Wei Dai, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, writes: > On Sun, Jul 18, 1999 at 02:35:03PM -0400, Jacques M Mallah wrote: > > On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > I can then apply your formula, letting x vary over all universes in U, > > > computing sum over x of P(x)Q(x). I don't fully understand the meaning > > > of the result, "the probability that I feel the way I do", but I wonder > > > if this would be a valid alternative way of getting to it. > > > > That makes NO sense. If you say all 'universes' exist, that's the > > same as saying one big universe exists. And if two copies of the same > > computation give you twice the measure when they are in different > > 'subuniverses', there's no reason that shouldn't be true in general.
Suppose I exist in universe A and I exist in universe B. Then the contribution these two universes make to the overall "probability I feel the way I do" is p(A) + p(B). If universe C is another universe that happens to be identical to A joined to B somehow, then I exist in C. The measure of C may or may not be related in a simple way to the measures of A and B. (I am not making any assumptions here about how measures are assigned to universes, in particular I am not assuming the universal distribution.) So p(C) gets added to the mix. I don't see anything contradictory in this. > I agree with Jacques Mallah here. Even if you could somehow distinguish > between subuniverses (between which measures add up) and regions of > subuniverse, there would be a subuniverse with high measure (e.g. the > counting universe) that contains a copy of every other subuniverse as a > region and it would dominate in your computation, leaving you with > senseless results. I agree that I exist in the counting universe. The counting universe would have to have low measure for this model to be true. (Unless I am actually living in the counting universe.) I think you agree that you exist in the counting universe. However I think you give low measure to the places in the counting universe where you exist because they are so small compared to the universe as a whole. Is that right? I think Jacques does not agree that he exists in the counting universe. He wants to see a "process", not a "pattern". It is not clear whether a process can be fully represented as a pattern. Hal
