On 23 February 2014 04:40, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > No, I don't think that follows. The indefinite continuation of > consciousness is directly entailed by CTM. In fact it is equivalent to the > continuing existence of the sensible world (i.e. per comp, the world is > what is observed). Hence any observer can expect to remain centred in the > circle of observation, come what may, to speak rather loosely. There is a > transcendent expectation of a definite continuation (aka no cul-de-sac). > This expectation is relativised only secondarily in terms of the specifics > of some particular continuation. > > > So does your consciousness continue indefinitely into the past?
Not "my" consciousness, no. I'm just suggesting that CTM ultimately relies on some transcendent notion of perspective itself. IOW, the sensible world is conceived as the resultant of the inter-subjective agreement of its possible observers, each of which discovers itself to be centred in some perspective. Then the task of CTM, or any equivalent theory, is to justify on more general grounds why and how this might be the case. As you may have realised by now I'm rather fond of Hoyle's formulation of this intuition from the point of view of a single, universal observer, at least as a first approximation. In terms of Hoyle's quasi-frequency heuristic, all possible observer moments are perpetually in play; hence one might appeal to differential selection effects to justify why "my" past history might *typically* appear to have some relatively recent origin, whilst *atypically* appearing to be indefinitely extended in the asymptotic limit. I appreciate that, as in the Everett interpretation, it is unclear or at least controversial precisely how such a contest of measures can be finitely resolved; the possibility of definite momentary outcomes must be presupposed by framing the problem in this way. Of course you may feel that all of the above is just another good reason not to go beyond the assumption that consciousness is just a necessary accompaniment of physical activity. Each formulation entails its own peculiar conundrums. David -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
