Re: Quantum accident survivor
At 16:05 14/11/03 -0200, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] When you said earlier that: In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. I would say I *own* a bunch of atoms. And we should distinguish third person self-reference like after the self-duplication you will see me at W and at M, say, and first person self-reference like after the self-duplication, if comp is true, I will either feel to be at W, or I will feel to be at M, but I will never feel to be at both place at once. I agree that *own* is a better term. But I still don't agree that I should either feel to be W or M. I believe I would still be the original. I have been discussing this on this list for a while and did not yet see a convincing argument. In fact, I think the people in this list have various different beliefs in this topic. Some say I should somehow expect to be both at the same time; To be precise I have no certainty in that domain, except probably that if we postulate explicitly that we are turing emulable (comp) then we can prove that from a first person perspective we will feel to be at W, or at M, but not at both place, neither at none place. some say personal identity does not exist at all, which is quite nice to be said but hard to make a sense of (if you are not an enlightened buddhist or something); Indeed, I agree. To say personal identity does not exist at all has no meaning except for a zombie (but from a zombie point of view the word exists, pain matter ... has no meaning). and some, like you, believe I should have equal subjective probabilities of being each. The fact is that I am in a state of maximal ignorance before the experiment. But I don't see a justification for this beyond personal taste. I know I must have lost this argument earlier on this list, but could you refer me to a more complete argument, or give a description of it here? OK, I try here (more reference below) Remember that we accept the comp hyp as a working hypothesis. Note that this is apparently original: in the literature talk about comp is always directed toward a refutation or a defense of comp. I don't care becuase my point is that ONCE we postulate comp, then we get that comp first person indeterminacy, and eventually the complete reversal between physics and machine psychology (physics being redefined as what is really invariant in all consistent extension of the universal turing machine...). So a computationalist is someone who says yes for using teleportation (classical teleportation) where he is scanned and read at the correct level (which exists by comp), then he is annihilated at D (departure city) (under anesthesia if you prefer) then he is reconstituted at some place. Now suppose he is reconstituted at two different places, W and M to fix the things. (D is different from W, which is different from M, he is still annihilated at D). At each of those two places we can imagine he is reconstituted in some closed box, and that he will localized himself by using a GPS system, and will note the result in his notebook. OK? Now, with comp, the one in M will localized himself at M and write M in the notebook, and the one in W will localized himself at W and note W in the notebook. SO, If we ask before the experiment to a candidate where he will find himself after the annihilation (! what he will note in the notebook) then 1) He cannot say I will be at none places, because he believes comp, so he believes he survives teleportation (and the duplication does not change anything because the two copies are supposed to be computationaly independent). 2) He cannot say I will be at the two places because by the definition of first person (which is just (at this stage) the content of memory/notebook), he knows that each notebook will contained a note like the GPS result = W or the GPS result = M and no notebooks will contained the GPS result = W and M. 3) He cannot say I will be for sure at W because, by comp (unless putting W in the definition of his brain, but then choose other cities for the experiment), both reconstitution are 100% (numerically) symmetrical. 4) Nor can He say I will be for sure at M, for the same reason. My feeling, if I remember correctly some of your post is that you will, say 1), that is I will be at none places, because (and tell me please if I guess it correctly) you will say I remain the original which has been destroyed at D. I have no problem with that. It means you disagree right at the start with the comp hyp. There is a problem only if you believe in comp (mainly that you are turing emulable) and still disbelieve with the comp first person indeterminacy. OK? If you want to know why comp eventually force us to derive the laws of physics, perhaps the simplest exposition are the following posts: Discussion with Joel Dobrzelewski
Re: Quantum accident survivor
At 14:21 12/11/03 -0800, Pete Carlton wrote: Greetings; this reply has taken some time... I don't quite agree with your point of view, and the reason is maybe similar to our disagreement in my statement: It is not useful to talk about 1st person experiences in 3rd person terms, since when we do that we lose the very thing that we want to study. I think you're right; this is the central disagreement. To spell it out: I do not believe the 1st person/3rd person distinction is fundamental. That is, I think that once you've explained what a system does (and how it does it), you've explained everything. Consciousness is simply a complicated set of behavioral dispositions, which can in principle be explained from an objective, 3rd-person standpoint; and the 1st person viewpoint is just a description, a way that it naturally occurs to us to put things, because of our psychology (biology). Feeling pain or pleasure has nothing to do with description. Actually when you associate a knower to a theorem prover (by defining the machine know p' by (the machine prove p) and p, that is when you apply Thaetetus definition of knowing to godelian provability, the nice thing which happen (and which is quite non trivial and related to incompleteness) is that the machine-knower cannot be related to any description. A description is a pure third person notion. Only artist can describe feelings, and this has sense only for people having lived sufficiently similar feelings. But consciousness has indeed a basic relation with sets of behavioral dispositions. I will have other occasion to talk on this. It is related to my filmed graph argument alias Maudlin's paper alias one conversation on this list with Jacques Mallah (people interested can search crackpot on the archive, (it is Jacques Mallah's name for my argument)). When you said earlier that: In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. I would say I *own* a bunch of atoms. And we should distinguish third person sel-reference like after the self-duplication you will see me at W and at M, say, and first person self-reference like after the self-duplication, if comp is true, I will either feel to be at W, or I will feel to be at M, but I will never feel to be at both place at once. Bruno
Re: Quantum accident survivor
- Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] When you said earlier that: In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. I would say I *own* a bunch of atoms. And we should distinguish third person self-reference like after the self-duplication you will see me at W and at M, say, and first person self-reference like after the self-duplication, if comp is true, I will either feel to be at W, or I will feel to be at M, but I will never feel to be at both place at once. I agree that *own* is a better term. But I still don't agree that I should either feel to be W or M. I believe I would still be the original. I have been discussing this on this list for a while and did not yet see a convincing argument. In fact, I think the people in this list have various different beliefs in this topic. Some say I should somehow expect to be both at the same time; some say personal identity does not exist at all, which is quite nice to be said but hard to make a sense of (if you are not an enlightened buddhist or something); and some, like you, believe I should have equal subjective probabilities of being each. But I don't see a justification for this beyond personal taste. I know I must have lost this argument earlier on this list, but could you refer me to a more complete argument, or give a description of it here? -Eric.
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi, - Original Message - From: Pete Carlton [EMAIL PROTECTED] Greetings; this reply has taken some time... I don't quite agree with your point of view, and the reason is maybe similar to our disagreement in my statement: It is not useful to talk about 1st person experiences in 3rd person terms, since when we do that we lose the very thing that we want to study. I think you're right; this is the central disagreement. To spell it out: I do not believe the 1st person/3rd person distinction is fundamental. That is, I think that once you've explained what a system does (and how it does it), you've explained everything. Consciousness is simply a complicated set of behavioral dispositions, which can in principle be explained from an objective, 3rd-person standpoint; and the 1st person viewpoint is just a description, a way that it naturally occurs to us to put things, because of our psychology (biology). It seems a fundamental disagreement indeed. Let us try to discuss about it a little bit... When you said earlier that: In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. I took you to be agreeing with me on my view of consciousness. But I think a difference is highlighted here: I don't need to point out who ' I ' am. I am concerned with my first-person experiences, and that is easy to determine without even gaining acces to the other entities who look like me. What, exactly, are these first-person experiences? Are they really so easy to determine? I would say that whatever they are, they contain no information on whether you are Eric01 or Eric02. We know that these completely specified entities do exist, but since Eric01 has no way of knowing he is in fact Eric01, it does not matter what he experiences; the difference between Eric01 and Eric02 is not a difference for Eric. Suppose I am going to make an experiment to determine the z-component of a spin-1/2 particle. There are two possibilities: 1/2,-1/2. Let us forget about all other particles that are changing in the universe for the sake of the argument. So Eric01 is the one who measured 1/2. Eric 02 measured -1/2. They have had completely different experiences. Each one can say: I could have experienced (-1/2,1/2) but I did not. I actually measured (1/2,-1/2). If he knows about the multiverse, he might wonder that the universe split when he measured this event, and some copy of him measured the