There are no mystical laws of nature associated with consciousness. Therefore the copy has no magical effect on the original you. Therefore it should appear the same to original you whether the copy is there or whether we just say the copy is there.
Which makes clear that the idea of a “body-jump” is wrong. No soul is leaping forth from the original you to go live in some copy.
So what does this probability of waking up as someone else mean? Well, we can think of your memories, including the memory of this probability, as a “mark” on minds. The probability really asks: given that you have the mark, what is the probability that you are the original? Copying you is just creating more minds with the mark, so if the only thing you know is that you have the mark, you have a 1/N chance of being the original.
The real problem seems to be uncertainty over the definition of “you” given multiple minds with the mark. To which I’d like to refer you to the official reference.
Of course there’s no soul. Nor is there any spooky physical action at a distance whenever a copy is created.
What I mean by a body jump is the entirely subjective experience of the copy. Past the branching point, the original will experience a smooth continuation of the stream of consciousness, while the copy experiences a jarring disconnect if no interruption of consciousness occurred at the time of copy—which subjectively feels like a body jump even though it’s not what actually happened.
Of course, if you’re unconscious (sleeping, tranquilized, etc.) when the scan takes place, the waking experience is symmetric.
Actually, now that I think about it, I’m not at all sure I’d experience a jump. That is, it’s entirely possible that both of me would experience a smooth continuation of the stream of consciousness.
After all, my current experience of such a smooth continuity is the output of cognitive algorithms biased towards producing such a coherent experience out of gappy, noisy inputs; it seems plausible that those algorithms would just continue to do the same thing over the branching point without ever constructing an experience of transition.
I think it depends on how obvious you make the difference between their two locations.
Say the copy takes place in a room where I/we/he/I/(the pre-split me) can watch the copy be created standing in the same relative position, etc. as pre-split-unambiguous-me. Then its entirely possible that both of me would experience a smooth continuation of stream of consciousness.
Now lets say the copy is created in a green room on the other side of a pane of one-way glass, while pre-split me stands watching in a red room. Then I would really hope that one of me would continue a smooth stream of consciousness, while the other one would realize that he “jumped” into a green room.
If the copy cannot see the original at the time of copying, would it feel any different than just being teleported to the destination? Which is impossible because it violates special relativity, but we can still, I think, argue what the subjective experience would be if it was.
Well, in mundane cases where awareness of the transition from point A to B is lost—blackouts, amnesia, failures of attention, etc. -- the experience is sometimes of a sudden translation, and sometimes of nothing in particular (that is, you’re just at B now, and the fact that you don’t remember getting there isn’t particularly called to your attention), and sometimes of not realizing that anything in particular has happened, and sometimes other things.
I imagine you’d get a similar range in these more speculative cases.
There are no mystical laws of nature associated with consciousness. Therefore the copy has no magical effect on the original you. Therefore it should appear the same to original you whether the copy is there or whether we just say the copy is there.
Which makes clear that the idea of a “body-jump” is wrong. No soul is leaping forth from the original you to go live in some copy.
So what does this probability of waking up as someone else mean? Well, we can think of your memories, including the memory of this probability, as a “mark” on minds. The probability really asks: given that you have the mark, what is the probability that you are the original? Copying you is just creating more minds with the mark, so if the only thing you know is that you have the mark, you have a 1/N chance of being the original.
The real problem seems to be uncertainty over the definition of “you” given multiple minds with the mark. To which I’d like to refer you to the official reference.
Of course there’s no soul. Nor is there any spooky physical action at a distance whenever a copy is created.
What I mean by a body jump is the entirely subjective experience of the copy. Past the branching point, the original will experience a smooth continuation of the stream of consciousness, while the copy experiences a jarring disconnect if no interruption of consciousness occurred at the time of copy—which subjectively feels like a body jump even though it’s not what actually happened.
Of course, if you’re unconscious (sleeping, tranquilized, etc.) when the scan takes place, the waking experience is symmetric.
Actually, now that I think about it, I’m not at all sure I’d experience a jump. That is, it’s entirely possible that both of me would experience a smooth continuation of the stream of consciousness.
After all, my current experience of such a smooth continuity is the output of cognitive algorithms biased towards producing such a coherent experience out of gappy, noisy inputs; it seems plausible that those algorithms would just continue to do the same thing over the branching point without ever constructing an experience of transition.
I think it depends on how obvious you make the difference between their two locations.
Say the copy takes place in a room where I/we/he/I/(the pre-split me) can watch the copy be created standing in the same relative position, etc. as pre-split-unambiguous-me. Then its entirely possible that both of me would experience a smooth continuation of stream of consciousness.
Now lets say the copy is created in a green room on the other side of a pane of one-way glass, while pre-split me stands watching in a red room. Then I would really hope that one of me would continue a smooth stream of consciousness, while the other one would realize that he “jumped” into a green room.
(nods) I’d really hope so too. I’d even expect it, I think. That said, brains do some astonishingly broken things along these lines.
If the copy cannot see the original at the time of copying, would it feel any different than just being teleported to the destination? Which is impossible because it violates special relativity, but we can still, I think, argue what the subjective experience would be if it was.
Well, in mundane cases where awareness of the transition from point A to B is lost—blackouts, amnesia, failures of attention, etc. -- the experience is sometimes of a sudden translation, and sometimes of nothing in particular (that is, you’re just at B now, and the fact that you don’t remember getting there isn’t particularly called to your attention), and sometimes of not realizing that anything in particular has happened, and sometimes other things.
I imagine you’d get a similar range in these more speculative cases.