Consiousness Thought Exercise

[velmwend]

Hi

Please excuse me if this is a common thought exercise but it kept me awake last night and I still can't get my head around it. Maybe someone could throw some opinions out here and give me some rest this afternoon.

Jack Jones gets successfully cloned by scientists. Jack Jones now becomes Jack 1 and jack2. They are ushered into separate rooms each containing a painting. Jack1 is seated facing the Mona Lisa, Jack2 the Last Supper.

Which painting does Jack Jones see?

[hallenrm]

Who is Jack Jones now?

[learnin to learn]

he sees both, because even though one is a clone, they are both the same person,(exact same genetics and what not)

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by velmwend

Which painting does Jack Jones see?

The concept/being/entity formerly known as Jack Jones is now undefined. Jack Jones is now further categorized as JJ1 and JJ2, hence, to get a clear answer, you must refer to the specific object.


If I cut a piece of cake into two equal halves and place one half in the bathroom and one half in the closet, where is the cake? It's both. I can only specify one of the locations if you specify one of the halves.

[pgrmdave]

You have an ambiguously defined variable, "Jack Jones". "Jack Jones" refers to multiple "people", each of whom can see one piece of "art". So, we have a one to one relationship of "person" to "art", and a one to many relationship of "Jack Jones" to "person". Since the actual nouns and verbs aren't necessarily important to this question, we can change them, so long as the relationships remain the same. So, there is a one to one relationship between a "person" and a "social security number". There is a category of many "people" called "Hypographers", "Hypographers" has a one to many relationship with "people". So, the question is like asking what the "social security number" of "Hypographers" is.