other outcome. But that does not change the fact that he can tell what outcome he DID measure. You could now say: But there is no tag or anything telling who is 01 or who is 02. In fact, I could beforehand decide that if I measure 1/2, I will put a tag in my forehead written: 01. And that I would put a tag written 02 otherwise. The difference between Eric01 and Eric02 is now manifest! But we are placing too much emphasis on Eric's actual measurement. Now suppose Eric is sitting in his lab unaware of whatever is going on in the particle beam hitting the detector. A friend of his knows of his wonderings about personality and decides to play a game with him. If he (the friend) measures spin 1/2, he will place a tag on his back written 01 or 02 respectively. The difference between Eric01 and Eric02 is again manifest. Nevertheless, Eric01/02 are unaware of it. Now let's get rid of any conscious awareness. The spin1/2 particle has been detected, but no one knows. Nevertheless, the universe has split, and - in principle - Eric could have detected the particle, and he could get to the same conclusion about how the outcome could have been different. The fact that he did not actually measure it does not imply that his universe is not different from the universe where his copy is. No one can say that Eric01 and Eric02 are indeed the same person just because they do not know which one they are. Even if their universe is different only for the state of a particle! Now suppose Eric placed a bet with his pal Pete. If the measurement comes out 1/2, Eric will pay him a 6-pack of beer. Otherwise Pete will pay for Eric. The particle is measured, the universe split. In one of them, Eric is sad and thirsty. For Eric01, the outcome was not good, and even though Pete comes up and say: Cheer up! In another universe you are drinking beer! that does not represent any relief on his thirst. He can only wish he was the other one. (And this is seeming particularly awful to me right now, since my air-conditioner is broken and it is really hot in Rio today). Now what sense could there be for Eric01 to wish he was the other one if Pete insists that he is both? Is that just Eric's shortmindedness or does it say something about the nature of the self? Hal Finney's thought experiment about the 2 identical computers is right on, I think. You have 2 AI programs running in lockstep. Nothing in the programs' experiences can
RE: Quantum accident survivor/ personal identity
On 10 November 2003 David Barrett-Lennard wrote: ...It seems to me that the concept of identity is not fundamental to physics. It's useful for classification purposes as long as one doesn't stretch it too far and expose its lack of precision... David, I used to puzzle over the definition of this word also, but enlightenment did not come until I realised that granting it the status of a basic and precise concept was the cause of all the philosophical mischief. The problem of personal identity mostly goes away if we admit that there is no objective, yes-or-no answer to the question of whether two SAS's are the same person, and instead speak only of greater or lesser degrees of similarity. Of course, there are cases of common usage which most people would not question - that I am the same person today as I was yesterday, for example - but even here, I would argue that the identical/non-identical cutoff is (a) quantitative rather than qualitative, and (b) in the final analysis arbitrary. Certainly, the atoms comprising me-today are not all the same as those comprising me-yesterday, and if we consider me-last-year, none of the atoms may be the same. In fact, if we consider physical continuity the important factor in survival, the person that lived in my house last year is as thoroughly dead and gone as if he had been killed and cremated, and the ashes scattered to the four winds! Add to this all the other actually or logically possible adventures an individual could be subjected to - brain or body transplant, memory loss and dementia, uploading to a computer, melding or splitting of mind, destructive and non-destructive teleportation, resurrection in the far future or in Heaven, multiple or infinite versions in MWI - and it becomes clear that, if it has any meaning at all, personal identity must be a very slippery and plastic concept indeed. I feel much better for having got rid of mine! Stathis Papaioannou Melbourne, Australia 11 November 2003 -Original Message- From: David Barrett-Lennard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, 10 November 2003 6:40 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Quantum accident survivor I'm trying to define identity... Let's write x~y if SAS's x and y (possibly in different universes) have the same identity. I propose that this relation must be reflexive, symmetric and transitive. This neatly partitions all SAS's into equivalence classes, and we have no ambiguity working out whether any two SAS's across the multi-verse have the same identity. Consider an SAS x that splits into x1, x2 (in child universes under MWI). We assume x~x1 and x~x2. By symmetry and transitivity we deduce x1~x2. So this definition of identity is maintained across independent child universes. This is at odds with the following concept of identity... I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience It seems necessary to distinguish between a definition of identity and the set of memories within an SAS at a given moment. Is it possible that over long periods of time, the environment can affect an SAS to such an extent that SAS's in different universe that are suppose to have the same identity actually have very little in common? What happens if we splice two SAS's (including their memories)? It seems to me that the concept of identity is not fundamental to physics. It's useful for classification purposes as long as one doesn't stretch it too far and expose its lack of precision. This reminds me of the problem of defining the word species. Although a useful concept for zoologists it is not well defined. For example there are cases where (animals in region) A can mate with B, B can mate with C, but A can't mate with C. - David _ Hot chart ringtones and polyphonics. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilemania/default.asp
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi, - Original Message - From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] Eric Cavalcanti, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: In the case of non-destructive-copy experiment, the copy is made in a distinct place/time from the original. They could as well be done 100,000 years in the future and in the Andromeda galaxy, and you should as well expect to have the subjective experience of being that copy with the same probability as being the smooth continuation of yourself on Earth. Yes, that makes sense. But in the multiverse, there are certainly infinite other perfect copies of yourself which are not smooth continuations. We can imagine thousands of ways how these copies could be made. In computer simulations, in a distant Earth in the Tegmark plenitude, or elsewhere. Yes, but keep in mind that there are also infinitely other copies which *are* smooth continuations. And these probably outnumber the ones which are discontinuous (assuming that terms like outnumber can be generalized to infinite sets, or else that the sets involved are merely large and not infinite). I don't think so. Suppose you have at least one other perfect copy of yourself, such that you could expect that your next experience be one of that copies' with the same probability as the smooth continuation. A moment dt from now the original 'you' will have branched into a number N of possible future states. Since the copy is perfectly equal, the copy will also evolve to a number of future states that is of the same order of magnitude of N. According to your view, each of these states is a continuation of yourself with equal probability, so that you should expect to have about 50% probability of being your copy. But, if the Plenitude deserves the name, then we should expect to have at least a Huge number of copies at any moment. Therefore, either there are no other copies - i.e. the plenitude is not real, and there are no simulations of yourself anywhere in the multiverse, etc. - or you cannot experience being one of your copies, and QTI is not real. One of these has to go. But suppose you just stepped outside the Paris duplicator. Unaware of the experiment that is being made, your last memory is sitting in front of your computer, reading this email. Suddenly, you see the Eiffel Tower. That would surely be a psychological experience that we don't have too often. And since there are infinite copies of yourself at any given moment, if you should expect to be any of them at the next moment, you shouldn't expect to ever feel the continuous experience you do. Rather, you should expect to feel both, with some probability. And I think that the multiverse holds a greater proportion of continuations that are continuous than that are discontinuous. Fundamentally this is because the conditions that promote consciousness and therefore the formation of brains like mine will tend to involve continuous chains of experience. Only in a relatively few universes will I be subject to unknowing duplications. Therefore I think it is highly unlikely but not impossible that I will suddenly experience a discontinuity. I have argued above about the proportion of smooth/discontinuous states. Let us suppose, though, that our society evolves to a state where such duplications are routine. Anyone may have their brain scanned at any time, without their knowledge, and new copies of them created. Suppose I am such a copy, in fact, I am a 10th generation copy; that is, 10 times in my life I have found myself having an experience similar to what you described, a discontinuity where I was just walking along or sitting there, and suddenly found myself stepping out of a duplicating machine because someone copied me. I think you will agree that my memories are reasonable; that is, that anyone who has gone through such an experierence as I describe will in fact remember these discontinuities. Given my history, wouldn't it be reasonable for me to expect, at any future moment, to possibly face another such discontinuity? It has happened many times before, both to me and to other people that I know; it is an often-discussed phenomenon of the world, in this scenario. Just like anything else that happens occasionally to everyone, it would be perfectly reasonable and rational to have an expectation that it might happen to you. It would be perfectly normal, in such a society, to expect to BE a clone, if you have some reason to believe you are, such as a long-forgot discontinuity of experience. But one should not expect to ever BECOME a clone, for the reasons I argued above. -Eric.
