Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Bruno, > > I have cut out some of your detailed response to my post where I think we > basically agree. There > remain some differences, and some failings on my part to understand more > technical aspects of > your work. > > >>> Memories of our past are generally more vivid and hold more information >>> than writing, film >>> etc., but there may come a time when people directly share memories with >>> each other as easily >>> as they now share mp3 files. >> >> >> Selling, buying, sharing memories belongs to the future of applied >> bio-information science, I >> guess. But still, despite infinite possible progress in that matter, what >> will always really be >> shared will be numbers and partially similar decoding and interpreting >> procedures. For example, >> the mp3 files contains binary digits, and people share indeed the same first >> level decoding >> machinery (a Mac, a PC, an ipod, etc.). They does not share the personal >> experience (ex: for >> one the music will makes him/she recall nice memories, for someone else: >> only bad memories). >> Now you make one step further and share the good/bad memories. This can only >> partially be done, >> and then it will be similar to number-mp3 sharing. To share the first person >> experience >> completely you will have to erase memories for maintaining enough (self-) >> consistency, and you >> will actually fuse the persons. The quantum analog is quantum erasure of >> information which >> allows interference effects (and thus history-fusion) to (re)appear. The >> first person itself is >> not first person-self-definable (I will come back on this, but those >> following the >> diagonalization post can already smell this phenomenon: the collection of >> all computable >> functions from N to N cannot be enumerated by a computable function). > > > Yes, sharing the memory is *not* the same as having the original experience, > but this applies to > recalling one's own past as well. You may argue that recalling our past is > different because we > have just the right brain structure, other associated memories and so on to > put it all in > context, but in principle all of these might be lacking due to illness or the > passage of time, or > might be duplicated in a very good simulation made for someone else to > experience. The only way > to unambiguously define a first person experience is to make it once only; > perfect recollection > would be indistinguishable from the original experience, and it would be > impossible for the > experiencer to either know that he was recalling a memory or to know how > close to the original > the recollection was. The postulate of a first person entity persisting > through time violates the > 1st person/ 3rd person distinction, since it assumes that I-now can have 1st > person knowledge of > I-yesterday or I-tomorrow, when in fact such knowledge is impossible except > in a 3rd person way. > I believe it is this confusion which leads to the apparent anomaly of 1st > person indeterminacy in > the face of 3rd person determinacy in duplication experiments. Let us assume > as little as > possible and make our theories as simple as possible. I *have* to accept that > there is something > special about my experiences at the moment which distinguish them from > everyone else's > experiences: this is the difference between the 1st person POV and the 3rd > person POV. It is > tempting to say that my 1st person POV extends into the future and the past > as well, explaining > why I think of myself as a person persisting through time. However, this > latter hypothesis is > unnecessary. It is enough to say that the 1st person POV is valid only in the > present, and when I > consider my future and past that is only 3rd person extrapolation.
