Re: Many Pasts? Not according to QM...
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Saibal Mitra wrote: Quoting Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On 25th May 2005 Saibal Mitra wrote: One of the arguments in favor of the observer moment picture is that it solves Tegmark's quantum suicide paradox. If you start with a set of all possible observer moments on which a measure is defined (which can be calculated in principle using the laws of physics), then the paradox never arises. At any moment you can think of yourself as being randomly drawn from the set of all possible observer moments. The observer moment who has survived the suicide experiment time after time after time has a very very very low measure. I'm not sure what you mean by the paradox never arises here. You have said in the past that although you initially believed in QTI, you later realised that it could not possibly be true (sorry if I am misquoting you, this is from memory). Or are you distinguishing between QTI and QS? That's correct. In both QTI and QS one assumes conditional probabilities. You just throw away the branches in which you don't survive and then you conclude that you continue to survive into the infinitely far future (or after performing an arbitrary large number of suicide experiments) with probability 1. But if you use the a priori probability distribution then you see that you the measure of versions of you that survive into the far future is almost zero. What does the measure of versions of you that survive into the far future is almost zero actually mean? The measure of this particular version of me typing this email is practically zero, considering all the other versions of me and all the other objects in the multiverse. Another way of looking at it is that I am dead in a lot more places and times than I am alive. And yet undeniably, here I am! Reality trumps probability every time. --Stathis Papaioannou If there is a continuum of states in the multiverse (or, rather, if the states are continuously indexed by the position and momentum of each particle), then any situation that has a finite or countable description, (in terms of your perception of that state through observer moments, for instance) will occur with uncountably large measure, however unlikely the state. If, however, the underlying basis of states in the multiverse has itself a discrete structure, this would impose a 'cutoff' on very unlikely events, so there would be a small fraction of universes wherein my trousers will fall down at the busstop (why is it always busstops?) but literally none at all wherein my shirt will fall up into the sky, there being no configuration of the underlyimg physical variables that would macroscopically correspond to such an event. -- Chris Collins
Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
Dear Stathis, This ties in with the subject header of this series of posts, which is a rare occurence: Many Wolrds Immortality, according to which there will be some branch of the multiverse in which I hit enough crows and pigeons on the way down to form a lifesaving mushy matress (mattress?), is a special case of a 'many-worlds-absurdity theorem' in which in some branch of the multiverse I will look down and find my leg be a peg and my ass a giraffe. But these will only happen if there are infinitely many, rather than just many, worlds. If you believe in some finite or countable discrete structure underlying physics, then you could ultimately identify definite events in which the universe branches off into a finite number of different cases (which would grow exponentially in time, but would after any given time be finite). -Chris Collins - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 2:25 PM Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality The obvious and sensible-sounding response to Jeanne's question whether it may be possible to access other universes through dreams or hallucinations is that it is not really any more credible than speculation that people can contact the dead, or have been kidnapped by aliens, or any other of the millions of weird things that so many seem to believe despite the total lack of supporting evidence. However, this response is completely wrong if MWI is correct. If I dream tonight that a big green monster has eaten the Sydney Opera House, then definitely, in some branch of the MW, a big green monster will eat the Sydney Opera House. Of course, this unfortunate event will occur even if I *don't* dream it, but I'm not saying that my dream caused it, only that I saw it happening. It might also be argued that I didn't really receive this information from another branch, but that it was just a coincidence that my dream matched the reality in the other branch. But seers don't see things by putting two and two together; they just, well, *see* them. And if I really could, godlike, enter at random another branch of the MW and return to this branch to report what I saw, how would the information provided be any different from my dream? The only difference I can think of is that with the direct method I would be more likely to visit a branch with greater measure, but I can probably achieve the same thing by trying not to think about green monsters when I go to sleep tonight. --Stathis Papaioannou I once read an article in, I believe, Time Magazine, about the relatively new field of neurotheology which investigates what goes on in the brain during ecstatic states, etc. One suggestion that intrigued me was that it may be possible that in such a state, and I believe that schizophrenics were also mentioned, that the brain is malfunctioning in such a way as to allow it to perceive states of reality other than that which the normal brain would perceive. In other words, the antenna (brain) is picking-up signals that are usually beyond the scope of the normal brain. I wondered if anyone could comment on this, and if there was any reason to even entertain the thought that perhaps some people have passed through a crack in the division between our universe or dimension, into perhaps another? I read this several years ago and wish that I could recall the details of the article, but I don't have it anymore. Jeanne _ MSN Messenger v7. Download now: http://messenger.ninemsn.com.au/
Re: many worlds theory of immortality
Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le Mardi 10 Mai 2005 19:13, Hal Finney a écrit : And in terms of your question, I would not act as though I expected to be guaranteed a very long life span, because the measure of that universe is so low compared to others where I don't survive. Hal Finney Hi, but by definition of what being alive means (or being conscious), which is to experience observer moments, even if the difference of the measure where you have a long life compared to where you don't survive is enormous, you can only experience world where you are alive... And to continue, I find it very difficult to imagine what could mean being unconscious forever (what you suggest to be likely). Quentin Anciaux ..You are working from the assumtion that each person has some sort of transcendental identity that experiences these observer moments, but I would think it more likely that these would be included in the observer moment, with memories being distinguished from instantaneous thoughts just by their being repeated several (or even millions of) times. As an illustration, try and remember what you had for dinner on your fifth birthday. Whether you remember or not, tou only know if you remember when you try to recall it, so you can't really pretend the piece of information is continuously present. Even the knowledge of your own name (which I suspect is made up, anyway) will have only a finite (or countable, if you live forever) number of instantiations. Chris Collins
Re: Many worlds theory of immortality
Dear Stathis, This was an interesting post. You're right in that, until quite recently, we've understood the world only as well as we've needed to, in order to survive. But if you believe, as some people on this list do, that instantaneous 'observer moments' are the only fundamentally real objects in the universe, (and that the reasoning, 'I think therefore I am' runs primarily in that direction) then it is the logical struture of our thopughts that is at each moment retrospectively generating a history in which there evolved a creature intelligient enough to think them. From this perspective, there is then a difference when someone becomes too mentally disfunctional to survive by themselves; then their incoherent patterns of thought will have to go one better and retrospectively generate a history in which a successful species evolved, of which they are a defective variant (we might all belong in this category, and keep each other sane..) But really, here we have to be more specific about what constitutes an observer moment, and what does not. Do dogs, worms, viruses have observer moments, or did they just coevolve in the history we might claim to have created by thinking and being? I would suggest that they are as real as we are, and that human consciousness is only distinguished from the animal sort in matters of quantity and capacity, and believe that the sorts of thoughts thatcan be taken as the fundamental objects of the universe are those that appear in the context of an organism successful response to its surrounding environment. This could be seen as a compromise between taking thoughts as fundamental, and a more old-fashioned 'physicalist' perspective, but I would see it more as observer moments being associated with the observer and his/her/its environment. After all, the distinction between these is pretty vague: Does the apple I just ate count as me or my environment? What if I made myself sick? What if I cut off my appendage? Don't worry; I will do neither of these things. Yours Sincerely, Chris Collins. - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 2:02 PM Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality Dear aet.radal ssg, I think you missed my point about the amnesic and psychotic patients, which is not that they are clear thinkers, but that they are conscious despite a disability which impairs their perception of time. Your post raises an interesting question in that you seem to assume that normally functioning human minds have a correct model of reality, as opposed to the broken minds of the mentally ill. This is really very far from the truth. Human brains evolved in a specific environment, often identified as the African savannah, so the model of the world constructed by the human mind need only match reality to the extent that this promoted survival in that environment. As a result, we humans are only able to directly perceive and grasp a tiny, tiny slice of physical reality. Furthermore, although we are proud of our thinking abilities, the theories about physical reality that humans have come up with over the centuries have in general been ridiculously bad. I have spent the last ten years treating patients with schizophrenia, and I can assure you that however bizarre the delusional beliefs these people come up with, there are multiple historical examples of apparently sane people holding even more bizarre beliefs, and often insisting on pain of death or torture that everyone else agree with them. You might point out that despite the above, science has made great progress. This is true, but it has taken the cumulative efforts of millions of people over thousands of years to get to our current level of knowledge, which in any case is still very far from complete in any field. Scientific progress of our species as a whole is mirrored in the efforts of a psychotic patient who gradually develops insight into his illness, recognising that there is a difference between real voices and auditory hallucinations, and learning to reason through delusional beliefs despite the visceral conviction that they really are out to get me. --Stathis Papaioannou From: aet.radal ssg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: Re: Many worlds theory of immortality Date: Sat, 07 May 2005 10:44:25 -0500 _ REALESTATE: biggest buy/rent/share listings http://ninemsn.realestate.com.au
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
There do exist consistent approaches to set theory where you do have a
universal set and can therefore consider taking complements to be a
sinle-argument operation. to bypass the obvious paradox (that any set can be
used to make a necessarily larger powerset) you need to concoct a map from
the universal set onto its own powerset. The easiest way to do this is to
have lots of 'urelements' or' indivisible but somehow different sets, which
can then be mapped to larger sets in the powerset. If you find urelements
philosophically objectionable (which most computationally-minded people do)
then there exist other more difficult approaches: Try a google search for
Alonzo Church, Willard Quine or Thomas Forster to see some people who
have tried...