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi, - Original Message - From: Eric Cavalcanti [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 8:41 PM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor Hi, - Original Message - From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] Eric Cavalcanti, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: In the case of non-destructive-copy experiment, the copy is made in a distinct place/time from the original. They could as well be done 100,000 years in the future and in the Andromeda galaxy, and you should as well expect to have the subjective experience of being that copy with the same probability as being the smooth continuation of yourself on Earth. Yes, that makes sense. But in the multiverse, there are certainly infinite other perfect copies of yourself which are not smooth continuations. We can imagine thousands of ways how these copies could be made. In computer simulations, in a distant Earth in the Tegmark plenitude, or elsewhere. Yes, but keep in mind that there are also infinitely other copies which *are* smooth continuations. And these probably outnumber the ones which are discontinuous (assuming that terms like outnumber can be generalized to infinite sets, or else that the sets involved are merely large and not infinite). I don't think so. Suppose you have at least one other perfect copy of yourself, such that you could expect that your next experience be one of that copies' with the same probability as the smooth continuation. A moment dt from now the original 'you' will have branched into a number N of possible future states. Since the copy is perfectly equal, the copy will also evolve to a number of future states that is of the same order of magnitude of N. According to your view, each of these states is a continuation of yourself with equal probability, so that you should expect to have about 50% probability of being your copy. This is not necessarily so. Even if there is one copy of you with a discontinous experience, there could at the same time be a multitude of yous being in smooth continuation scenarios (having the same or almost the same memories as you have and living in a stable universe like you.) The probability that there is some natural reason for a copy of you to be in the same situation as you are in at the moment, seems likely to be much larger than those with discontinuous experiences. They would not (presumably) evolve quite so naturally in the universe. They will all branch in the same order of magnitude, but the probabilities of the initial situation can still be used. (1 discontinuous and 10e100 smooth experiences) But, if the Plenitude deserves the name, then we should expect to have at least a Huge number of copies at any moment. Therefore, either there are no other copies - i.e. the plenitude is not real, and there are no simulations of yourself anywhere in the multiverse, etc. - or you cannot experience being one of your copies, and QTI is not real. One of these has to go. But suppose you just stepped outside the Paris duplicator. Unaware of the experiment that is being made, your last memory is sitting in front of your computer, reading this email. Suddenly, you see the Eiffel Tower. That would surely be a psychological experience that we don't have too often. And since there are infinite copies of yourself at any given moment, if you should expect to be any of them at the next moment, you shouldn't expect to ever feel the continuous experience you do. Rather, you should expect to feel both, with some probability. And I think that the multiverse holds a greater proportion of continuations that are continuous than that are discontinuous. Fundamentally this is because the conditions that promote consciousness and therefore the formation of brains like mine will tend to involve continuous chains of experience. Only in a relatively few universes will I be subject to unknowing duplications. Therefore I think it is highly unlikely but not impossible that I will suddenly experience a discontinuity. I have argued above about the proportion of smooth/discontinuous states. Let us suppose, though, that our society evolves to a state where such duplications are routine. Anyone may have their brain scanned at any time, without their knowledge, and new copies of them created. Suppose I am such a copy, in fact, I am a 10th generation copy; that is, 10 times in my life I have found myself having an experience similar to what you described, a discontinuity where I was just walking along or sitting there, and suddenly found myself stepping out of a duplicating machine because someone copied me. I think you will agree that my memories are reasonable; that is, that anyone who has gone through such an experierence as I describe will in fact remember these discontinuities. Given my history, wouldn't it be reasonable for me to expect
RE: Quantum accident survivor
I'm trying to define identity... Let's write x~y if SAS's x and y (possibly in different universes) have the same identity. I propose that this relation must be reflexive, symmetric and transitive. This neatly partitions all SAS's into equivalence classes, and we have no ambiguity working out whether any two SAS's across the multi-verse have the same identity. Consider an SAS x that splits into x1, x2 (in child universes under MWI). We assume x~x1 and x~x2. By symmetry and transitivity we deduce x1~x2. So this definition of identity is maintained across independent child universes. This is at odds with the following concept of identity... I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience It seems necessary to distinguish between a definition of identity and the set of memories within an SAS at a given moment. Is it possible that over long periods of time, the environment can affect an SAS to such an extent that SAS's in different universe that are suppose to have the same identity actually have very little in common? What happens if we splice two SAS's (including their memories)? It seems to me that the concept of identity is not fundamental to physics. It's useful for classification purposes as long as one doesn't stretch it too far and expose its lack of precision. This reminds me of the problem of defining the word species. Although a useful concept for zoologists it is not well defined. For example there are cases where (animals in region) A can mate with B, B can mate with C, but A can't mate with C. - David
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi, I disagreed with some points in your argumentation... - Original Message - From: David Barrett-Lennard [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm trying to define identity... Let's write x~y if SAS's x and y (possibly in different universes) have the same identity. You did not yet 'define' identity. You just proposed a relation between two entities which is supposed to mean that these two entities have the same 'identity'. I propose that this relation must be reflexive, symmetric and transitive. This is a proposal which seems self-evident, but let us keep in mind that we have no reason to propose it yet, since we don't even know what 'identity' means. I believe, in fact, that this relation '~' is NOT transitive! Let me try to argue why later. This neatly partitions all SAS's into equivalence classes, and we have no ambiguity working out whether any two SAS's across the multi-verse have the same identity. Consider an SAS x that splits into x1, x2 (in child universes under MWI). We assume x~x1 and x~x2. By symmetry and transitivity we deduce x1~x2. So this definition of identity is maintained across independent child universes. This is where the '~' relation shows that it cannot be transitive. I don't know what your definition of identity is, but in other posts I have argued that I am not the copies of me in other universes. Therefore, since you have come to the conclusion that I am, it must be the case that your assumption of the transitivity of '~' is wrong. To support your definition of '~', you must give a better reason to believe that you are the copies of yourself in other worlds. Just defining an arbitrary '~' relation does not do the job. In fact, I believe we should define another relation of personal identity, which is NOT symmetric. I shall use the notation '' meaning that if xy, x is a former state of y. 'x' is unambiguously defined by following down the multiverse branching 'tree'. But we cannot define the '' relation, i.e., the relation by which yx would mean that y is a continuation of x 'uptree'. Since there are multiple choices for the next state of x, it cannot be told in advance what the next subjective moment will be. So you can say that xx1 and xx2, but it does not follow that x1x2 OR x2x1. And since, by my definition, personal identity can be determined only by the relation '', x1 does not have the same 'identity' of x2. This is at odds with the following concept of identity... I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience It seems necessary to distinguish between a definition of identity and the set of memories within an SAS at a given moment. Is it possible that over long periods of time, the environment can affect an SAS to such an extent that SAS's in different universe that are suppose to have the same identity actually have very little in common? What happens if we splice two SAS's (including their memories)? It seems to me that the concept of identity is not fundamental to physics. It's useful for classification purposes as long as one doesn't stretch it too far and expose its lack of precision. Maybe it is not fundamental to physics, but it surely is fundamental to us, since that may be the difference between immortality or otherwise. Even more importantly, it is the basis for all our daily decisions. It is not merely a classification purpose. When you decide not to spend your money on the lottery, you don't think that doing so is good, because you will be increasing the number of 'yous' who are rich elsewhere. You don't care for the other 'yous' because you truly believe that the probability that you will just lose yor money is too high. And if you don't care for the other 'yous' they are not really 'you', they are other entities. This reminds me of the problem of defining the word species. Although a useful concept for zoologists it is not well defined. For example there are cases where (animals in region) A can mate with B, B can mate with C, but A can't mate with C. Although you can safely ignore those classifications when relating to objects, you cannot deny that defining your identity is too easy. Cut your finger and you will know who is feeling the pain. -Eric.
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi, I just have one question to clarify your position. - Original Message - From: Eric Cavalcanti [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 6:06 AM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor But suppose you just stepped outside the Paris duplicator. Unaware of the experiment that is being made, your last memory is sitting in front of your computer, reading this email. Suddenly, you see the Eiffel Tower. That would surely be a psychological experience that we don't have too often. And since there are infinite copies of yourself at any given moment, if you should expect to be any of them at the next moment, you shouldn't expect to ever feel the continuous experience you do. Therefore, since I do actually have a continuous experience of myself, then 'I am not my copies'. Are you arguing that not experiencing these abrupt experiences is a proof that there is a difference between you and your copies? This would be the case only if you made the rather controversial assumption that there couldn't be a (extremely large) difference in probability between ending up among the infinities of normal continuations and ending up among the infinities of abrupt experiences. Right? -Eric. Dag-Ove Reistad
Re: Quantum accident survivor
There are some problems with this as Eric has pointed out. The best way to define identity, i.m.o., would be to say that a program is a SAS having an identity. If that SAS experience the outcome of an experiment, it's program will be changed by the mere fact it has acquired the memory of the outcome of the experiment. So the identity has changed because the program has changed. Programs are what some of us call ''observer moments''. - Oorspronkelijk bericht - Van: David Barrett-Lennard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: Monday, November 10, 2003 08:39 AM Onderwerp: RE: Quantum accident survivor I'm trying to define identity... Let's write x~y if SAS's x and y (possibly in different universes) have the same identity. I propose that this relation must be reflexive, symmetric and transitive. This neatly partitions all SAS's into equivalence classes, and we have no ambiguity working out whether any two SAS's across the multi-verse have the same identity. Consider an SAS x that splits into x1, x2 (in child universes under MWI). We assume x~x1 and x~x2. By symmetry and transitivity we deduce x1~x2. So this definition of identity is maintained across independent child universes. This is at odds with the following concept of identity... I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience It seems necessary to distinguish between a definition of identity and the set of memories within an SAS at a given moment. Is it possible that over long periods of time, the environment can affect an SAS to such an extent that SAS's in different universe that are suppose to have the same identity actually have very little in common? What happens if we splice two SAS's (including their memories)? It seems to me that the concept of identity is not fundamental to physics. It's useful for classification purposes as long as one doesn't stretch it too far and expose its lack of precision. This reminds me of the problem of defining the word species. Although a useful concept for zoologists it is not well defined. For example there are cases where (animals in region) A can mate with B, B can mate with C, but A can't mate with C. - David
