The subject of copying people and its effect on personal identity and probability anticipation has been raised and, I think, addressed adequately on Less Wrong.
It hasn’t been addressed adequately. Probability anticipation is a big mystery. Our best idea (UDT) sidesteps the problem entirely. I think it’s fair to say that no one on LW really knows how anticipation will behave when people start making copies of themselves—and you won’t even be able to learn that by polling the copies! The only way for anyone to learn the correct law would be to run experiments on themselves and observe the frequencies.
The only way for anyone to learn the correct law would be to run experiments on themselves and observe the frequencies.
That’s what I was going to propose, after Emile said he doesn’t know what the probabilities mean.
If we adopt a frequentist interpretation, then I suppose the probability makes sense. After all, this is the only way we can actually observe the Born probabilities in quantum mechanics: by repeating the experiment and counting frequencies.
But.
Even if I ran the experiment on myself, what would make my subjective report any more valid than that of the other copies? In quantum mechanics, even assuming MWI, the opinions of our copies in the other branches are inaccessible to us. Suppose I copied myself 10 times. Then the resulting 1024 copies will have every possible subjective experience generated among them. I guess we could say that what the 50% probability really means is that the resulting copies would obey the same binomial distribution that you would have after generating every possible sequence of 10 coin flips.
The closest thing I’ve experienced to a situation where my subjective experience needs to account for anthropic reasoning is when I’m really tired and fall asleep in the afternoon, then wake up at some time that is either early or late.
For example, if someone tells me that its sometime between 7 or 9 (without PM/AM), then its plausible for me to be waking up in PM, or in the AM. If its PM its fine, but if its AM I should panic, as I’ve overslept and will be late for school.
Two notes:
I mostly wake up in the PM in these situations. Like, at least 90% of the time.
In light of that, I’m pretty much always wrong, guessing that I’ve overslept.
It hasn’t been addressed adequately. Probability anticipation is a big mystery. Our best idea (UDT) sidesteps the problem entirely. I think it’s fair to say that no one on LW really knows how anticipation will behave when people start making copies of themselves—and you won’t even be able to learn that by polling the copies! The only way for anyone to learn the correct law would be to run experiments on themselves and observe the frequencies.
That’s what I was going to propose, after Emile said he doesn’t know what the probabilities mean.
If we adopt a frequentist interpretation, then I suppose the probability makes sense. After all, this is the only way we can actually observe the Born probabilities in quantum mechanics: by repeating the experiment and counting frequencies.
But.
Even if I ran the experiment on myself, what would make my subjective report any more valid than that of the other copies? In quantum mechanics, even assuming MWI, the opinions of our copies in the other branches are inaccessible to us. Suppose I copied myself 10 times. Then the resulting 1024 copies will have every possible subjective experience generated among them. I guess we could say that what the 50% probability really means is that the resulting copies would obey the same binomial distribution that you would have after generating every possible sequence of 10 coin flips.
(I’m a he)
Fixed, sorry. Just seemed like a female name to me, no offense meant. :)
Yeah, Emily is much more common in English and even in French.
Not yet. You can’t understand what’s going on just by running experiments, you also have to understand how to interpret the data.
The closest thing I’ve experienced to a situation where my subjective experience needs to account for anthropic reasoning is when I’m really tired and fall asleep in the afternoon, then wake up at some time that is either early or late.
For example, if someone tells me that its sometime between 7 or 9 (without PM/AM), then its plausible for me to be waking up in PM, or in the AM. If its PM its fine, but if its AM I should panic, as I’ve overslept and will be late for school.
Two notes: I mostly wake up in the PM in these situations. Like, at least 90% of the time. In light of that, I’m pretty much always wrong, guessing that I’ve overslept.