On Thu, Jun 09, 2005 at 07:35:42PM -0400, Jesse Mazer wrote: > Russell Standish wrote: > > > > >You are arguing that it is possible to have an absolute measure for > >each observer moment, as well as a relative measure on the transitions > >between observer moments. Of course this is correct. > > > >However, the ASSA and the RSSA are more than that. The SS stands for > >self sampling, ie the principle that one should reason as though one's > >own observer moment were sampled from the A or the R measure > >respectively. With the RSSA, only the birth moment is sampled > >according to an absolute measure, so it is an elaboration of the > >SSA. I'm not sure how compatible the ASSA is with the SSA. > > > >The ASSA and RSSA are incompatible principles, even if both absolute > >and relative measures are compatible. > > Well, perhaps the problem is that we don't have definite agreement on this > list about how these acronyms are defined--for example, Hal Finney gave > different definitions on the original "Request for a glossary of acronyms" > thread, in his post at http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m4778.html -- > > "ASSA - The Absolute Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you should > consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled from among all > observer-moments in the universe. > > RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you should > consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled from among all > observer-moments which come immediately after your current observer-moment > and belong to the same observer." >
How does this differ? The only difference I see is that the word "measure" is not mentioned explicitly, however random sampling implies sampling according to some measure. Sometimes uniform measure is implied by random sampling, but I can't see how Hal Finney might have thought that, as the measure is so patently nonuniform. > > And as I said in my response to that post at > http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m4782.html , I would prefer to define > the ASSA in terms of reasoning as if your *current* observer-moment is > randomly sampled from the set of all observer-moments, weighted by each > observer-moment's absolute probability. > > Jesse > I can't see that changing "next" to "current" makes any difference to the meaning, except if there is no "next" OM. If you are comparing the two - eg perhaps asserting a compatibility, then there must be a "next" OM. This is pedantry for pedantry sake. It does not change the fact that the RSSA and the ASSA are fundamentally incompatible principles. Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics 0425 253119 (") UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
pgpNaDnmSkr0v.pgp
Description: PGP signature