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi, I believe one main issue here is the state of one's surviving consciousness. There is no reason to believe that having consciousness is an on/off thing. So if you do accept quantum immortality thinking, in a typical death-scenario (a severe heart attack, say) we could imagine a survivalrate of 10 %. Of the surviving 10 % you could easily imagine 9 percentage points ending up with such a devastating brain damage that the capacity to reflect over life, identity, happiness (and quantum immortality) is severely damaged. This process of brain damage may then continue over the passage of time, either as a consequence of the first brain damage or following new deseases that surely will follow, where bits and pieces of personality disappears. As consciousness in one sense of the word is preserved in all experiences, you wouldn't expect to find yourself in the continuing healthy brain scenarios, since these are highly unlikely. You would eventually expect to find yourself at the amoeba stage as Tegmark has phrased it (though i'm not sure if he would agree with my argument on the whole) or rather som minimum consciousness level. Now this amoeba (or minimum consciousness) might continue to live forever in some part of the multiverse, but that doesn't seem too frightening because all personality parts would be gone. Of course, in this scenario some kind of dementia is the only way to (almost) go and therefore the best way to go, which is kind of against customary thinking these days. Given today's medicine you will expect to find yourself in this dementia like situation some day before you are celebrating your 200th birthday. (One could of course place a bet on the possibility that immortality will be the results from the advances in genetics or AI in the next 50-100 years.) This dementia scenario seems likely as long as you are still here on mother earth. If you stand next to a nuclear blast you would perhaps rather expect ending up other places in the andromeda galaxy 2 million years in the future or past or in some other universe of level 1, 2, 3 or 4 (still accepting quantum immortality without debate). There is no way of knowing what the probability distributions are in advance. There might be a fair chance of ending up in a ordered world where your preserved consciousness has stable grounds for eternal life with personality and memories evolving gradually. But you could also imagine that the consciusness you end up with is far from stable, so that your consciousness in this scenario also quickly or slowly would degrade into some nonrecognisable entity. One might hope for that scenario, anyhow. I do want to live a bit longer than one traditionally would expect, but infinity is, well, a long time. It would probably be rather lonely with all of your great-great-great-great-grandchildren dead millennia ago. Dag-Ove
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Eric Cavalcanti, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: In the case of non-destructive-copy experiment, the copy is made in a distinct place/time from the original. They could as well be done 100,000 years in the future and in the Andromeda galaxy, and you should as well expect to have the subjective experience of being that copy with the same probability as being the smooth continuation of yourself on Earth. Yes, that makes sense. But in the multiverse, there are certainly infinite other perfect copies of yourself which are not smooth continuations. We can imagine thousands of ways how these copies could be made. In computer simulations, in a distant Earth in the Tegmark plenitude, or elsewhere. Yes, but keep in mind that there are also infinitely other copies which *are* smooth continuations. And these probably outnumber the ones which are discontinuous (assuming that terms like outnumber can be generalized to infinite sets, or else that the sets involved are merely large and not infinite). But suppose you just stepped outside the Paris duplicator. Unaware of the experiment that is being made, your last memory is sitting in front of your computer, reading this email. Suddenly, you see the Eiffel Tower. That would surely be a psychological experience that we don't have too often. And since there are infinite copies of yourself at any given moment, if you should expect to be any of them at the next moment, you shouldn't expect to ever feel the continuous experience you do. Rather, you should expect to feel both, with some probability. And I think that the multiverse holds a greater proportion of continuations that are continuous than that are discontinuous. Fundamentally this is because the conditions that promote consciousness and therefore the formation of brains like mine will tend to involve continuous chains of experience. Only in a relatively few universes will I be subject to unknowing duplications. Therefore I think it is highly unlikely but not impossible that I will suddenly experience a discontinuity. Let us suppose, though, that our society evolves to a state where such duplications are routine. Anyone may have their brain scanned at any time, without their knowledge, and new copies of them created. Suppose I am such a copy, in fact, I am a 10th generation copy; that is, 10 times in my life I have found myself having an experience similar to what you described, a discontinuity where I was just walking along or sitting there, and suddenly found myself stepping out of a duplicating machine because someone copied me. I think you will agree that my memories are reasonable; that is, that anyone who has gone through such an experierence as I describe will in fact remember these discontinuities. Given my history, wouldn't it be reasonable for me to expect, at any future moment, to possibly face another such discontinuity? It has happened many times before, both to me and to other people that I know; it is an often-discussed phenomenon of the world, in this scenario. Just like anything else that happens occasionally to everyone, it would be perfectly reasonable and rational to have an expectation that it might happen to you. Hal
Re: Fw: Quantum accident survivor
Eric Cavalcanti, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: Suppose I sit on this copy machine in New York, and the information of the position and velocities (within quantum uncertainty) of all particles in my body is copied. Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that the mere retrieval of this information should pose no problem to me. It should me harmless. This information then travels by wire from the reader to the reproducer. An almost perfect copy of me is made in Paris. Should I, in that moment, expect to have the first-person 50% probability of suddenly seeing the eiffel tower? I don't think anyone would support that. I think your argument is valid, that this experiment is indeed the same as stepping into a destructive duplication machine and having copies made in two places. The only place I think you're wrong is in the last sentence. In fact, I think many people here would in fact support that, i.e. they would expect to face a 50% chance of being in the two places. I have some subtle issues with this expectation which I will explain at another time, but broadly speaking I would expect that if a copy were made of me, and that copy were started up, I would in fact experience a branching of my experience. If I were about to be copied and I knew that the copy was going to be started up in Paris, I would expect to experience the two futures equally. Others who accept the destructive-double-copy experiment would presumably agree with this basic analysis. And for the record, my reservation is that it might be psychologically different to have two different futures for certain than to have two futures in two different branches of the multiverse. It seems to me that this follows from the ASSA, which I provisionally accept at present. It's hard to say what the perceptual difference will be, but it seems like there ought to be one. Hal
RE: Quantum accident survivor
Yes this helps, but I still find it strange to talk about offspring universes (that by definition are independent) and yet to predict outcomes we sum their complex valued wave functions. While we're on the subject of interpretation of QM, do you know about the transactional interpretation of QM? I find this more natural than Copenhagen or MWI - particularly with its explanation of spooky action at a distance. I particularly like the explanation of inertia (as arising through advanced waves sent backwards in time from the rest of the universe). This is a simple and natural explanation of the equivalence principle in general relativity. It also explains why an inertial frame of reference doesn't rotate with respect to the fixed stars. Given the time symmetry in the laws of physics, we expect small systems of elementary particles won't have an arrow of time - because that is only a feature of macro systems starting in a low entropy state. Therefore waves that travel backwards in time (ie advanced waves) must be a fundamental (inevitable) concept. Doesn't all QM strangeness arise naturally from this? Why not invoke Occam's razor and drop the idea of many worlds? - David -Original Message- From: Matt King [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, 8 November 2003 3:37 AM To: David Barrett-Lennard Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor Hello David, David Barrett-Lennard wrote: Please note that my understanding of QM is rather lame... Doesn't MWI require some interaction between branches in order to explain things like interference patterns in the two slit experiment? What does this mean for the concept of identity? - David There is a technical difference between interference and interaction. Interaction refers to two or more particles influencing each other through the exchange of force. Only particles within the same universe (within the broader multiverse) may interact with each other in this way. These particles are represented by wavefunctions in quantum mechanics, which have wavy properties like amplitude and wavelength, and so can exhibit interference just like waves on a pond. Also just like waves on a pond, particle wavefunctions can pass through each other, even annihilating completely in some places, without interacting (i.e. without exchanging force). Typically in single-particle experiments like Young's double slits, there is no interaction, and the interference arises from the sum of all the different trajectories (or worlds if you like) that the particle may have taken. In experiments involing two or more particles, frequently every possible path of each particle and every possible interaction must be considered as a separate world. Interference then takes place between these possible worlds, and must be taken into account in order to correctly make statistical predictions of how the particle system will behave. So in answer to your question, no, the MWI does not require interaction between branches to explain interference. Indeed interaction (exchange of force) is prohibited by the linearity of the Schroedinger Wave Equation (SWE), which indicates that its different possible solutions (universes) should move through each other as easily as ripples through a pond. We can only see the interference when we're not interacting with the rippling system. Once we do, the rippling system expands to include us within its folds. From that point on, there are multiple versions of us, each experiencing a different ripple, completely unable to interact with the other versions of ourselves moving through us all the time. Hope this helps, Matt. When God plays dice with the Universe, He throws every number at once...
Asunto: Re: Quantum accident survivor
Here is the question I wonder about. Is it meaningful for Eric01 to consider the concept of precisely the one Eric that he is? Or would you say that it is fundamentally impossible for a system (e.g. Eric01) to accurately conceive of the concept of itself as a completely specified and single entity, since this requires discrimination beyond its powers of perception, and, as you note, a possibly infinitely detailed description? Perhaps we could consider a simpler example: a conscious computer program, an AI. Run the same program in lock step on two computers. Suppose the program is aware of these circumstances. Is it meaningful for that program to have a concept of the particular computer that is running this program? Hal I'd say no. Here's my dark room copy/teleport paradox. (probably been done before) Imagine that there is a device that can make a perfect copy of you and make it appear in another room in another part of the world. When you enter a room in New York, the lights go out and you are copied. Your copy appears in another dark room in front of the Eiffel Tower. The original is not destroyed, and remains in New York. Ok, so you try the experiment for the first time. You enter the room in New York, the lights go out, the copy is made. You then walk to the door and expect to see the Empire State when you open it. But a second before opening the door, you hesitate. How do you know you are not the copy? If you were to open the door and find that you are in Paris, should you be surprised? I think not. It all makes sense. You are the copy. Being rational you should accept this as normal (50% chance?) and proceed to the closest café and order some croissants. The point is, for all practical purpouses (from a first person perspective), this machine is a travelling device, albeit one that works only some of the times (50 % ?). If you are a die-hard materialist, you need not be worried that you will die, because the original will not be touched. So, what do you think guys? Doesn't this suggest that we are our configuration and not our atoms? This is a challenge to all those materialists out there. One could argue that you cannot make a perfect copy due to fundamental quantum limitations. But the copy doesn't have to be p-e-r-f-e-c-t to achieve similar results. I think current theory says that you can make a pretty good quantum copy statistically.