Well said! I agree completely. >What I consider myself to be > as a person is then explained as the set of 1st person experiences related in > a particular way, > such as believing themselves to be moments in the life of a single > individual, having memories or > quasi-memories in common, and so on. But what can that "related in a particular way" be? It is certainly not the case that I, at every moment am experiencing a belief that I'm a single individual. I cannot think of any 1st person experience that is connecting my 1st person moments. Rather it is something unconscious which I "experience" only on reflection, i.e. in a 3rd person way. I think this poses a difficulty for a world model consisting only of "observer moments". There's nothing to connect them. A model in which there is an external substrate, either the physical world or a computer simulation, avoids this problem by providing the unexperienced connection. Julian Barbour proposes a similar model in which the world consists of "time capsules"; each capsule is a moment in time. But these capsules contain much more than a conscious thought; they contain something like a state of the world and so they provide enough information to be well ordered. >If I split into two that presents no problem for the 3rd > person POV (there are two instantiations of Stathis extant where before there > was one) nor for > the 1st person POV (each instantiation knows it is experiencing what it is > experiencing as it is > experiencing it). A problem does arise when I anticipate the split (which one > will I become?) or > look back at the split (*I* was the original!); there is no correct answer in > these cases because > it is based on 3rd person extrapolation of the 1st person POV, which in > addition to its other > failings assumes only a single entity can be extant at any one time (only a > single 1st person > exists by definition, but multiple 3rd persons can exist at the one time). > This is not to say > that my mind can or should overcome [Lee Corbin disagrees on the "should"] > the deeply ingrained > belief or illusion that I am a unique, one-track individual living my life > from start to finish, It's only an illusion if you assume the "observer moment" model is reality. In a sense all models are "illusions", but some are better than others and at any given time we might as well tentatively take our best model as a representation of reality. > which is why in symmetrical duplication experiments I anticipate that I will > become one of the > duplicates with equal probability. In asymmetrical duplication experiments > with partial memory > loss or merging, it becomes very difficult to know what to expect. Here you've slipped back into a persisting 1st person view. It's easy to know what to expect from a 3rd person view. The reason the duplication is hard to talk about is that it supposes a view that is neither 1st nor 3rd person - we might call it 2nd person. >>> It can only be made unambiguous by introducing the third person POV because >>> the "I" refers to >>> different tokens/instantiations depending on the stage of the teleportation >>> process: the idea >>> that there is a single "I" persisting through time is an illusion, >>> involving looking at one's >>> future or past as if from the 1st person POV when in fact the 1st person >>> POV is necessarily >>> tied to a single token/instantiation. >> >> >> All right then. Except that I am not sure I really agree with the idea that >> the persisting "I" >> is an illusion. Here, it is hard for me not taking account of the main UDA >> conclusion: the >> reversal physics/bio/compscience/theology/numbers. So let me tell you what I >> believe, accepting >> comp and the UDA reasoning: The persisting "I" is not an illusion, or is >> less an illusion than >> its body or time itself. What could also be an illusion is the feeling that >> "I" and "you" are >> absolutely different, when the difference is only relative. > > > See above. Perhaps "illusion" is not the right word. Is a motion picture an > illusion? It is a > series of still pictures presented in a particular way giving the effect of > motion from the POV > of a human observer; better to be descriptive than use words like illusion > and delusion. Generally a frame of a motion picture film (including the sound track) has enough information that it could be put in order - but not necessarily. >>> This is why I say that "I" live only transiently when I am interested in >>> being rigorous, >>> while in everyday life I use the pronoun "I" to mean what most people mean >>> by it, and what my >>> human-standard psychological makeup tells me it means. >> >> >> This is hard matter and I don't expect we will settle this in few posts. I >> think I see what you >> mean, and at the same time I believe comp forces us to believe in the >> contrary (but I know this >> is strongly counter-intuitive for those who thinks a lot on personal >> identity and does keep >> some form of naturalism). The reason is that eventually the first persons >> will appear to be the >> time and space constructors, and that the first person "I" does not even >> exists transiently (it >> needs at least two instants!). So here, comp could come back toward common >> sense: "you" are >> really defining partially and locally a past and a future (or many possible >> futures) like >> everyday life suggests. Identity is attached (partially) to connected >> memories, and all what >> matters consists in keeping that connection through the construction of time >> for consistency >> purpose. We are not allow to get others' experiences for the same >> consistency reason, so "I" >> remains invariant to "my" continuous or computable changes, and actually >> this is what allows us >> to be teleported or duplicated through comp, with giving the right for all >> my doppelgangers to >> say consistently that they are all "me", persisting through those >> experience/experiments, and >> being just accidentally and relatively (in W or M for example) disconnected. >> I think that >> people, like Lee Corbin, who insists that the W and M doppelgangers are >> really himself, should >> accept the possibility, at least, that all of us are already the same self, >> produced by many >> many duplications and multiplications made through our biological history. >> We are unable to >> recognize ourself as our selves due to other evolutionary factors which >> apparently did bet on >> some competition among us. Another is some hidden part of oneself, in this >> setting. It is known >> that hiding information can be a key to learning behavior. Or it is because our feeling of self is a physical process in our brain and the world really is continuous over time (or at least has enough information to be well ordered). Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---