--Chris Collins
- Original Message -
From: Georges Quenot [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
Hal Ruhl wrote:
Hi George:
Hi Hal,
At 09:13 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote:
Hal Ruhl wrote:
My use of these words is convenience only but my point is why should
existence be so anemic as to prohibit the simultaneous presence of an
All and a Nothing.
The prohibition does not come from an anemia of existence
(as you suggest) but rather from the strength of nothing(ness),
at least in my view of things.
I am not sure I understand where we disagree (and even if we
really disagree) on this question of the {something, nothing,
concept, existence} question.
Even if we consider that defining something automatically
defines (a complementary) something else, this happens at the
concept level. It might well be that both defined concepts
simultaneously exists (say at least in the mind/brain of a
few humans beings) but this says noting about whether either
one or the other actually gets at something that would exist.
Even if the *concepts of* something (or all) and nothing do
need to exist simultaneously for any of them to exist, it
(obviously ?) does not follows that something (or all) and
nothing also needs to exist simultaneously (or even simply
makes sense in any absolute way).
Last but not least, what is the complementary concept of a
given concept is not that obvious. Let's consider the concept
of a winged horse. Regardless of whether it actually gets
at something or not, it can be considered to be opposed to
non winged horses or to winged things that are not horses
rather that to anything that is not a winged horses. In
set theory, a complementary of a set is always considered
only within a given larger set and never in any fully open
way (and there are well known and very good reasons for that
whatever common sense may say). Similarly, defining an all
or something in a fully open way is likely to be inconsistent.
The situation is different here from the case of the winged
horse and probably from all other cases and there is no reason
that common sense be still relevant (like in the set of all
sets paradox). This might be a case (possibly the only one)
in which defining/considering something does not automatically
make appear a complementary something (even simply at the
concept level).
This would be an arbitrary truncation without reasonable
justification.
Just as the opposite.
I provided a justification - a simple basis for evolving universes -
which does not yet seem to have toppled.
It might be not so simple. I went through it and I still can't
figure what evolving universes might get at. Up to this point,
I did not find something that would sound to me as a (more)
reasonable justification. This may well comme from me.
What appears reasonable or not or what appears as an actual
justification or not is certainly very relative. Currently, I am
still in the process of trying to find some sense (in my view of
things) in what you are talking about (and/or of trying to
figure out what your view of things might be). *Not* to say it
necessarily hasn't.
Georges.
