Simple Paradox question

> My retort would normally be to call you an idiot, but you would be

You do understand that this is a physics newsgroup, right? Do you have any
physics to talk about?

"odin" <ragnarok@yahoo.com> wrote in
newsoOdnShhhcFtMfreRVn-iQ@whidbeytel.com:


Well, obviously not with you. I think that would be akin to asking a
lowland gorilla for help on my taxes. But, yes, at the base of this
admittedly metaphysical sounding thought experiment, I believed a very
basic physics question lurked. I thought that "point of view" POV was a
term that physicists used, or at least could work with. Essentially, I
was asking if having 2 bodies separated in space with the same point of
view was a violation of physical law and why. If that is not a physics
question or if I didn't state it in such a way that you could
comprehend, then I apologize to everyone who wasted their time with this
thread...except you. You're just a putz. I thank everyone who did bother
to answer my question, however. And in a round-about-way, I got most of
my questions answered.

TibbyCat wrote:

Well, in fact, a physical "frame of reference" is not a psychological
"point of view". A frame of reference can be defined even if there are
no human eyes fixed in that frame of reference and viewing anything.
Thus, your question is not a physics question at all and does not pose
a physical contradiction.

Moreover, duplicating a person *exactly* does not guarantee that at
*any point* after their separation that their thought processes will be
identical or in any sort of "resonance", any more than twins think the
same things or experience the same things following their split in
utero.

PD

> Well, obviously not with you.

Sorry. I should have been more supportive. Was it that bit about calling you
an idiot?


I hate anything to do with taxes. So that works out well.


Nope. Not in the slightest.


POV can mean a way of looking at an issue, a perspective. It is also a term
used in literature, especially screen plays, where it refers to an actor's
position and visual orientation with respect to a scene. Physics does not
use the term POV in any special or physically meaningful way. Perhaps you
were thinking instead of "frame of reference"?


Now I am going to have to call you an idiot again... You have not defined
what point of view would mean for "POV" in a physics discussion. The usual
meanings of POV I describe above make no sense in the context in which you
are trying to use it here.


What crawled up your ass and raised a family? You were the one that provoked
me into calling you an idiot.


Now them is fightin' words.... you ... you... bad person... you...


So, did you get your question about POV answered?

Well, actually yes. I now know that POV is not a term used in physics. That
was one of my questions. So, I guess that you are indeed good for
something. Sorry if I implied otherwise. I still think that your smug
attitutde leaves much to be desired. I think that I made it clear that
physics was not my forte. I asked a question that I thought was in the
realm of physics...and I was wrong. For that I get called an idiot. If you
came into my office and thought that you were suffering from one ailment,
when it turned out to be something else, what should I do, pepper you with
insults? That's not likely to occure, though-I doubt that someone as simple
as you could draw a large enough salary to afford me.
Anyway, let's not waste anymore time on this drivel.

Tom, you are, indeed, a gentleman and a scholar. Though probably a bit layperson-ish for
you, if you care to read some of the thread that I started on this question it is at:
[Only registered users see links. ]
Not too scientific, but kinda fun. Anyway, thanks again for the information.

Dear TibbyCat:

"TibbyCat" <[Only registered users see links. ]> wrote in message
news:Xns97016D0AD52C0tibbycatcomcastnet@216.196.10 9.144...
....

It is a discussion in it own right. Are we more than pattern?
Is the pattern contained entirely in a single issuance of matter?


Some would say "consciousness". Note that people that are put
under heavy sedation (for surgery for example), have a much
higher mortality rate within/over the next year.


Your choice. I would not, since one of me is enough. The human
is not provided with telomerase, so increasing the numbers of
aged (with their ingrained habits, etc.) is contraindicated.


Your "POV" terminates several times a second, from one way of
looking at it. You are certainly a different person upon
waking...


I don't see this as a problem. I have precognitive dreams,
information "leaking" from the future to *now*. The physical
information is without fault, but the "emotional channel" is not
mine. I don't see the meat providing any paradox of the fashion
you imagine.


This doesn't occur with the central nervous system. This is why
dementia, and a host of other diseases are an issue. But for
survivability, you cannot have less than a perfect recall, and
regenerating neurons will change the "hologram".


Atoms/molecules don't exchange out of the brain, except
food/waste.


You might want to do a search for "telomerase" and "telomeres".
This is nature's way of assuring perfect copies of nuclear DNA.
In humans, this system only affects the sex cell organs (testes,
ovaries). I think.

Beyond/below the DNA level, there is the mitochondrial DNA, and
there are only a double handful of variants since the beginning
of (surviving) humans.

Beyond/below that, who knows?

David A. Smith

docdan wrote:

It should be taken into consideration what consciousness is in the first
place. If we assume, and I think we should, that our conscious
experience is a product of purely physical phenomena inside our
body/brain, then it is conceivable that you could be copied into another
physical "you".

The POV question may seem problematic at first, until you really
comprehend WHAT you are. There's no reason to expect "you" (or your
"POV") to be nothing else but the worldivew/memories you've built, and
your ability to process those memories. You think you "are" because you
interpretate the world through your sensory system as if things are
happening to "you" (you are technically just a semantical assumption
that says "I exist", a token for your logical reasoning/learning
processes, if you will..)

In other words, even if a perfect copy of you was made, including the
state of your brain -> your memories, you would not experience a sudden
transfer to another body. But the copy would have an experience of
having been in your POV (since he would remember everything you
remember), and then suddenly finding himself from another POV. He would
basically be convinced that he is actually you, only having been
teleported to another place.

The original you though, would not want to get a bullet in the head just
because there's a copy out there. At the moment of copying you'd split
into two different persons.

I think this is rather funny scenario in the context of people
speculating whether we could build a teleportation machine that reads
the exact state of your body, breaks the original in a sudden flash, and
then rebuilds a perfect copy elsewhere.

If you did that, it would "kind" of work; the copy would be convinced he
is the original one and all would be well in the world. But I would
advice you NOT to use such a teleportation device if you ever come
across one, since it would entail your own death. It is not your POV
that gets transferred, it is a new one that gets created. You might
argue it doesn't really matter, until one day the source pod
malfunctions in that after sending forwards your data for, it would fail
to destroy your body. Now there would be two yous, and I could bet my
ass you - the one waiting in the source pod and wondering why nothing
happents - wouldn't consider yourself as the extra copy that needs to be
destroyed.

And following that trail of thought, technically, how can you say your
POV ever gets transferred from one moment to the next one. Technically,
it could be said that every time you store new memories, you kind of
become a new POV that just has memories of the history of the
experiences of "your body". (Ask the people at alt.philosophy, they'll
tell you... not)

It's a disturbing thought, I know, but that's life ;D

-Anssi