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Edit: “Whoever did the duplication” would be a better answer than “The guy who came first”, admittedly. The duplicate and original would both believe themselves to be the original, or, if they are a rationalist, would probably withhold judgment.
Speaking as an engineer, I’d think he wasn’t talking about subjective aspects: “The guy who came first” is the one which was copied (perfectly) to make the clone, and therefore existed before the clone existed.
More importantly, the question is terribly phrased—or just terrible. The philosopher could have started with “If you met the ‘twins’ afterwards, could someone tell them apart without asking anyone?”, which has an obvious response of “no”, and then gets followed by a actually interesting questions about, for example, what “memory” exactly is.
Rationality comix!
Hover over the red button at the bottom (to the left of the RSS button and social bookmarking links) for a bonus panel.
Edit: “Whoever did the duplication” would be a better answer than “The guy who came first”, admittedly. The duplicate and original would both believe themselves to be the original, or, if they are a rationalist, would probably withhold judgment.
Speaking as an engineer, I’d think he wasn’t talking about subjective aspects: “The guy who came first” is the one which was copied (perfectly) to make the clone, and therefore existed before the clone existed.
More importantly, the question is terribly phrased—or just terrible. The philosopher could have started with “If you met the ‘twins’ afterwards, could someone tell them apart without asking anyone?”, which has an obvious response of “no”, and then gets followed by a actually interesting questions about, for example, what “memory” exactly is.
That version is a lot funnier, though!