Hal Finney <hal@rain.org> wrote:
> > > What if the redundancy is obtained by using double-thick wires and
> > > double-sized transistors in the circuit design? Now someone proposes
> > > to save costs by shaving away half of this circuitry, while leaving the
> > > logic alone. Would this bother you?
> >
> > You keep asking the same question over and over in different ways. I'm
> > not sure why you expect to get a different answer at some point.
> It seems implausible that doubling the width of the wires would change
> one "you" into two. So I don't see why reducing the thickness of the wires
> in the simulation would make anyone cease to exist. Perhaps my wording
> above was unclear that this is what I was proposing?
Yes, I did misunderstand this. I thought you meant a twisted pair of wires, like speaker wire or a telephone wire, where there were two wires in one casing.
I think double thickness of wire would still be one copy. The size or mass of the circuitry is not an issue for me. The number of independent programs that can run unchanged after the other ceases determined the number of "individuals".
I do understand your view, and I do understand what you are trying to do with your series of examples. This converstation is interesting to me, because someday I may have to make a decision based on this very question.
-- Harvey Newstrom <mailto:harv@gate.net> Author, Engineer, Entrepreneur, <http://www.gate.net/~harv> Consultant, Researcher, Scientist. <ldap://certserver.pgp.com>