Re: Papers of Lockwood, Albert-Loewer
Thanks to Wei Dai for the two papers (I have not found the paper of Albert-Loewer yet, but I am working on it). For those familiar with Lockwood's version of the MMI, after reading the paper I think it (or at least the general flavor) makes a lot of sense. Any thoughts? On 19 Jan 2004, at 15:17, Wei Dai wrote: The latter two papers can be found on JSTOR. I've placed copies at http://www.ibiblio.org/weidai/Many_Minds.pdf http://www.ibiblio.org/weidai/Many_Minds_Replies.pdf The first paper doesn't seem to be online anywhere. There's an online archive for Synthese at http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0039-7857/contents, but it only goes back to 1997. You'll have to find the physical journal in an academic library. Or try writing to the authors and asking for a copy to be mailed to you. On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 10:52:09AM +, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: I wish to read these 3 papers, which I have not found on the net in full text. Would anyone have them or know where they can be found? Thanks Albert, D and Loewer, B.: 1988, `Interpreting the Many Worlds Interpretation', Synthese, 77, 195-213 Lockwood, M. [1996a]: Many Minds Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics , British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 47, pp.159-88 Lockwood, M. [1996b]: Many Minds Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics: Replies to Replies , British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 47, pp.445-61
Re: Subjective measure? How does that work?
On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 11:49:09PM -0500, Jesse Mazer wrote: But measures aren't just about making decisions about what to *do*, the main argument for a single objective measure is that such a measure could make predictions about what we *see*, like why we see regular laws of physics and never see any white rabbits. Although Bob can decide that only universes where gravity is repulsive matter to him in terms of his decision-making (so that he'd be happy to bet his life's savings that a dropped ball would fall up), he'll have to agree with Alice on what is actually observed to happen when a particular ball is dropped. Well, when the ball is dropped, in one universe it falls down, and Bob has to agree with Alice, and in another universe it up, and Alice has to agree with Bob. Alice thinks the second universe is less important than the first, but Bob thinks it's more important. How do you break this symmetry? Without an objective measure, I don't think there's any way to explain why we consistently see outcomes that obey the known laws of physics (like why we always see dropped balls fall towards the earth). What good are the explanations provided by an objective measure, if I choose to use a different subjective measure for making decisions? How do these explanations help me in any way?
Re: Subjective measure? How does that work?
From: Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Subjective measure? How does that work? Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 03:09:08 -0500 On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 11:49:09PM -0500, Jesse Mazer wrote: But measures aren't just about making decisions about what to *do*, the main argument for a single objective measure is that such a measure could make predictions about what we *see*, like why we see regular laws of physics and never see any white rabbits. Although Bob can decide that only universes where gravity is repulsive matter to him in terms of his decision-making (so that he'd be happy to bet his life's savings that a dropped ball would fall up), he'll have to agree with Alice on what is actually observed to happen when a particular ball is dropped. Well, when the ball is dropped, in one universe it falls down, and Bob has to agree with Alice, and in another universe it up, and Alice has to agree with Bob. Alice thinks the second universe is less important than the first, but Bob thinks it's more important. How do you break this symmetry? By looking at my actual experiences, from a first-person point of view. If I drop the ball over and over again and consistently have the experience of seeing it drop, that suggests there's some kind of objective measure, independent of my own preferences, that assigns greater probability to versions of me experiencing the ball drop than to versions seeing it fly upwards. An objective measure would seem to be the only way to capture the notion that there is something about my experiences that is externally given, and not just a matter of my own arbitrary choices. Even if I choose a weird measure for the purposes of making decisions, like one that tells me I should bet my life savings that I will be able to fly, I don't think that would change the probability that my next experience will actually be that of flying, which I assume will stay very low regardless of what decision-theory measure I feel like choosing. Again, there seems to be an external reality guiding the probabilities of different experiences which I have no control over. Do you disagree? Do you think that by choosing a different measure, you could change the actual first-person probabilities of different experiences? Or do you reject the idea of continuity of consciousness and first-person probabilities in the first place? Without an objective measure, I don't think there's any way to explain why we consistently see outcomes that obey the known laws of physics (like why we always see dropped balls fall towards the earth). What good are the explanations provided by an objective measure, if I choose to use a different subjective measure for making decisions? How do these explanations help me in any way? An objective measure would tell you the probability that you will actually have a particular experience in the future, even if that knowledge would have no influence on your decisions. But for most people, the probability of actually having future various future experiences probably *would* influence their decisions, no? For example, I am more likely to take a gamble that has a very low probability of leading to my experiencing pain in the future than one that has a high probability of leading to a pain-experience. Jesse _ Learn how to choose, serve, and enjoy wine at Wine @ MSN. http://wine.msn.com/
