Suppose there are a hundred copies of you, in different cells. At random, one will be selected—that one is going to be shot tomorrow. A guard notifies that one that they’re going to be shot.
There is a mercy offered, though—there’s a memory-eraser-ray handy. The one who knows they’te going to be shot is given the option to erase their memory of the warning and everything that followed, putting them in the same information state, more or less, as any of the other copies.
“Of course!” They cry. “Erase my memory, and I could be any of them—why, when you shoot someone tomorrow, there’s a 99% chance it won’t even be me!”
Suppose there are a hundred copies of you, in different cells. At random, one will be selected—that one is going to be shot tomorrow. A guard notifies that one that they’re going to be shot.
There is a mercy offered, though—there’s a memory-eraser-ray handy. The one who knows they’te going to be shot is given the option to erase their memory of the warning and everything that followed, putting them in the same information state, more or less, as any of the other copies.
“Of course!” They cry. “Erase my memory, and I could be any of them—why, when you shoot someone tomorrow, there’s a 99% chance it won’t even be me!”
Then the next day comes, and they get shot.