Re: Fw: Quantum accident survivor
- Original Message - From: Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] I agree that a moment from now there will be a number of exactly equal copies. Nevertheless, I am sure I will only experience being one of them, so this is what I mean by ' me ' - the actual experiences I will have. Maybe some copy of me will win the lottery every time I play, but that does not give me reason to spend my money on it. I still believe that the probability that 'I' win is 1/10^6, even if on a multiverse sense, the probability that at least one copy of me wins is 1. The same should be the case with death if we assume a materialistic position. But you should no more expect to end up in a branch where you died than in a branch where you were never born in the first place. Consider, instead of a branching multiverse, a Star-Trek-style transporter/duplicator in a single universe, which can deconstruct you and reconstruct exact copies atom-by-atom in distant locations (assuming the error introduced by the uncertainty principle is too small to make a difference--if you don't want to grant that, you could also assume this is all happening within a deterministic computer simulation and that you are really an A.I.). To use Bruno Marchal's example, suppose this duplicator recreates two identical copies of you, one in Washington and one in Moscow. As you step into the chamber, if you believe continuity of consciousness is real in some sense and that it's meaningful to talk about the probabilities of different possible next experiences, it would probably make sense to predict from a first-person-point of view that you have about a 50% chance of finding yourself in Moscow and a 50% chance of finding yourself in Washington. On the other hand, suppose only a single reconstruction will be performed in Washington--then by the same logic, you would probably predict the probability of finding yourself in Washington is close to 100%, barring a freak accident. OK, so now go back to the scenario where you're supposed to be recreated in both Washington and Moscow, except assume that at the last moment there's a power failure in Moscow and the recreator machine fails to activate. Surely this is no different from the scenario where you were only supposed to be recreated in Washington--the fact that they *intended* to duplicate you in Moscow shouldn't make any difference, all that matters is that they didn't. But now look at another variation on the scenario, where the Moscow machine malfunctions and recreates your body missing the head. I don't think it makes sense to say you have a 50% chance of being killed in this scenario--your brain is where your consciousness comes from, and since it wasn't duplicated this is really no different from the scenario where the Moscow machine failed to activate entirely. In fact, any malfunction in the Moscow machine which leads to a duplicate that permanently lacks consciousness should be treated the same way as a scenario where I was only supposed to be recreated in Washington, in terms of the subjective probabilities. Extending this to the idea of natural duplication due to different branches of a splitting multiverse, the probability should always be 100% that my next experience is one of a universe where I have not been killed. I don't quite agree with that argument, even though I was intrigued in the first read. The reason is similar to those exposed by Hal finney in his reply to this post. These copies are not copies made by the branching of MWI. In fact, I believe that I will never experience being one of those copies. Let me see if I can support that: Suppose you don't destroy the original, but merely make the copies (and this also answers the later post from someone with the address [EMAIL PROTECTED]). If a copy of me is made *in my own universe*, I don't expect to have the experiences of the copies. Suppose I sit on this copy machine in New York, and the information of the position and velocities (within quantum uncertainty) of all particles in my body is copied. Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that the mere retrieval of this information should pose no problem to me. It should me harmless. This information then travels by wire from the reader to the reproducer. An almost perfect copy of me is made in Paris. Should I, in that moment, expect to have the first-person 50% probability of suddenly seeing the eiffel tower? I don't think anyone would support that. And in that case, you shouldn't support the notion that you could ever be a copy of yourself, since you could always NOT destroy the original in your example. Whenever you did, the original would have the first-person experience of dying, i.e., it would never be conscious again. This example is similar to that of the Schwarzenegger movie where he had a clone of himself made. Of course the making of the clone has no implication in the original person's experiences whatsoever. For instance, if
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi, I found this post really thoughtful, but I didn't quite agree. Let's see if I can argue on it: Doesn't this part: In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. If it happened that these atoms temporarily (like in a coma or anesthesy) or permanently (death) lose this quality, so will ' I '. Contradict this part: It is not useful to talk about 1st person experiences in 3rd person terms, since when we do that we lose the very thing that we want to study. Since surely one can describe a bunch of atoms with self-referential qualities in wholly objective, i.e. 1st person, terms? But I'm getting ahead of myself here.. I think we actually agree on 99% of this issue. I think the only place we disagree is on some very subtle issues regarding how one can refer to I. Let me then explicitly state that I am a materialist and a functionalist with regard to consciousness. Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. Here I think you're making an assumption. You are certainly not ALL the copies, but then it doesn't follow that you are only 1. You could be a fuzzy set of copies that have experiences so similar that they cannot be told apart. That is, they cannot be told apart yet. Unnoticeable differences eventually can percolate up and make a noticeable difference, or they can be made noticeable by making more sensitive observations. Yes, I am making an assumption, and working through it. The assumption is that there is nothing external to the physical body to account for consciousness. I totally agree with this assumption. It's the one and only one part that I disagree with, to this extent: You may, if you wish, decide to refer to one and only one universe and to the Eric within that universe. That is, you can stipulate that the Eric you are referring to is a completely specified entity. But to do so meaningfully, you would need to take some sort of god-like view of the plenitude, and *actually specify* the Eric you're talking about. Otherwise how do you know what you are referring to? Just saying I or one and only one does not do the job. (Like Wittgenstein's man who says I know how tall I am! and proves it by putting his hand on top of his head.) Let's say that you were able to completely specify one Eric, by giving a (possibly infinitely) long description. Let's call the entity you have thus specified Eric01. Our point of difference seems to be this: You believe that when Eric01 says I, he is referring precisely to Eric01. I believe that when Eric01 says I, he is referring to the entire ensemble of Erics who are identical to Eric01 in all the ways Eric01 is capable of detecting. Because each member of this ensemble is also saying I, and meaning the same thing by it. Now you would say that since each completely specified Eric is in fact different, each one has a different consciousness. Here is where our disagreement about _reference_ is relevant to QTI. I definitely agree with you that if you mean to completely specify one Eric when you say I, then it is almost certain that that Eric will die in one of these dangerous situations. But let's now specify TWO Erics: Eric01 and Eric02. They are indistinguishable from each other, and indeed their universes are identical, save for a tiny fluctuation which will miraculously save Eric02's life tomorrow, but doom Eric01. If Eric01 and Eric02 mean the same thing when they refer to I the instant before the death-event, then that I is going to survive, even though Eric01 does not. If they refer to different things, then there is no question of I surviving; it is simply the case that Eric01 dies and Eric02 lives. Let me stress that I do not think anything like Eric01 and Eric02 'share' a 'consciousness' that reaches between their universes. It's simply that if there is no way for Eric01 to know that he is Eric01 rather than Eric02, then there is no difference between them with respect to their consciousness. I don't quite agree with your point of view, and the reason is maybe similar to our disagreement in my statement: It is not useful to talk about 1st person experiences in 3rd person terms, since when we do that we lose the very thing that we want to study. You are trying to identify ' me ' by somehowpointing it out from the pool of similar entities in a God's perspective. That may be even impossible, if there is no God, but that is another discussion. The thing is that I find it misleading anyway. I don't need to point out who ' I ' am. I am concerned with my first-person experiences, and that is easy to determine without even
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Saibal Mitra wrote: To get the effect you were suggesting would require another type of SSA, about which I have complete failure of imagination. I think it is similar. You have a set of all universes which we identify with descriptions or programs. Embedded in these descriptions are descriptions of self aware substructures. A measure on the set of all programs defines a measure on the set of all substructures. I then say: ''That's all there is''. The proponents of RSSA go further and postulate new rules about what the next experience of a SAS should be. What you are actually doing is promoting our experience of the flowing of time to fundamental law. However, this is something that should be derived from more fundamental concepts. Saibal The flowing of subjective time is proposed as necessary for conscious observation. In order for information to exist, there must be a difference between two states. In order to perceive that difference, there must be at least one dimension along which the observer must move to experience that difference. Hence time. Yes it is an assumption (or postulate). But hardly ad hoc. Cheers A/Prof Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 () Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centrehttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Russel,
If you view the "observer-moments" as transitions rather than states,
then there is no need for requiring a time dimension. Each
observer-moments carries with it its own subjective feeling of time.
Different observer-moments can form vast networks without any time
requirement.
Saibal
IMHO the main difference between ASSA and RSSA is that measure is
assumed to be absolute in ASSA and relative in RSSA. Accidental or
intended death in ASSA corresponds to an objective decrease in measure
(as seen by first or third person). In RSSA death is accompanied by a
decrease in the measure of a first person as seen by a 3rd person.
However, measure of a first person as seen by a first person remains
constant.
Because of this drastic difference, ASSA and RSSA supporters are led to
widely different views of Quantum immortality.
George
Russell Standish wrote:
Saibal Mitra wrote:
To get the effect you were suggesting would require another type of
SSA, about which I have complete failure of imagination.
I think it is similar. You have a set of all universes which we identify
with descriptions or programs. Embedded in these descriptions are
descriptions of self aware substructures. A measure on the set of all
programs defines a measure on the set of all substructures. I then say:
''That's all there is''. The proponents of RSSA go further and postulate new
rules about what the next experience of a SAS should be. What you are
actually doing is promoting our experience of the flowing of time to
fundamental law. However, this is something that should be derived from more
fundamental concepts.
Saibal
The flowing of subjective time is proposed as necessary for conscious
observation. In order for information to exist, there must be a
difference between two states. In order to perceive that difference,
there must be at least one dimension along which the observer must
move to experience that difference. Hence time.
Yes it is an assumption (or postulate). But hardly ad hoc.
Cheers
A/Prof Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile)
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 (")
Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Room 2075, Red Centrehttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
Re: Quantum accident survivor
What do you mean by *entirely equal*? - Original Message - From: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 5:19 AM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor On Tuesday, November 4, 2003, at 10:47 AM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. The other copies are just similar configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared the same history, prior to a given point in time.* I would consider these other copies entirely equal to myself IF AND ONLY IF they are succeeding RSSA observer-moments. Glossary references : ) RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you should consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled from among all observer-moments which come immediately after your current observer-moment and belong to the same observer.
Re: Quantum accident survivor
I mean the absolutely exact same David Kwinter or Eric Cavalcanti as was the moment before. see below for further comment On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 01:33 PM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: What do you mean by *entirely equal*? - Original Message - From: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 5:19 AM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor On Tuesday, November 4, 2003, at 10:47 AM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. The other copies are just similar configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared the same history, prior to a given point in time.* I would consider these other copies entirely equal to myself IF AND ONLY IF they are succeeding RSSA observer-moments. Glossary references : ) RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you should consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled from among all observer-moments which come immediately after your current observer-moment and belong to the same observer. In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. If it happened that these atoms temporarily (like in a coma or anesthesy) or permanently (death) lose this quality, so will ' I '. I respectfully disagree - parallel universes are equally REAL- you will still be you! Quantum branches stem from the same exact atoms in the versions of us that die in tons of possible accidents everyday.