Re: Modern Physical theory as a basis for Ethical and Existential Nihilism
Let me give a clearer example. Suppose I say that I believe it is a good and noble thing for the strong to oppress the weak, even to the point of killing them; and that if I were in charge I would promote this moral position in schools, through the media, and with changes to the criminal law, so that eventually it becomes accepted as the norm. How are you going to argue against this? You can't point out any errors of fact because I haven't made any empirical claims (other than the trivial one that this is what I in fact believe). You may try to point out the dire social consequences of such a policy, but where in the above have I said anything about social consequences? Frankly, I don't care what the effects of my policy are because I consider the destruction of weaklings in as painful a manner as possible of the greatest importance, and if God is just, I believe that I will go to heaven for having stuck to my moral principles. I know that many people would be horrified by what I propose, but I am certainly not the only one in history to have thought this way! The point is, you cannot argue against my moral position, because I don't present any arguments or make any claims. All you can do is disagree with me and state an alternative moral position. From: Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Modern Physical theory as a basis for Ethical and Existential Nihilism Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 21:00:39 -0500 On Sun, Jan 25, 2004 at 01:01:42AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: If I stop with (a) above, I am simply saying that this is how I feel about suffering, and this feeling is not contingent on the state of affairs in any actual or possible world [there, I got it in!]. (a) as stated is ill defined. In order to actually reason with it in practice, you'd have to define what activity, cause, net, human, and suffering mean, but then it's hard to see how one can just have a feeling that statement (a), by now highly technical, is true. What about a slightly different variation of (a), where the definition of human or suffering is given a small tweak? How do you decide which of them reflects your true feelings? The mere presense of many similar but contradictory moral statements might give you a feeling of arbitrariness that causes you to reject all of them. Difficulties like this lead to the desire for a set of basic moral axioms that can be defined precisely and still be seen by everyone as obvious and non-arbitrary. Again, maybe it doesn't exist, but we can't know for sure unless we're much smarter than we actually are. _ ninemsn Premium transforms your e-mail with colours, photos and animated text. Click here http://ninemsn.com.au/premium/landing.asp
Re: Is the universe computable
Dear John, If we grant your point that: So while the natural numbers and the integers have a rich internal structure (rich enough to contain the whole universe and more, according to most subscribers on this list, I suspect), the reals can be encoded in the single 'program' of tossing a coin. How do you distinguish the generation of the Reals from the 'program' of tossing a coin? Are they one and the same? If so, I can go along with that, but what about complex numbers? The main problem that I have with your reasoning is that it seems to conflate objective existence (independent of implementation or representation) with representable existence, the latter being those that can be known by finite entities, such as us humans (or Machines pretending to be humans). Your reasoning also neglects the meaningfulness of the NP-Complete problem. Kindest regards, Stephen - Original Message - From: John Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 6:02 AM Subject: Re: Is the universe computable - Original Message - From: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 5:39 PM Subject: Re: Is the universe computable SPK wrote: You are confussing the postential existence of a computation with its meaningfulness. But in the last time you are getting close to my thesis. We should not take the a priori existence of, for example, answers to NP-Complete problems to have more ontological weight than those that enter into what it takes for creatures like us to view the answers. This is more the realm of theology than mathematics. ;-) ..This is rather like an argument I like to put forward when I'm feeling outrageous, and one which I've eventually come to believe: That the real number line 'does not exist.' There are only countably many numbers you could give a finite description of, even with a universal computer (which the human mathematical community probably constitutes, assuming we don't die out), and in the end the rest of the real numbers result from randomly choosing binary digits to be zero or one (see eg. anything by G. Chaitin). So while the natural numbers and the integers have a rich internal structure (rich enough to contain the whole universe and more, according to most subscribers on this list, I suspect), the reals can be encoded in the single 'program' of tossing a coin. By this I mean that the only 'use' or 'meaning' you could extract from some part of the binary representation would be of the form 'is this list of 0s and 1s the same as some pre-chosen lis of 0s and 1s?', which just takes you back to the random number choosing program you used to create the reals in the first place. -- Chris Collins
Re: Subjective measure? How does that work?
