# Re: On the Sequencing of Observer Moments

On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 10:37:29AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 1:41 AM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> >> The important point for this argument is that we would have no way of
> >> knowing if Last Tuesdayism is true, and this shows that the OM's can be
> >> sequenced implicitly from their content.
> >
> > Only if their content is sufficiently comprehesive.  If OM=digital
> > computation state,  then it will be sufficient.  BUT that's my whole
> > objection to line this discussion.  Nobody ever defines OM that way.  They
> > want an OM to correspond to a "thought" of "an elementary experience".
>
> It doesn't matter if the content of a thought is insufficient to
> sequence it precisely from a third person perspective, since it will
> be sequenced *precisely enough* from a first person perspective. I
> think this is our point of misunderstanding: you seem to be talking
> sequencing. If I have a moment where I'm so vague that I lack
> awareness of time, person and place then ipso facto there is no
> possibility of subjectively sequencing that moment, regardless of how
> it was generated. If I have a moment where I reflect on who, where and
> when I am, what I did yesterday, what I will do tomorrow, then ipso
> facto that moment is subjectively sequenced regardless of how it was
> generated.
> 

In my book, I use OM in two distinctly different contexts. In chapter
4, the concept OM is introduced in the context of the strong
self-sampling assumption. It is meant to be an experiential unit of
sampling. In chapter 7, OMs are identified with the quantum state
\psi, including identifiying the amplitude of \psi with the
(necessarily complex) measure of the observer moment. \psi contains
just that information needed to define where the observer is in space
and time (coordinates are not enough to specify a location in the mulitverse).

Are these two usages equivalent (or at least compatible). For the moment, I
don't see why not, which is why I wrote the book that way.

However, these things are not the states of Bruno's universal
dovetailer (assuming that particular ontology). Multiple programs will
generate the same sequence of experiences, the same sequence of
\psi's.

Can we answer the question of whether successive \psi's are related to
each other? If \psi_1 and \psi_2 are related by a unitary
transformation, the we can say that they're related, but the temporal
relationship is undefined. Given an operator (observable), we can
determine if \psi_2 lies in a lower dimensional eigenspace of the
operator than \psi_1, hence \psi_2 is potentially a successor to
\psi_1. Also if the magnitude of \psi_2 (if known) is less than \psi_1, it is
also potentially a sucessor. But this is all a bit nebulous. I would
perhaps like to put it this way - if \psi_1 and \psi_2 can be related
by means of a projection operator corresponding to an observable that
a conscious being may possibly make, then there is a consious observer
in the Multiverse for whom those experiences are so
related. Otherwise, they're not related. This probably entails that
the set of observers is more likely the powerset of observer moments,
depending on how much bite the anthropic principle has.

Sorry for rabbitting on here... this is getting a bit speculative.

--

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Prof Russell Standish                  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics      hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales          http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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