Re: Peculiarities of our universe
Why aren't we our own much smarter descendents? If you see quantum measurement events as 'uncovering' or 'choosing' from a larger set of, in some sense, pre-existing earlier possibilities, then this problem solves itself: the future looks 'bigger' than the present, but in terms of the real microstates, whatever they may be, it would be smaller. So your earliest observer moments would create a history of thermal, galactic, stellar, and biological evolution that traces back the shortest possible route to some sort of generic early universe condition with a very large measure. It is only the first of these evolutionary stages, explaining the origin of matter, that we do not yet understand. But I don't think we're to far off --Chris Collins - Original Message - From: Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 9:41 PM Subject: Re: Peculiarities of our universe One possibility for why we do not find ourself in an old, galaxy-spanning civilization has already been mentioned--perhaps after a certain point all the individual minds in a civilization unite into a single Borg-like hivemind, and this reduction in the number of minds might imply that the self-sampling assumption would predict we'll find ourselves in a time before this happens (although if the hivemind lasts for billions of years, the argument might not work because this individual mind would probably have more separate observer-moments than the total number of observer-moments of the hundred billion or so individuals who lived before the mind-merging). Another possibility is suggested by a theory about how the measure on observer-moments could be influenced by the likelihood of future duplications, which I discussed a bit in this post (in response to a post by Bruno Marchal discussing the same idea): http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m4841.html If observer-moments which are more likely to have more copies of themselves existing in the future have higher measure, then this might also suggest why I find myself living before civilization has spread throughout the galaxy--perhaps observers who are alive right at the time when the technological singularity occurs are the ones who are most likely to become the earliest uploads and to have the most copies of themselves living in the future galaxy-spanning civilization, thus giving the pre-singularity versions of themselves a much higher measure than any post-singularity observer-moments. Jesse _ Learn how to choose, serve, and enjoy wine at Wine @ MSN. http://wine.msn.com/
Re: Why is there something instead of nothing?
This question seems unanswerable, but set theorists have tried (though
that might not be how they view their own endeavours): One interpretation of
the universe of constructible sets found in standard set theory textbooks is
that even if you start with nothing, you can say that's a thing, and put
brackets around it and then you've got two things: nothing and {nothing}.
And then you also have {nothing and {nothing}}. Proceeding in this manner
you get a mathematical structure equivalent to numbers, a structure which in
turn is known to contain unimaginable richness and texture, in which
mathematical physicists (like me) attempt to 'find' the structures of our
universe embedded.
-Chris C
- Original Message -
From: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2003 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: Why is there something instead of nothing?
Hal Finney,
Thanks for the thought. I know that there is something instead of nothing
by using Descartes reasoning. (From
http://teachanimalobjectivity.homestead.com/files/return2.htm) The only
thing Descartes found certain was the fact he was thinking. He further
felt
that thought was not a thing-in-itself, and had to proceed from somewhere
(viz., cause and effect), therefore since he was thinking the thoughts, he
existed --by extension--also. Hence, thought and extension were the
very
beginnings from which all things proceeded, Cogito ergo sum (I think
therefore I am).
I don't understand how there can be both something and nothing. Perhaps I
don't understand what you mean by nothing. By nothing I mean no
thing,
not even empty space.
In other words, it is conceivable to me that the multiverse need not
exist.
Yet it does. Why? This seems inherently unanswerable.
Norman
- Original Message -
From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2003 11:12 PM
Subject: Re: Why is there something instead of nothing?
How do you know the premise is true, that there is something instead
of nothing? Maybe there could be both something and nothing. Or maybe
the existence of nothing is consistent with our own experiences.
I don't think all these terms are well enough defined for the question
to have meaning in its simple form. It's easy to put words together,
but not all gramatically correct sentences are meaningful.
Hal Finney
Re: spooky action at a distance
Do we live in a universe in which future coin tosses will invariably result in heads, or one in which a mixture of results will occur? Of course, we live in both, but the latter constitutes a numerically much larger class of universes; one would imagine it would be the same with physical laws, including those governing wave-function collapse: That some laws would have a much larger measure, and would always be the ones we discover. -Chris C - Original Message - From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 5:30 PM Subject: Re: spooky action at a distance This list is dedicated to exploring the implications of the prospect that all universes exist. According to this principle, universes exist with all possible laws of physics. It follows that universes exist which follow the MWI; and universes exist where only one branch is real and where the other branches are eliminated. Universes exist where the transactional interpretation is true, and where Penrose's objective reduction happens. I'm tempted to even say that universes exist where the Copenhagen interpretation is true, but that seems to be more a refusal to ask questions than a genuine interpretation. Therefore it is somewhat pointless to argue about whether we are in one or another of these universes. In fact, I would claim that we are in all of these, at least all that are not logically inconsistent or incompatible with the data. That is, our conscious experience spans multiple universes; we are instantiated equally and equivalently in universes which have different laws of physics, but where the differences are so subtle that they have no effect on our observations. It may be that at some future time, we can perform an experiment which will provide evidence to eliminate or confirm some of these possible QM interpretations. At that time, our consciousness will differentiate, and we will go on in each of the separate universes, with separate consciousness. It is still useful to discuss whether the various interpretations work at all, and whether they are in fact compatible with our experimental results. But to go beyond that and to try to determine which one is true is, according to the multiverse philosophy, an empty exercise. All are true; all are instantiated in the multiverse, and we live in all of them. Hal
Re: are we in a simulation?
