Interesting one. 100 hundred Joes, one ‘original’, some ‘copies’.
If we copy Joe once, and let him be, he’s 50% certainly original. If we copy the copy, Joe remains 50% certainly original, while status of copies does not change.
After the first copying process, we ended up with the original and a copy. 50% of the resulting sentient beings were original. If we do that again, again, we have two sentient beings, original and a new copy. Again, 50% chance for a random sentient byproduct of this copying process to be the original.
But there’s something you didn’t take into account. You can’t just multiply the 50% of the first and second process, as your Joe wasn’t chosen randomly after every copying process. After every single process, you took the original and copied only him again. Math should reflect this.
New take. The problem can be described as a branching tree, where each copy-branch is cut off, leaving only 1 copy.
So, at step 2, we would’ve had 4 possibilities, 1 original and three copies, but branches of the copy were cut away, so we are left with three Joes, 1 original, 1 equally likely copy, and… 1 copy that’s twice as likely?
Interesting one. 100 hundred Joes, one ‘original’, some ‘copies’.
If we copy Joe once, and let him be, he’s 50% certainly original. If we copy the copy, Joe remains 50% certainly original, while status of copies does not change.
After the first copying process, we ended up with the original and a copy. 50% of the resulting sentient beings were original. If we do that again, again, we have two sentient beings, original and a new copy. Again, 50% chance for a random sentient byproduct of this copying process to be the original.
But there’s something you didn’t take into account. You can’t just multiply the 50% of the first and second process, as your Joe wasn’t chosen randomly after every copying process. After every single process, you took the original and copied only him again. Math should reflect this.
New take. The problem can be described as a branching tree, where each copy-branch is cut off, leaving only 1 copy.
So, at step 2, we would’ve had 4 possibilities, 1 original and three copies, but branches of the copy were cut away, so we are left with three Joes, 1 original, 1 equally likely copy, and… 1 copy that’s twice as likely?