On 12 Mar 2012, at 04:47, meekerdb wrote:
On 3/11/2012 8:03 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 3/11/2012 7:39 PM, meekerdb wrote:
On 3/11/2012 2:43 PM, acw wrote:
On 3/11/2012 21:44, R AM wrote:
This discussion has been long and sometimes I am confused about
the whole
point of the exercise.
I think the idea is that if comp is true, then the future
content of
subjective experience is indeterminated? Although comp might
seem to entail
100% determinacy, just the contrary is the case. Is that correct?
3p indeterminacy in the form of the UD*, 1p determinacy from the
perspective of those minds relative to bodies in the UD*.
However, I think that if comp is true, future experience is not
only
indeterminate, but also arbitrary: our future experience could
be anything
at all. But given that this is not the case, shouldn't we
conclude that
comp is false?
You're basically presenting the "White Rabbit" problem here. I
used to wonder if that is indeed the case, but after considering
it further, it doesn't seem to be: your 1p is identified with
some particular abstract machine - that part is mostly
determinate and deterministic (or quasi-deterministic if you
allow some leeway as to what constitutes persona identity) in its
behavior, but below that substitution level, anything can change,
as long as that machine is implemented correctly/consistently. If
the level is low enough and most of the machines implementing the
lower layers that eventually implement our mind correspond to one
world (such as ours), that would imply reasonably stable
experience and some MWI-like laws of physics - not white noise
experiences. That is to say that if we don't experience white
noise, statistically our experiences will be stable - this does
not mean that we won't have really unusual "jumps" or changes in
laws-of-physics or experience when our measure is greatly reduced
(such as the current statistically winning machines no longer
being able to implement your mind - 3p death from the point of
view of others).
This implies that our measure is strongly correlated with the
regularity of physics. I'm not sure you can show that, but if
it's true it means that physics is fundamental to our existence,
even if physics can be explained by the UD. Only worlds with
extremely consistent physics can support consciousness (which
seems unlikely to me).
Brent
Hi Brent,
I do not understand how you think that "only worlds with
extremely consistent physics can support consciousness" is
unlikely. Are you only considering a single momentary instance of
consciousness? It is quite easy to prove that if there exist
multiple conscious entities that can communicate coherently with
each other (in the sense that they can "understand" each other)
then the physics of their common world will necessarily be
maximally consistent as it if where not then pathological Harry
Potterisms will occur that would prevent the arbitrary extension of
their experience.
I don't know what you mean by 'the arbitrary extension of their
experience'. How would magical events prevent anything. We have
reports of miracles all the time from less scientific places and
times and they don't seem to prevent anything. We tend to not
believe them because they violate the physics which we suppose to be
consistent in time and place - but you can't invoke that as evidence
that physics is consistent on pain of vicious circularity.
Additionally, it would be extremely difficult for such worlds to
have conservation laws.
But the symmetry principles that result in conservation laws are
arguably human selections. We pay attention to and build 'laws' on
what does not depend on particular time/place/orientation; so may
conservation of momentum and energy are (at least approximately)
inevitable.
There is also the problem that according to current theories are
many possible kinds of physics even if you limit them to just those
consistent with string theory, much less Classical physics.
But my main point was conditional. IF consciousness is strongly
dependent on physics then Bruno's program of replacing physics with
arithmetic isn't going anywhere because arithmetic will produce too
many kinds of worlds and only by studying physics will we be able to
learn about our world.
OK, but my logical point here is that in such a case comp has to be
wrong. It is not so much a program than an logical obligation for
staying rational *and* betting on comp, whatever the level is, if it
exists.
It is because of this line of reasoning that I resist the Platonic
interpretation of COMP as it puts pathological universes on the
same level of likelihood as non-pathological ones.
That's the question. Is there some canonical measure that makes the
non-pathological ones overwhelmingly likely?
It exists or comp is false. There are evidences that it exists, like
the variants of arithmetical self-reference for example.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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