Fw: Quantum accident survivor
Hi, - Original Message - From: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] I mean the absolutely exact same David Kwinter or Eric Cavalcanti as was the moment before. I agree that a moment from now there will be a number of exactly equal copies. Nevertheless, I am sure I will only experience being one of them, so this is what I mean by ' me ' - the actual experiences I will have. Maybe some copy of me will win the lottery every time I play, but that does not give me reason to spend my money on it. I still believe that the probability that 'I' win is 1/10^6, even if on a multiverse sense, the probability that at least one copy of me wins is 1. The same should be the case with death if we assume a materialistic position. What do you mean by *entirely equal*? - Original Message - From: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 5:19 AM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor On Tuesday, November 4, 2003, at 10:47 AM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. The other copies are just similar configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared the same history, prior to a given point in time.* I would consider these other copies entirely equal to myself IF AND ONLY IF they are succeeding RSSA observer-moments. Glossary references : ) RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you should consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled from among all observer-moments which come immediately after your current observer-moment and belong to the same observer. In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. If it happened that these atoms temporarily (like in a coma or anesthesy) or permanently (death) lose this quality, so will ' I '. I respectfully disagree - parallel universes are equally REAL- you will still be you! Quantum branches stem from the same exact atoms in the versions of us that die in tons of possible accidents everyday. I believe that they do in fact exist, and that they do stem from the same atoms. But they are not 'me', in the sense that I don't see through their eyes. That's what matters when talking about Immortality. We want to know if WE are immortal - i.e., if our first-person experience is eternal - not if SOME copy of us will survive. What QTI assumes is that ' I ' cannot be one of the dead copies - i.e., that the dead copies should be excluded from the sampling pool. But that is a too strong assumption, which I haven't seen any justification for. Surely my next observer-moment should be alive or it would not be an observer. But what makes us believe that 'we' - our first-person individuality - must necessarily have a next observer-moment in the first place? That is the assumption that does not seem well-based. If non-observing states are prohibited, then we should never expect to be in a coma, or anesthesized, for instance. Whenever you would be submitted to a surgery, you would see that the doctor somehow failed to apply the anesthesy correctly, and you would have a *very* conscious experience. -Eric.
Re: Fw: Quantum accident survivor
On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 07:56 PM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: Hi, - Original Message - From: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] I mean the absolutely exact same David Kwinter or Eric Cavalcanti as was the moment before. I agree that a moment from now there will be a number of exactly equal copies. Nevertheless, I am sure I will only experience being one of them, so this is what I mean by ' me ' - the actual experiences I will have. Maybe some copy of me will win the lottery every time I play, but that does not give me reason to spend my money on it. I still believe that the probability that 'I' win is 1/10^6, even if on a multiverse sense, the probability that at least one copy of me wins is 1. The same should be the case with death if we assume a materialistic position. What do you mean by *entirely equal*? - Original Message - From: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 5:19 AM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor On Tuesday, November 4, 2003, at 10:47 AM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. The other copies are just similar configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared the same history, prior to a given point in time.* I would consider these other copies entirely equal to myself IF AND ONLY IF they are succeeding RSSA observer-moments. Glossary references : ) RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you should consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled from among all observer-moments which come immediately after your current observer-moment and belong to the same observer. In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. If it happened that these atoms temporarily (like in a coma or anesthesy) or permanently (death) lose this quality, so will ' I '. I respectfully disagree - parallel universes are equally REAL- you will still be you! Quantum branches stem from the same exact atoms in the versions of us that die in tons of possible accidents everyday. I believe that they do in fact exist, and that they do stem from the same atoms. But they are not 'me', in the sense that I don't see through their eyes. I still think that's you, especially if you just died and they lived on.. but now we're just beating a dead horse. That's what matters when talking about Immortality. We want to know if WE are immortal - i.e., if our first-person experience is eternal - not if SOME copy of us will survive. What QTI assumes is that ' I ' cannot be one of the dead copies - i.e., that the dead copies should be excluded from the sampling pool. But that is a too strong assumption, which I haven't seen any justification for. Surely my next observer-moment should be alive or it would not be an observer. But what makes us believe that 'we' - our first-person individuality - must necessarily have a next observer-moment in the first place? That is the assumption that does not seem well-based. If non-observing states are prohibited, then we should never expect to be in a coma, or anesthesized, for instance. Whenever you would be submitted to a surgery, you would see that the doctor somehow failed to apply the anesthesy correctly, and you would have a *very* conscious experience. -Eric. I think that in the case of anesthesia or any other unconscious state the true or false outcome of whether we regain consciousness with the passage of time dictates the sampling pool. The collective fates of the parallel copies of me under anesthesia aren't stricken from the sample because we must necessarily have a next observer-moment - however this is a concept which I am uncertain about.
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hello David, David Barrett-Lennard wrote: Please note that my understanding of QM is rather lame... Doesn't MWI require some interaction between branches in order to explain things like interference patterns in the two slit experiment? What does this mean for the concept of identity? - David There is a technical difference between interference and interaction. Interaction refers to two or more particles influencing each other through the exchange of force. Only particles within the same universe (within the broader multiverse) may interact with each other in this way. These particles are represented by wavefunctions in quantum mechanics, which have wavy properties like amplitude and wavelength, and so can exhibit interference just like waves on a pond. Also just like waves on a pond, particle wavefunctions can pass through each other, even annihilating completely in some places, without interacting (i.e. without exchanging force). Typically in single-particle experiments like Young's double slits, there is no interaction, and the interference arises from the sum of all the different trajectories (or worlds if you like) that the particle may have taken. In experiments involing two or more particles, frequently every possible path of each particle and every possible interaction must be considered as a separate world. Interference then takes place between these possible worlds, and must be taken into account in order to correctly make statistical predictions of how the particle system will behave. So in answer to your question, no, the MWI does not require interaction between branches to explain interference. Indeed interaction (exchange of force) is prohibited by the linearity of the Schroedinger Wave Equation (SWE), which indicates that its different possible solutions (universes) should move through each other as easily as ripples through a pond. We can only see the interference when we're not interacting with the rippling system. Once we do, the rippling system expands to include us within its folds. From that point on, there are multiple versions of us, each experiencing a different ripple, completely unable to interact with the other versions of ourselves moving through us all the time. Hope this helps, Matt. When God plays dice with the Universe, He throws every number at once...
Re: Fw: Quantum accident survivor
Jesse Mazer writes: OK, so now go back to the scenario where you're supposed to be recreated in both Washington and Moscow, except assume that at the last moment there's a power failure in Moscow and the recreator machine fails to activate. Surely this is no different from the scenario where you were only supposed to be recreated in Washington--the fact that they *intended* to duplicate you in Moscow shouldn't make any difference, all that matters is that they didn't Extending this to the idea of natural duplication due to different branches of a splitting multiverse, the probability should always be 100% that my next experience is one of a universe where I have not been killed. I question this analogy. There is an important numerical distinction between duplication by matter recreation and by quantum splitting. The former increases your measure, while the latter does not. In the case of successful duplication, your measure doubles. If the duplication fails and you end up with only one copy, your measure stays the same. But if you flip a quantum coin and end up in two branches, your measure is constant. If you die in one of the branches, your measure is halved. Therefore I don't think you can take conclusions from the one case and apply them to the other. You wouldn't say that failing to double your money is the same as halving it. Measure is important. It is what guides our life every day. We constantly make decisions so as to maximize the measure of good outcomes, as nearly as we can judge. I don't think we can neglect it in these thought experiments. Hal
Re: Fw: Quantum accident survivor
Hal Finney wrote: Jesse Mazer writes: OK, so now go back to the scenario where you're supposed to be recreated in both Washington and Moscow, except assume that at the last moment there's a power failure in Moscow and the recreator machine fails to activate. Surely this is no different from the scenario where you were only supposed to be recreated in Washington--the fact that they *intended* to duplicate you in Moscow shouldn't make any difference, all that matters is that they didn't Extending this to the idea of natural duplication due to different branches of a splitting multiverse, the probability should always be 100% that my next experience is one of a universe where I have not been killed. I question this analogy. There is an important numerical distinction between duplication by matter recreation and by quantum splitting. The former increases your measure, while the latter does not. In the case of successful duplication, your measure doubles. If the duplication fails and you end up with only one copy, your measure stays the same. But if you flip a quantum coin and end up in two branches, your measure is constant. If you die in one of the branches, your measure is halved. Therefore I don't think you can take conclusions from the one case and apply them to the other. You wouldn't say that failing to double your money is the same as halving it. Measure is important. It is what guides our life every day. We constantly make decisions so as to maximize the measure of good outcomes, as nearly as we can judge. I don't think we can neglect it in these thought experiments. What type of measure are you talking about? I had gotten the impression reading this list that the measure on everything, however it's defined--all possible computations, for example--was an open question, and that different TOEs might disagree. Are you talking about a type of measure specific to the MWI of quantum mechanics? I thought there was supposed to be a problem with this due to the no preferred basis problem. In any case, if there is some sort of theory that would give objective truths about first-person probabilities in splitting experiments (and I'm not sure if you believe in continuity of consciousness or that such a theory is out there waiting to be found), then if first-person probabilities disagree with measure, however it's defined, I think most people would care more about maximizing the first-person probabilities of good outcomes as opposed to measure. The main reason to care about measure would be for altruistic reasons, that you don't want friends and families to have a high probability of suffering because they see you die, but even this could be stated in terms of maximizing the subjective probability of happy outcomes for other people. Jesse Mazer _ Is your computer infected with a virus? Find out with a FREE computer virus scan from McAfee. Take the FreeScan now! http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
Re: Fw: Quantum accident survivor
