Re: Why wasn't I born there instead of here?
On 11/18/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 18/11/2007, Gene Ledbetter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In another thread Rolf mentioned a variant of the Doomsday Argument where the universe is infinite: ...This variant DA asks, if there's currently a Galactic Empire 1 Hubble Volumes away with an immensely large number of people, why wasn't I born there instead of here? The implication of the question seems to be that the questioner (Q) could have been born in either of the two populations at random, and, assuming the number of people in the Galactic Empire is sufficiently immense, the probability that he could have been born on Earth is close to nil. But Q could not have been born in either of the two populations; he could only have been born on Earth, and his failure to realize this suggests that he has ignored his own material and biological nature. Q is a material object and a living organism. He is composed of atoms from Earth's interior that could in no way be part of a remote Galactic Empire. Q's birth occurred because humans reproduce sexually, and his birth occurred on Earth because his parents lived on Earth. Q could not have been born in the Galactic Empire because he could not have been born anywhere but on Earth. How is this different to arguing that a person who wins the lottery should not ask how come something so improbable has happened to him since he could only be asking the question if he had been a winner? Should he? -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
On 10/2/07, Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vladimir Nesov wrote: Are you asking why I consider notion of p-zombieness meaningful? By p-zombieness are you referring to philosophical zombies? If so, I suppose I find them meaningful as a philosophical thought-experiment for making the case that facts about consciousness are at least partly independent from facts about the physical world, but I don't believe that any real-world implementation of a mind would be a philosophical zombie (see Chalmers' argument about 'fading qualia' at http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html ) -- do you? I found this paper particularly mind-bogging. It turns about the argument that since mind is implemented by brain, mind can't have a property that is not present in given implementation. Which ignores the possibility that there can be multiple minds that correspond to given implementation, and there are implementations in other worlds that can receive the mind without breaking subjective experience, even when from third-person POV you can argue that there are strange things going on with mind that could correspond to given contraption (which should instead be attributed to changes in set of minds that corresponds to contraption in question). Basically, I now define a mind by set of worlds in which it can find itself subjectively. This set roughly corresponds to set of worlds that only differ in things it doesn't know about, as if you jump from one world to another, you won't notice it if only things you don't know about were changed. With simplifying assumption that mind is implemented by a limited material structure in each of these equivalent worlds, it's possible to say that all worlds that contain the same implementation are equivalent, independent on all the rest of their content. So, notion of complete worlds is useless, as observations are selected arbitrarily in a way that is consistent with observer. Worlds are constructed 'on the fly' from their fragments. Any relation between parts of the world is a property of observer, because if it didn't know about this relation, it would be undefined (arbitrary). Observation (time) is a process of interaction between world fragments which creates new fragments. Brain-like structure has a very interesting property of being strongly connected. Each element of the brain depends on other elements of it, so sets of the worlds in which some of these fragments are present are very similar. Functional elements of the same mind inhabit the same set of worlds. More than that, brain learns tremendous amount of facts about its environment, thus selecting a narrow and structured set of worlds consistent with it. When brain is destroyed, elements become independent and mind expands to bigger set of worlds, which corresponds to loss of structure it can consistently observe. -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
Also single mind can be regarded as collection of parts interacting with each other. If each part can be regarded as its information content, each physical implementation ties together instantiations of parts. If single mind can be implemented by multiple implementations, each of these implementations also implements all parts of mind, so mind can be composed of different parts, where each of the parts is implemented in different universe. So, brain can be half- p-zombie and half-conscious. On 10/1/07, Jason Resch [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 4. All particles in the observable universe are interacting. The neurons in our brain which instantiate thoughts are not closed loops, they are fed in with data from the senses, thoughts can be communicated between brains (as they are now when you read this post), my neural activity can affect your neural activity, there is only a longer and slower path connecting neurons between everyone's brain. Think of a grid computer consisting of super computers connected with 14.4 Kbps modems, the bandwidth is not sufficient for transferring large amounts of data or the content of their hard drives in any reasonable time, but short and compressed information can still be shared. If they are interacting as part of the same large state machine then minds are not islands, and it lends credence to their being a universal mind. Jason -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
Not single mind is half-zombified, but single brain. Half of the brain implements half of the mind, and another half of the brain is zombie. Another half of the mind (corresponding to zombie part of the brain) exists as information content and can be implemented in different universe. This view can be applied to gradual uploading argument. On 10/2/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 02/10/2007, Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also single mind can be regarded as collection of parts interacting with each other. If each part can be regarded as its information content, each physical implementation ties together instantiations of parts. If single mind can be implemented by multiple implementations, each of these implementations also implements all parts of mind, so mind can be composed of different parts, where each of the parts is implemented in different universe. So, brain can be half- p-zombie and half-conscious. I don't see in what sense it could be a single mind if part of it is zombified. If your visual cortex were unconscious, you would be blind, and you would know you were blind. (Except for unusual situations like Anton's Syndrome, where people don't realise that they're blind). -- Stathis Papaioannou -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
Are you asking why I consider notion of p-zombieness meaningful? On 10/2/07, Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vladimir Nesov wrote: Not single mind is half-zombified, but single brain. Half of the brain implements half of the mind, and another half of the brain is zombie. Another half of the mind (corresponding to zombie part of the brain) exists as information content and can be implemented in different universe. This view can be applied to gradual uploading argument. But why do you think there could be any functionally identical implementations of a part of a brain that would be zombies, i.e. not really conscious? Jesse _ It's the Windows Live(tm) Hotmail(R) you love -- on your phone! http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/mobilehotmail/default.mspx?WT.mc_ID=MobileHMTagline2 -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Conscious States vs. Conscious Computations
On 9/27/07, Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jason writes: A given piece of data can represent an infinite number of different things depending on the software that interprets it. What may be an mp3 file to one program may look like snow to an image editor. I'm doubtful that you could find a string of any significant length which both sounds like sensible music and looks like a realistic picture. I'm even more doubtful that the enormous length of the data that would represent the brain activity associated with an observer-moment could be meaningfully interpreted as anything else. My guess is that sufficiently long, meaningful data strings have their meaning implicitly within themselves, because there is no reasonable-length program that can interpret them as anything else. Hi. I'm not yet qualified to engage in in-depth discussion on this list, but re this point: what is 'reasonable-length'? Why is interpreter supposed to be limited? If it is, how should it be limited? If interpreter is just 'assumed' and not encoded in any form, can't it be an arbitrary thing, up to containing all the knowledge you need for any resulting interpretation? -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