Wei Dai writes: Now suppose that two people, Alice and Bob, somehow agree that a measure M is the objectively correct measure, but Bob insists on using measure M' in making decisions. He says So what if universe A has a bigger measure than universe B according to M? I just care more about what happens in universe B than universe A, so I'll use M' which assigns a bigger measure to universe B. What can Alice say to Bob to convince him that he is not being rational? I don't see what the answer could be. How about if she whacks him on the head? Maybe that would knock some sense into him. Seriously, she could confront him with the reality that in the universe branch they are in, measure M works, while M' does not. Reality, whether in the form of a knock on the head or more peaceful interactions, is not subjective. Now, true, there would be branches in the multiverse where M' worked while M did not. Believers in objective measure would say that those branches are of low measure and so don't matter, but as you point out, Bob can argue symmetrically that this branch where he is stuck with Alice and M has worked is also, to him, of low measure. But we can solve this conundrum while retaining symmetry. Rationality should demand allegience to the observed measure. It is irrational to cling to a measure which has been rejected repeatedly by observations. If classical definitions of rationality don't have this property, we should fix them. Bob is irrational to hold to M' in a universe whose observations reveal M. Now, this will demand that in White Rabbit universes, ones where the quantum or thermodynamic laws just happen to fail due to bad luck, a rational person would have to abandon his (correct!) belief in a lawful universe and come to believe (incorrectly!) in miracles. However this is actually a reasonable requirement, since we are stipulating that such miracles have been observed. Hal Finney
Re: Is the universe computable?
Dear Jesse,
- Original Message -
From: Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 9:45 PM
Subject: RE: Is the universe computable?
David Barrett-Lennard wrote:
Georges Quenot wrote:
Also I feel some confusion between the questions Is the universe
computable ? and Is the universe actually 'being' computed ?.
What links do the participants see between them ?
An important tool in mathematics is the idea of an isomorphism between
two sets, which allows us to say *the* integers or *the* Mandelbrot set.
This allows us to say *the* computation, and the device (if any) on
which it is run is irrelevant to the existence of the computation. This
relates to the idea of the Platonic existence of mathematical objects.
This makes the confusion between the above questions irrelevant.
I think it was John Searle (who argues that computers can't be aware)
who said A simulation of a hurricane is not a hurricane, therefore a
simulation of mind is not mind. His argument breaks down if
*everything* is a computation - because we can define an isomorphism
between a computation and the simulation of that computation.
- David
Isn't there a fundamental problem deciding what it means for a given
simulated object to implement some other computation? Philosopher David
Chalmers discusses the similar question of how to decide whether a given
physical object is implementing a particular computation in his paper
Does
a Rock Implement Every Finite-State Automaton?, available here:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/rock.html
--Jesse Mazer
I am VERY interested in this question because it is part of a hypothesis
that I am working on as a model of interactions within Prof. Hitoshi
Kitada's theory of Local Time.
