On 5/27/2013 11:16 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
2013/5/27 meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> On 5/27/2013 10:19 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:2013/5/27 meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> On 5/27/2013 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:On 26 May 2013, at 20:23, meekerdb wrote:On 5/26/2013 1:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:On 26 May 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:Whether or not it is recorded or extractable in this universe is immaterial. If the universe is infinitely large or infinitely varied, we each reappear an infinite number of times. There are a countably infinite number of programs, and for any given level of complexity, there is a finite number of possible programs shorter than some length. Any consciousness we simulate is the consciousness of something that exists somewhere else in the infinitely varied/infinitely large universe, and if the universe is really this big, then someone else far away could simulate you perfectly without having to extract a record of you. Just running Bruno's UDA for a long enough time "ressurects" everyone, we are all contained in that short program.To which, one is tempted to respond: So what? If there is all this simulation going on, what reason is there to suppose it is being done by being anything like us or that the worlds in which the simulations take place (the "real" ones, if there are any) are anything like this one.Because the FPI makes "this one" a statistical sum on all possible one.What do you mean by "a statiscal sum"? FPI must still pick out some kind of unity; not just an average.Why? How so?If not, then I don't know what FPI means. I thought it referred to one's experience of being a person, but the is a unity to that experience. I experience being Brent Meeker. I don't experience being Bruno Marchal. Because it is a statistical sum on the infinity of computation going through *your current state*.But my question was what does "a statistical sum" mean? It doesn't help to explain that it is a statistical sum. But now you also use another term that is not really clear to me: "your current state" Is this a state of my experience? My experience doesn't consist of discrete states, so I'm not clear on what this refers to. Is it only my *consciousness" that counts as "my state"?Assuming computationalism, your conscious moment here and now can be represented as a computational state of a running program.
So only conscious thoughts contribute to "me". The "represented" part I agree with, but Bruno seems to maintain that the computational state IS the conscious moment. But I could very well say "yes" to the doctor, to believe that a portion (or all) of my brain could be replaced by a functionally identical mechanism and still maintain my stream of consciousness, and yet not believe that a conscious thought it a state. In fact I think that if the "functionally identical device" was a digital one, it would have to go through many steps of computation to instantiate one conscious "moment", i.e. one coherent thought or action. And it would have to interact with the world outside my skull in a way similar to my biological parts too (my brain is insensitive to 60Hz magnetic fields for example) if my consciousness were to be unchanged. Because it takes many computational steps to instantiate a conscious moment, conscious moments can overlap and this produces continuity and "time".
That state can be reached by an infinity of computations. To predict your next moment from that, you have to take all this infinity of computations and apply on it a measure.
There's the rub.
The FPI occurs because you as you belongs to all this infinity, at the next step these infinity of computations diverge, somehow a measure must exists on that, which should correspond to the quantum measure to be in accord with QM/MWI.
But it seems that on the UD generation of computations, the semi-classical sequence of brain states relative to a given conscious moment would be of measure zero. In order to make the UD and QM measures comport, UD must incorporate decoherence, essentially it must recover stable matter.
Brent
If you reject computationalism, then of course there is "no state" representing you here and now, if you don't reject it, then it exists at the correct substitution level by definition.Quentin BrentFPI means First Person Indeterminacy... so if it was not based on first person it would cleary not means anything... but as it is in its definition, you're just looking too far from what Bruno said.
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