Jesse Mazer wrote: Hal Finney wrote: Measure is important. It is what guides our life every day. We constantly make decisions so as to maximize the measure of good outcomes, as nearly as we can judge. I don't think we can neglect it in these thought experiments. What type of measure are you talking about? I had gotten the impression reading this list that the measure on everything, however it's defined--all possible computations, for example--was an open question, and that different TOEs might disagree. That's true, but the important point is to consider why we are searching for a measure, or why we even think there might be a measure that is relevant to our experience. The reason is because our own existence is not chaotic, but ordered. Presumably there are observers who see universes that are much more chaotic than ours, universes where there are no natural laws but the observers just manage to hang together somehow. Why do we see a lawful universe? And in our own universe, why do more probable things happen more often than less probable ones? It's not tautological! Remember our discussion of the magical universe where dice always come up 6 but everything else works OK. Why don't we live in one of those universes? The same thing happens in the MWI. If you send almost-vertically- polarized photons through a vertical polarizer then 99 times out of 100 they go through. Each time, the universe splits into two branches. After 100 photons, only one universe in 2^100 of them will see the right statistics. By sheer numbers of universes, almost all of them will see about 50% go through. Why aren't we in one of those universes? The answer to all of these puzzles must be that fundamentally, some universes are more likely to be experienced than others. This is the concept which we refer to as measure. It is a weighting factor that somehow must make some universes more important in the grand scheme of things. You are right that there are many different ideas about how measure works and how it could apply, in both the MWI and in the larger multiverse. But this uncertainty doesn't mean that we can reject or ignore the concept of measure. Its reality is forced upon us by every observation we make. Are you talking about a type of measure specific to the MWI of quantum mechanics? I thought there was supposed to be a problem with this due to the no preferred basis problem. The proper manner for incorporating measure into the MWI is indeed an open question at this point. The simplest is to just introduce it ad hoc and define the measure of a branch as the square of its amplitude. Others claim that they can derive this from more elementary and/or obvious assumptions. But it's got to be there. In any case, if there is some sort of theory that would give objective truths about first-person probabilities in splitting experiments (and I'm not sure if you believe in continuity of consciousness or that such a theory is out there waiting to be found), Well, I do believe in continuity of consciousness, modulo the issues of measure. That is, I think some continuations would be more likely to be experienced than others. For example, if you started up 9 computers each running one copy of me (all running the same program so they stay in sync), and one computer running a different copy of me, my current theory is that I would expect to experience the first version with 90% probability. However I don't see any way at this point to test this model. then if first-person probabilities disagree with measure, however it's defined, I think most people would care more about maximizing the first-person probabilities of good outcomes as opposed to measure. Our experiences every day prove that first person probabilities do correspond to measure, but that is because we define measure to correspond to what we experience. That is where the amplitude-squared formula for probability came from in QM; it is there to make theory match experience. The main reason to care about measure would be for altruistic reasons, that you don't want friends and families to have a high probability of suffering because they see you die, but even this could be stated in terms of maximizing the subjective probability of happy outcomes for other people. It seems that for QS to be an attractive option, you have to believe that measure applies all the time, except when you die. What is the justification for making an exception, when all the rest of the time you act as if you believe in measure? You would take a good bet rather than a bad bet, but if your death is involved you'll stop caring? Hal
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Russell wrote: The empirical problem with the ASSA is that under most reasonable proposals for the absolute measure, observer moments corresponding to younger people have higher measure than older people. Whilst the reference class issue puts a lower bound on how old you would expect to be, it seems unlikely that children aged 4 or 5 could be considered excluded from the reference class - I can remeber being conscious at that age, and children of that age seem conscious from the outside. I don't understand why measure should decrease with the age of a person. Of course, once you take into account the possibility of dying then you will see a decrease. But ignoring that, the measure should be conserved. The measure for being in a particular state at age 30 should be much smaller than the measure for being in a particular state at age 4, but after summation over all possible states you can be in, you should find that the total measure is conserved. The second problem with the ASSA is lack of subjective time. I have always argued that subjective time is necessary to experience anything at all. This is a direct consequence of computationalism, but I think is more basic than computationalism (since I don't really count myself as a computationalist). Let's define observer moment as a program in some computational state (maybe it is better to consider programs in different computational states as distinct programs). That program must have information stored in itself about past events and must have a sense of a subjective time. Now I don't expect to convince you of this - I never succeeded in persuading Jacques Mallah. However I do want to point out that even with the ASSA, one should not expect to experience survival of the WTC with some loss of memories. The most likely outcome is another observer moment with high measure - namely being a newborn baby. In other words, what you'd experience is reincarnation. I think that if you take into account the ''entropic'' effect of there being more states for you to be in at higher age, then you can end up at a large range of ages. To get the effect you were suggesting would require another type of SSA, about which I have complete failure of imagination. I think it is similar. You have a set of all universes which we identify with descriptions or programs. Embedded in these descriptions are descriptions of self aware substructures. A measure on the set of all programs defines a measure on the set of all substructures. I then say: ''That's all there is''. The proponents of RSSA go further and postulate new rules about what the next experience of a SAS should be. What you are actually doing is promoting our experience of the flowing of time to fundamental law. However, this is something that should be derived from more fundamental concepts. Saibal
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi, Doesn't this part: In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms happen to constitute a system that has self-referential qualities that we call consciousness. If it happened that these atoms temporarily (like in a coma or anesthesy) or permanently (death) lose this quality, so will ' I '. Contradict this part: It is not useful to talk about 1st person experiences in 3rd person terms, since when we do that we lose the very thing that we want to study. Since surely one can describe a bunch of atoms with self-referential qualities in wholly objective, i.e. 1st person, terms? But I'm getting ahead of myself here.. I think we actually agree on 99% of this issue. I think the only place we disagree is on some very subtle issues regarding how one can refer to I. Let me then explicitly state that I am a materialist and a functionalist with regard to consciousness. Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. Here I think you're making an assumption. You are certainly not ALL the copies, but then it doesn't follow that you are only 1. You could be a fuzzy set of copies that have experiences so similar that they cannot be told apart. That is, they cannot be told apart yet. Unnoticeable differences eventually can percolate up and make a noticeable difference, or they can be made noticeable by making more sensitive observations. Yes, I am making an assumption, and working through it. The assumption is that there is nothing external to the physical body to account for consciousness. I totally agree with this assumption. It's the one and only one part that I disagree with, to this extent: You may, if you wish, decide to refer to one and only one universe and to the Eric within that universe. That is, you can stipulate that the Eric you are referring to is a completely specified entity. But to do so meaningfully, you would need to take some sort of god-like view of the plenitude, and *actually specify* the Eric you're talking about. Otherwise how do you know what you are referring to? Just saying I or one and only one does not do the job. (Like Wittgenstein's man who says I know how tall I am! and proves it by putting his hand on top of his head.) Let's say that you were able to completely specify one Eric, by giving a (possibly infinitely) long description. Let's call the entity you have thus specified Eric01. Our point of difference seems to be this: You believe that when Eric01 says I, he is referring precisely to Eric01. I believe that when Eric01 says I, he is referring to the entire ensemble of Erics who are identical to Eric01 in all the ways Eric01 is capable of detecting. Because each member of this ensemble is also saying I, and meaning the same thing by it. Now you would say that since each completely specified Eric is in fact different, each one has a different consciousness. Here is where our disagreement about _reference_ is relevant to QTI. I definitely agree with you that if you mean to completely specify one Eric when you say I, then it is almost certain that that Eric will die in one of these dangerous situations. But let's now specify TWO Erics: Eric01 and Eric02. They are indistinguishable from each other, and indeed their universes are identical, save for a tiny fluctuation which will miraculously save Eric02's life tomorrow, but doom Eric01. If Eric01 and Eric02 mean the same thing when they refer to I the instant before the death-event, then that I is going to survive, even though Eric01 does not. If they refer to different things, then there is no question of I surviving; it is simply the case that Eric01 dies and Eric02 lives. Let me stress that I do not think anything like Eric01 and Eric02 'share' a 'consciousness' that reaches between their universes. It's simply that if there is no way for Eric01 to know that he is Eric01 rather than Eric02, then there is no difference between them with respect to their consciousness. A particular atom interacts with the atoms or other particles in its universe only (interference is not interaction). Therefore a set of atoms do the same. All experience comes from the interactons that take place in a particular universe. There are certainly a set of universes so similar that cannot be told apart. But after any event (like a particle's interaction with another, or someone's death at a larger scale) these universes have decohered enough so that you cannot equalize them anymore. Yes, they have decohered with respect to some events. But if this no cul-de-sac conjecture holds, then there must be some events that still can happen, with respect to which some set of universes has not yet decohered, that would lead at least one member of an I-continuum away from the
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Pete Carlton writes: Let's say that you were able to completely specify one Eric, by giving a (possibly infinitely) long description. Let's call the entity you have thus specified Eric01. Our point of difference seems to be this: You believe that when Eric01 says I, he is referring precisely to Eric01. I believe that when Eric01 says I, he is referring to the entire ensemble of Erics who are identical to Eric01 in all the ways Eric01 is capable of detecting. Because each member of this ensemble is also saying I, and meaning the same thing by it. Here is the question I wonder about. Is it meaningful for Eric01 to consider the concept of precisely the one Eric that he is? Or would you say that it is fundamentally impossible for a system (e.g. Eric01) to accurately conceive of the concept of itself as a completely specified and single entity, since this requires discrimination beyond its powers of perception, and, as you note, a possibly infinitely detailed description? Perhaps we could consider a simpler example: a conscious computer program, an AI. Run the same program in lock step on two computers. Suppose the program is aware of these circumstances. Is it meaningful for that program to have a concept of the particular computer that is running this program? Hal
Re: Quantum accident survivor
On Tuesday, November 4, 2003, at 10:47 AM, Eric Cavalcanti wrote: Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. The other copies are just similar configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared the same history, prior to a given point in time.* I would consider these other copies entirely equal to myself IF AND ONLY IF they are succeeding RSSA observer-moments. Glossary references : ) RSSA - The Relative Self-Sampling Assumption, which says that you should consider your next observer-moment to be randomly sampled from among all observer-moments which come immediately after your current observer-moment and belong to the same observer.
