On 11 Feb 2009, at 22:19, Brent Meeker wrote:
> > This idea seems inconsistent with MWI. In QM the split is uncaused > so it's > hard to see why its influence extends into the past and increases > the measure of > computations that were identical before the split. I got the inspiration from the MWI, and even from David Deutsch convincing point that conceptually differentiation-talk is less wrong than bifurcation-talk. But is is not simply, in QM, a consequence of the linearity of the tensor product?, i.e. the fact that the state A*(B+C) is equivalent with (A*C)+(A*C), where A, B, C represents kets and * represents the tensor product. Of course the price to pay, as Everett first noticed, is that the states become a relative notion, and the probabilities too, making RSSA obligatory in QM. With comp it is more subtle (but then Everett uses comp and missed or abstracted himself from this subtlety). >> Of course we still lack a definite criteria of identity for >> computation. But we can already derive what can count as different >> computations if we want those measure question making sense. > > As I understand it your theory of personal identity depends on > computations > "going through" a particular state. Intuitively this implies a > state at a > particular moment, but a Y=II representation implies that we are > taking into > account not just the present state but some period of history - > which would > correspond with the usual idea of a person - something with a > history, not just > a state. Absolutely so. It is the Darwinistic aspect of comp. A species with a lot of offsprings makes higher the "time life" of old gene. Perhaps thats why it is said we should grow and multiply :) Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