In the Chalmer's paper that you reference we find:
begin quote
***
For a Putnam-style counterexample to be possible, every component state must
be sensitive to every previous component state. The most straightforward way
to do this is as follows: build an implementation in which state [a,b,c]
with input I transits into state [abcI,abcI,abcI] (where abcI is a
concatenation of a, b, c, and I). Now, we are assured that for every
resultant component state, there is a unique candidate for the preceding
state and input. Then we can construct the natural mapping from strings abcI
(in various positions) onto substates of the CSA, without fear of troubles
with recombination. A recombined state such as [a,b',c'] will transit into a
new state with unique component states in every position, each of which can
be mapped to the appropriate CSA substate.
But this sensitivity comes at a price. A system like this will suffer from
an enormous combinatorial explosion, getting three times bigger at every
time-step. If the strings that make up each component have length L at one
point, within 100 time-steps they will have length 3^{100}L, which is about
5.10^{47} times larger. In a very short time, the system will be larger than
the known universe! CSAs that are candidates to be bases for cognition will
have many more than three components, so the situation there will only be
worse. Here, the implementing system will reach the boundaries of the
universe in number of steps corresponding to a fraction of a second in the
life of a brain. So there is no chance that any realistic system could ever
qualify as an implementation in this manner.
***
end quote
It is this combinatorial explosion that I have been addressing in
terms of NP-Completeness and has proposed that we consider the possibility
that the necessary computational power is available to QM systems and not
to classical (realistic) systems. As an example please read:
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0304128
It has been pointed out by Feynman and Deutsch that classical systems
can be simulated with arbitrary precision by a quantum computation that has
sufficient resources, and these resources are the Hilbert space
dimensions of the QM system that is doing (via its unitary evolution?) the
computing.
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/gramss94speed.html
http://beige.ucs.indiana.edu/B679/
My conjecture is that the Unitary evolution of an arbitrary QM system is
equivalent to the computational behavior of an quantum computer.
One idea that I have proposed informally is that an experienced object
is indistinguishable from the *best possible* simulation of the object.
The reasoning that I am using here follows a similar line as that which
Turing used in his famous Test for intelligence combined with an inversion
of Wolfram's observation that an arbitrary physical system can not be
simulated better or faster than they are actually experienced to evolve.
http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/articles/physics/85-undecidability/2/text.html
This paper has suggested that many physical systems are computationally
irreducible, so that their own evolution is effectively the
Re: Subjective measure? How does that work?
One might ask Bob, what is the measure of Universes in which a Bob finds M but heeds M' without being suicidal or at least hazardous to his own health? At any rate, Bob could hardly have reached in sound mind body the cognitive height of many-worlds ideas without heeding M instead of M'. Why not stick with them's what brung you, Bob? (Also, it seems to me that Bob might well have to be at least partially heeding familiar M in order to function well enough to try to heed M'.) Of course, Bob could quip, Denial is not just a river in Egypt. To some extent, we all stick to one or another interpretation in spite of the interpretation's apparent incoherence, in spite of apparent contrary evidence. The fact that the incoherence or contrariness may be merely apparent is the temptation (we revise core ideas more reluctantly than others, rightly so) -- the temptation to go wrong persist even against a wind of disconfirming information. There is no surefire formula to avoid errors in any of these directions. There's open-mindedness (good) there's flakiness wishy-washyness (bad.) There's respect for what has stood the test of time so far (good) there's dogmatism (bad). (As a practical matter, as regards knowingly to play by a different set of rules than that of the reality which one lives -- it seems to me that psychologically biologically we are constituted so that we can't do that unless we are insane, unlikely to be argued back to sanity.! ) - Ben Udell Hal Finney writes: Wei Dai writes: Now suppose that two people, Alice and Bob, somehow agree that a measure M is the objectively correct measure, but Bob insists on using measure M' in making decisions. He says So what if universe A has a bigger measure than universe B according to M? I just care more about what happens in universe B than universe A, so I'll use M' which assigns a bigger measure to universe B. What can Alice say to Bob to convince him that he is not being rational? I don't see what the answer could be. How about if she whacks him on the head? Maybe that would knock some sense into him. Seriously, she could confront him with the reality that in the universe branch they are in, measure M works, while M' does not. Reality, whether in the form of a knock on the head or more peaceful interactions, is not subjective. Now, true, there would be branches in the multiverse where M' worked while M did not. Believers in objective measure would say that those branches are of low measure and so don't matter, but as you point out, Bob can argue symmetrically that this branch where he is stuck with Alice and M has worked is also, to him, of low measure. But we can solve this conundrum while retaining symmetry. Rationality should demand allegience to the observed measure. It is irrational to cling to a measure which has been rejected repeatedly by observations. If classical definitions of rationality don't have this property, we should fix them. Bob is irrational to hold to M' in a universe whose observations reveal M. Now, this will demand that in White Rabbit universes, ones where the quantum or thermodynamic laws just happen to fail due to bad luck, a rational person would have to abandon his (correct!) belief in a lawful universe and come to believe (incorrectly!) in miracles. However this is actually a reasonable requirement, since we are stipulating that such miracles have been observed. Hal Finney
Re: Subjective measure? How does that work?
