X-Message-Number: 25287
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 09:08:46 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #25266 - #25286

It seems that RBR and his followers believe that by asking them to
truly argue for their beliefs I am failing to understand them
deliberately.

I will ask again, but with the question that Mike Perry has come
up with: just why is it not the case that your QR is preserved by
an instantaneous change into another form? I want not just the
repeated claim that it's not the same, but an argument supporting
that claim.

And of course I don't want as an answer a prolonged discussion of
how such changes make different QEs when they're modified to make
more than one copy of me into another form, etc etc. Of course they'll
reasonably have different QEs, but that wasn't what I was asking.

And a means by which I could find out whether or not I had the 
same QE as I had yesterday (before I spent the night sleeping)
would also be useful here. Just how do we know that we haven't
gotten a new QE every time we cough or blow our nose? No, I'm 
hardly claiming that, but please tell me HOW DO WE KNOW? And I
shall try to make this question even more clear: if our QE works
by the laws of physics, then is there any way I could identify
one QE (for me) and verify that it's not the same as another
(presumably former) one?

No doubt some advocate of QEs will argue that I know that because
my QE has existed continuously. This looks like a circular
argument to me; furthermore it begs the question of what is
meant by continuity in the case of Q Es. I understand continuity
when you speak of a function, but not when you speak of a QE.
(Recall my case of an instant transformation. To measure 
continuity, you need some way of measuring change. If no change
has occurred, then we have continuity. And depending on the 
topology you choose, transformation into a record can be considerd
perfectly continuous. We have, in fact, a choice of topologies
depending on what's most convenient for us).

            Best wishes and long long life for all,

               Thomas Donaldson

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