Stephen Paul King wrote: Does computational complexity (such as NP-Completeness, etc.) andcomputational "power" requirements factor into the idea of simulated worlds? Yes, I think that's a point I was trying to get accross in my previous post under this heading: That although in a certain sense we are simultaeously in lots of different universes, in some of which we are being 'simulated', we might expect never to find ourselves to be in a simulation if our universe is difficult to simulate. Which universe we are actually 'in' is only decided when we make new quantum mechanial measurements. The results of these measurements correspond to us finding new particles, or correlations between particles; the result of a long enough series of 'measurements' might correspond to our meeting an alien, and a sufficiently longseries of measurements might yield the result that we meet aliens who turn out to be simulating us. Lets say we'd need to make 10^20 bits worth of measurements to have the possibility of finding someone simulating us, and outnof the 2^(10^20) possible results, only one result would show that w4e a re being 'simulated'. Then we would expect to find that we are not being simulated, and our universe would contain more information making it harder to simulate: If the length of the bit chain which we would have to measure to find that we are being simulated (which corresponds to thelog of the amount of information aliens would have to contain to simulate us) increaseslinearly with the number of measurements we have already made, then the total probability if we lived forever, making more and more measurements, of us finding that we a re being simulated would be finite, and could be very small. -JC
a prediction of the anthropic principle/MWT
The fact that we're alive shows that as a species we've been historically very 'lucky', the biggest 'break' being in the finely tuned initial conditions for our universe. At least a level I many-worlds theory is needed to explain this. But in a higher level MWT this good luckmight have extended further. For instance, our planet might have experienced an unusually high number of 'near misses' with other astronomical bodies. Now that we're here to watch, the universe will be forced to obey the law of averages,so there could be a significantly higher probability of a deadly asteroid collision than would be indicated by the historical frequeny of said events. Perhaps we should carefully compare how often the other planets have been hit with how often we have: They certainly look more craterful Have there been any serious studies into this? It's not justidle philosophial musings, it affects the way our governments should be spending our money (or rather your money; I'm a non-earning student).
are we in a simulation?
The argument that many-worlds theory implies that we are 'almost certainly' in a computer simulation hasbeen put forward by many people, andthere are many similarly themed arguments used to suggest that many-worlds theory is 'obviously not true'; most of these arguments contain well hidden logical inconsistencies which involve switching back and forth between many-world and single world ideas. This leads to a rather strange way of counting the different possible 'classical universes' that we might be part of. The sleight of hand (or honest mistake) used in these arguments lies in the seemingly innocent assumption that a powerful god-like being who builds a simulation of our universe must then be the cause of our existence. This would be true in a single classical universe, but it is not true in many-worlds theory, where we should usea definition of 'causing' or 'implying' involving a correlation between different classical universes, ie. that [god-like being does not simulate us] =(almost always) [we do not exist]. This is discussed in David Deutsch's 'The Fabric of Reality', where he gives the example that no butterflies cause hurricanes by flapping their wings (unless you put one in a human built 'hurricane mahine' with a touch sensitive keyboard).. How we should correctly 'count the universes' in which we live is by starting with what we know exists: Ourselves, the planet Earth, evidence of our ancestry, the surrounding galaxies, etc. and looking at what we can 'append' to this universe: We could have some universes where there is everything we know exists, plus super-intelligient beings who behave as though they are controlling us, but for each of these, one would expect many more universes containing everything we know exists, plus some generic random distribution of (generally non-living) matter, such as some rocks or a cloud.