Wei Dai wrote: On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 11:49:09PM -0500, Jesse Mazer wrote: But measures aren't just about making decisions about what to *do*, the main argument for a single objective measure is that such a measure could make predictions about what we *see*, like why we see regular laws of physics and never see any "white rabbits". Although Bob can decide that only universes where gravity is repulsive matter to him in terms of his decision-making (so that he'd be happy to bet his life's savings that a dropped ball would fall up), he'll have to agree with Alice on what is actually observed to happen when a particular ball is dropped. Well, when the ball is dropped, in one universe it falls down, and Bob has to agree with Alice, and in another universe it up, and Alice has to agree with Bob. Alice thinks the second universe is less important than the first, but Bob thinks it's more important. How do you break this symmetry? Well, each of us only experiences a single universe (and further, all of the other humans that we observe are also observing the same universe we are observing.) Even if one believes a strong version of MWI in which there are untold numbers of other us's experiencing other universes, it's still true that each of those duplicates only gets to experience a single universe. That's something about the nature of observation and observable universes themselves. So if Alice and Bob are IN the same universe, where balls fall down, they'd both be well-advised to "believe in" the facts of their own universe, and not some speculative, or at the very least completely inaccessible, alternate universe. From the perspective of an observer (within a universe), the universe they inhabit is more important. PRINCIPLES: --- 1. A UNIVERSE IS WHERE ONLY ONE OF THE POSSIBILITIES FOR ANYTHING HAPPENS. 2. EACH OBSERVER ONLY EXPERIENCES ONE UNIVERSE 3. COUNTERPART OBSERVERS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED DIFFERENT OBSERVERS, BECAUSE THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CROSS-UNIVERSE ACCESSIBILITY OR EXPERIENCE. I simply do not believe that the notion of an observer being able to access or meaningfully experience the life of the observer's other-universe counterparts, even if counterpart is a well-formed notion. I'm familiar with all of the various logic variations of the notion of trans-world identity, and I find them to be model-level concepts (matters of representative opinion) more than object-level concepts. What I've learned about identity is that there is a mixture of objectivity and subjectivity (affected by focus of concern) to it as a concept. What trans-world identity means (or is useful for) if a premise of total inter-world inaccessibility is accepted, is questionable. Eric Without an objective measure, I don't think there's any way to explain why we consistently see outcomes that obey the known laws of physics (like why we always see dropped balls fall towards the earth). What good are the explanations provided by an objective measure, if I choose to use a different subjective measure for making decisions? How do these explanations help me in any way? Choosing a measure from some other universe that you speculate exists (with, necessarily, no evidence) is risky and counterproductive to your survival in your universe. I'd advise you to get out of the path of the falling ball. Even if "counterparts" makes sense (not granted), if all counterparts made decisions based on their speculations about other-world likely happenings, then all counterparts of that particular observer would quickly die off for sure. Observers like that would not evolve. Only home-body observers (with local-universe concerns) would.
