[UPLOADING] Uploading v2.0

Bryan Moss (bryan.moss@dial.pipex.com)
Sat, 18 Jul 1998 21:09:38 +0100

Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> This is getting too silly to continue. Are you
> claiming that the square room does not contain
> four walls because the walls are identical?

No, there are still four walls. You said that if the two copies pointed left, they'd be pointing at different walls. I am merely asking how you *know* they are different walls. Considering their are two people in the room and they both share identical data. Since they are both pointing to their left and seeing their copy point to its right. Why is there a divergence?

As far as I can tell, you believe the walls have an independent location. I am perhaps guilty of "selectively editing [your] responses to eliminate [your] objections" because I'm trying to establish where our opinions differ. As I have noted time and time again, I believe it is in our concepts of location. I apologise if I can be accused of any arrogance or dishonesty, this is certainly not what I intending.

I had hoped the idea of the room would help concrete the image of two identical entities acting as redundancy. It works for me, but I am of a biased viewpoint (as are you).

> A square contains only one side? A rectangle
> only contains two sides? An equilateral
> triangle has one side, while a symmetrical
> triangle has two sides and an asymmetrical
> triangle has three sides?

No, a square has four sides, a rectangle four, and so on. In my thought experiment you simply cannot distinguish between the identity and location of the walls, and thus the copies will not diverge.

> You are the one with strange theories of
> location and identity.

So:

What makes the walls different in this test? How can we tell they are different?
How do you know there are two different people?

BM