experiments people always look at it from the point of
view
> of the "original", change gears and think about the "impostor" . Suppose I
> came to you and proved to you that Mr. YakWaxx died last week, I used my
> Nano Robots to take him apart atom by atom before he knew what hit him,
they
> carefully recorded the position of every atom, then just 5 minutes ago my
> robots used this information to make a "copy" from different atoms that
were
> handy. Do you think Yakwaxx is really dead, is there any reason to grieve
> for him? What has been lost? Morally do you think you have any claim to
> Yakwaxx's money and possessions? Would you feel you were suffering
unjustly
> if all your friends and family started to ignore you because you were a
> "stranger"? Is there any logical reason you should be more unhappy now
than
> one minute before I told you?
The "original" is me, it's this instance of me. Whoever went before me
doesn't matter and doesn't stop that fact that I want to carry on this
perticular instance of me. You may not care what instances of me you're
dealing with, but I do.
> One last question, is there any way you can know that my little story is
not
> true?
It's irrelevant.
--Wax