Re: Modern Physical theory as a basis for Ethical and Existential Nihilism
Stathis is right. The moral axiomatic system will have to show that in moral/ethical issues we must allow ourselves to be guided by facts logic. **But even if it succeeds in showing that, one already has to have agreed to be guided by facts logic in order to be guided by the moral axiomatic system's argument.** One can read the dialogue (I forget which one) in which Socrates argues with somebody who believes that might makes right. Socrates engages his interlocutor into following the facts logic enough to follow his (Socrates') arguments. But in the end Socrates fails to convince him because in the end his interlocutor will not yield to facts logic. One can hold Socrates' particular arguments to be faulty but still see how it could all happen. Now, one may argue that up to a certain point it is impossible to ignore facts logic without being insane. That is true. But only up to a point. Otherwise we wouldn't have the saying, Denial is not just a river in Egypt.. (In! deed, logic facts are sometimes difficult to heed, we have to be sometimes quite toiling active in order to receive them, get them right, heed them -- to _allow_ them to determine us, our understanding behavior, in ways that they would not otherwise do, often against pressure for us to do otherwise.) - Ben Udell Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Let me give a clearer example. Suppose I say that I believe it is a good and noble thing for the strong to oppress the weak, even to the point of killing them; and that if I were in charge I would promote this moral position in schools, through the media, and with changes to the criminal law, so that eventually it becomes accepted as the norm. How are you going to argue against this? You can't point out any errors of fact because I haven't made any empirical claims (other than the trivial one that this is what I in fact believe). You may try to point out the dire social consequences of such a policy, but where in the above have I said anything about social consequences? Frankly, I don't care what the effects of my policy are because I consider the destruction of weaklings in as painful a manner as possible of the greatest importance, and if God is just, I believe that I will go to heaven for having stuck to my moral principles. I know that many people would be horrified by w! hat I propose, but I am certainly not the only one in history to have thought this way! The point is, you cannot argue against my moral position, because I don't present any arguments or make any claims. All you can do is disagree with me and state an alternative moral position. Wei Dai wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: If I stop with (a) above, I am simply saying that this is how I feel about suffering, and this feeling is not contingent on the state of affairs in any actual or possible world [there, I got it in!]. (a) as stated is ill defined. In order to actually reason with it in practice, you'd have to define what activity, cause, net, human, and suffering mean, but then it's hard to see how one can just have a feeling that statement (a), by now highly technical, is true. What about a slightly different variation of (a), where the definition of human or suffering is given a small tweak? How do you decide which of them reflects your true feelings? The mere presense of many similar but contradictory moral statements might give you a feeling of arbitrariness that causes you to reject all of them. Difficulties like this lead to the desire for a set of basic moral axioms that can be defined precisely and still be seen by everyone as obvious and non-arbitrary. Again, maybe it doesn't exist, but we can't know for sure unless we're much smarter than we actually are.
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Re: Subjective measure? How does that work?
On Sun, Jan 25, 2004 at 09:51:47AM -0800, Hal Finney wrote: But we can solve this conundrum while retaining symmetry. Rationality should demand allegience to the observed measure. It is irrational to cling to a measure which has been rejected repeatedly by observations. If classical definitions of rationality don't have this property, we should fix them. Bob is irrational to hold to M' in a universe whose observations reveal M. There is no need to change measures. When Bob repeatedly observes balls falling down, he'll conclude that he happens to be stuck in a low-measure universe and will just have to deal with it. The issue is, what does he do before making the first observation? At that point he thinks he should bet on the ball falling up, and wouldn't be irrational to do so. And Alice thinks she should bet on the ball falling down, and wouldn't be irrational to do so either. Maybe a different example will make my point clearer. We could be living in base reality or a simulation. You can choose a measure in which the observer-moments like us living in base reality have a greater measure, or one in which the observer-moments living in simulations have a greater measure. These two measures have different implications on rational behavior. The former implies we should plan for the far future, whereas the latter says we should live for today because the simulation might end at any moment, and we should try to behave in ways that wouldn't bore the people who might be running and observing the simulation. (See Robin Hanson's How To Live In A Simulation, http://hanson.gmu.edu/lifeinsim.html). Can you offer any arguments that one of these choices is irrational? Now, this will demand that in White Rabbit universes, ones where the quantum or thermodynamic laws just happen to fail due to bad luck, a rational person would have to abandon his (correct!) belief in a lawful universe and come to believe (incorrectly!) in miracles. However this is actually a reasonable requirement, since we are stipulating that such miracles have been observed. You can come to believe in miracles without changing measures. You just conclude that you're probably in a low-measure universe with miracles, instead of an even-lower-measure universe where the White Rabbit appeared through pure chance. The beauty of the universal distributions is that if you adopt one of them as the measure, you'll never(1) go crazy (i.e. start behaving absurdly) after making any observation, because no matter what you observe, you'll still prefer the algorithmically simplest explanation for your observations. But the infinite class of universal distributions leaves you plenty of room to choose which universes or observer-moments are most important to you. (1) Well that's not completely true. You would still go crazy if you observe something that has a logical explanation but not an algorithmic one, for example if you observe something that can only be explained by an uncomputable law of physics, which is why I advocate adopting more dominant measures based on logic or set theory.
Re: Modern Physical theory as a basis for Ethical and Existential Nihilism
On 25-Jan-04, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Let me give a clearer example. Suppose I say that I believe it is a good and noble thing for the strong to oppress the weak, even to the point of killing them; and that if I were in charge I would promote this moral position in schools, through the media, and with changes to the criminal law, so that eventually it becomes accepted as the norm. How are you going to argue against this? You can't point out any errors of fact because I haven't made any empirical claims (other than the trivial one that this is what I in fact believe). You may try to point out the dire social consequences of such a policy, but where in the above have I said anything about social consequences? Frankly, I don't care what the effects of my policy are because I consider the destruction of weaklings in as painful a manner as possible of the greatest importance, and if God is just, I believe that I will go to heaven for having stuck to my moral principles. I know that many people would be horrified by what I propose, but I am certainly not the only one in history to have thought this way! The point is, you cannot argue against my moral position, because I don't present any arguments or make any claims. All you can do is disagree with me and state an alternative moral position. True. But I can point out to people that 'weakling' is a relative term and that you may well conclude they are weaklings in the future. I will remind them that they loved and cared for some of those killed as weaklings and this caused them much grief. I would ask them whether they have any reason to agree with your theology. I would suggest that we band together and kill you before you kill someone we love. Brent Meeker It would be easy for us, if we do not learn to understand the world and appreciate the rights, privileges and duties of all other countries and peoples, to represent in our power the same danger to the world that fascism did. --- Ernest Hemingway
Re: Subjective measure? How does that work?
On Sun, Jan 25, 2004 at 03:41:55AM -0500, Jesse Mazer wrote: Do you think that by choosing a different measure, you could change the actual first-person probabilities of different experiences? Or do you reject the idea of continuity of consciousness and first-person probabilities in the first place? The latter. I came to that conclusion by trying to develop a theory of first-person probabilities, failing, and then realizing that it's not necessary for decision making. If someone does manage to develop a theory that makes sense, maybe I'll change my mind. No one has tried to answer my other objection to an objective measure, which is that since there are so many candidates to choose from, how can everyone agree on a single one?
Re: Subjective measure and turing machine terminology
Dear Friends,] Also see Svolzil: http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~svozil/publ/publ.html Stephen - Original Message - From: CMR [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 10:25 PM Subject: Re: Subjective measure and turing machine terminology Again, I really suggest that you read the book. It's very good and will explain all this for you. If you don't have ready access to the book, there are some online introductions to algorithmic information theory that you could try (see http://www.idsia.ch/~marcus/kolmo.htm#tutorials) but the book will review all of the prerequisites (such as Turing machines) for you and give a much more complete overview of the field. And chaitin's web site has a lot of articles and material he's written on the subject: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/ (And it doubles as a bit of a Liebniz fanzine as well) Also Calude's site has some good stuff on AIT as well: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~cristian/