Re: Quantum accident survivor
But I guess the problems in this discussion is the lack of precise definition of the terms and of the philosophical framework. This is where I most often feel like speaking up on this amazing list. I don't have enough math to really understand things like the Speed Prior, etc., but I do think that there are hidden philosophical assumptions (about consciousness, especially) behind many of the approaches here. First, in this discussion I am always assuming MWI. In a materialistic framework - with nothing external to the physical world - it is hard to define personal identity if we take the MWI in account. I agree; and in fact it is hard no matter what our favorite metaphysical theory says, MWI or otherwise. I is a very tough philosophical problem. But in this case there is clearly no 'soul' or anything other than the configuration of atoms to describe what we call 'ourselves'. In any branching of the multiverse there are multiple copies of my body being produced. Nevertheless, I only experience one of those states. Therefore, I guess the best I could say is that ' I ' is one of the instances of this configuration. When it becomes difficult to say things about I, I find it helps to attempt to cast the entire situation into 3rd-person terms. I would say here that under MWI (and UD, and the rest..) there is a ensemble of entities more or less similar to Eric. Some of these are different enough that they could be considered different people (such as the Eric who inherited a billion dollars when he was 12 years old), some of them quite similar (such as the Eric who lives where the ambient room temperature is 2 degrees colder) and some of them are so similar (different only temporarily or unnoticeably, or at the quantum level) that they can't be told apart. Individual Erics within the ensemble can be seen to actually each consist in a fuzzy set of indistinguishable Erics. The boundaries between sets demarcate where differences at the finest-grained levels start to make a difference at levels that an Eric can notice, given the kinds of observations he's making. The boundaries being fuzzy means just that there is no fact of the matter which other copies are really you and which are not. This is not a problem! Well, it is a problem if you insist on some definition of I, like that of Descartes, that rules this out; then you must argue for that definition. Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. Here I think you're making an assumption. You are certainly not ALL the copies, but then it doesn't follow that you are only 1. You could be a fuzzy set of copies that have experiences so similar that they cannot be told apart. That is, they cannot be told apart yet. Unnoticeable differences eventually can percolate up and make a noticeable difference, or they can be made noticeable by making more sensitive observations. snip In some of these branching universes, this configuration of atoms that I call 'me' will not show signs of what we call life anymore. Notice that death is no different from any other branching in the multiverse in a materialistic point of view. There is no 'soul' being detached from the body or anything else. So there is no reason to suppose that my personal experiences will not be, as before, one of any of the future configurations of these atoms that I call 'me', including those where this configuration is a 'dead' state. In particular, after a severe car crash, most of these will be dead. Notice again that 'dead' has, in this paradigm, no supernatural meaning, it means nothing more than 'that body does not show vital functions anymore'. In particular, that body has no sensorial experiences anymore. But there is yet no reason to suppose that I cannot be one of those bodies. Therefore, in this framework, in the case of a severe car crash, the probability that I have no more future sensorial experiences - i.e., that I am dead for good (or bad?) - is simply the measure of universes where my body is dead. When some people suppose that our next experience is necessarily one of the alive ones, they are tacitly assuming a dualistic position. I think they are indeed making an assumption, but not necessarily a dualistic one. They are making the assumption that there is always a way out - that in every set of I's who encounter a dangerous situation, there is always at least one that has a continuation. There is no need to postulate some soul leaping from one body-copy to another. If a large set of Eric-equivalents encounter a really dangerous situation, most will not continue, but as long as this assumption holds: (The set of reasonably similar Eric-equivalents) contains (The set of Erics who are unnoticeably different from you) which contains (The set of
RE: Quantum accident survivor
I have a feeling some of these points of view are not falsifiable (and therefore somewhat meaningless). An individual that is about to experience a QM immortality episode can't perform additional experiments to answer (philosophical) questions about his identity. The only observable is the survivor who can talk about who he is and what he remembers. Please note that my understanding of QM is rather lame... Doesn't MWI require some interaction between branches in order to explain things like interference patterns in the two slit experiment? What does this mean for the concept of identity? - David
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Not much, because of the effect of decoherence. David Barrett-Lennard wrote: I have a feeling some of these points of view are not falsifiable (and therefore somewhat meaningless). An individual that is about to experience a QM immortality episode can't perform additional experiments to answer (philosophical) questions about his identity. The only observable is the survivor who can talk about who he is and what he remembers. Please note that my understanding of QM is rather lame... Doesn't MWI require some interaction between branches in order to explain things like interference patterns in the two slit experiment? What does this mean for the concept of identity? - David A/Prof Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 () Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centrehttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
Re: Quantum accident survivor
This issue was canvassed under the name no cul-de-sac conjecture in the list. Bruno claims to have proved this conjecture in his modal world logic. I tried to do this using a more conventional formulation of QM - it seemed to be related to unitarity of quantum processes - but I have to say I haven't succeeded in this. An interesting point was made that black holes exhibit nonunitary evolution, which has implications for those wishing an exit from quantum immortality :) Cheers Pete Carlton wrote: If a large set of Eric-equivalents encounter a really dangerous situation, most will not continue, but as long as this assumption holds: (The set of reasonably similar Eric-equivalents) contains (The set of Erics who are unnoticeably different from you) which contains (The set of Erics who have a living continuation after event X) which has at least one member. then you will not experience yourself dying. I think this is how materialism can accomodate QTI. I do think a better attack on QTI is that the final part of the above assumption (the last set has at least one member) isn't well-argued for. Even if these Eric-sets are infinite there may not be an Eric who survives, say, the sun exploding; just as the infinite set of composite numbers doesn't contain any primes. A/Prof Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 () Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centrehttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi, Sorry for the late reply to this: From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can assume anything you like! Seriously, we have had extensive and occasionally acrimonious debates on this topic in the past, without much success or resolution. I think that we have no good foundation for establishing the truth or falsehood of any theory of identity in absolute terms. Instead, these issues must be considered matters of taste. You can indeed choose to believe that as long as any version of yourself continues in any universe, then you will consider yourself to still be alive. You could also choose the contrary, that if the total measure (ie. probability) of your survival is extremely small, that you are dead. Hal Finney - Original Message - From: Frank [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi there, Hal, one nitpick about your comments: In the case of Quantum Immortality, I don't think it's a matter of taste, or interpretation. It is a theory that every one of us can and ultimately will test. Granted, we will only be aware of a positive result, but, nevertheless... cheers, Frank I agree with you. The QTI is after all experimentally testable, and of direct importance for all of us. But I guess the problems in this discussion is the lack of precise definition of the terms and of the philosophical framework. First, in this discussion I am always assuming MWI. In a materialistic framework - with nothing external to the physical world - it is hard to define personal identity if we take the MWI in account. But in this case there is clearly no 'soul' or anything other than the configuration of atoms to describe what we call 'ourselves'. In any branching of the multiverse there are multiple copies of my body being produced. Nevertheless, I only experience one of those states. Therefore, I guess the best I could say is that ' I ' is one of the instances of this configuration. Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. The other copies are just similar configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared the same history, prior to a given point in time.* In some of these branching universes, this configuration of atoms that I call 'me' will not show signs of what we call life anymore. Notice that death is no different from any other branching in the multiverse in a materialistic point of view. There is no 'soul' being detached from the body or anything else. So there is no reason to suppose that my personal experiences will not be, as before, one of any of the future configurations of these atoms that I call 'me', including those where this configuration is a 'dead' state. In particular, after a severe car crash, most of these will be dead. Notice again that 'dead' has, in this paradigm, no supernatural meaning, it means nothing more than 'that body does not show vital functions anymore'. In particular, that body has no sensorial experiences anymore. But there is yet no reason to suppose that I cannot be one of those bodies. Therefore, in this framework, in the case of a severe car crash, the probability that I have no more future sensorial experiences - i.e., that I am dead for good (or bad?) - is simply the measure of universes where my body is dead. When some people suppose that our next experience is necessarily one of the alive ones, they are tacitly assuming a dualistic position. But if we decide to accept a dualistic framework QTI would probably be the least probable scenario. We could as well say that the next experience would be of many other kinds: in other bodies, reincarnation, or any transcedental experience like going to heaven - there is no reason to decide between these. For instance, QTI poses a difficulty for the dualist: at each moment, if QTI and is true, an infinity of 'souls' is merging into one single body, since this body is dying at an infinity of other universes. How does this square with the common definition of a 'soul' as an immaterial *individuality*? -Eric.
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hello, A few comments on your post. If I interpret correctly, you are basically distinguishing dualistic interpretations from a materialistic ones. When we talk of a materialistic viewpoint, what *are* we talking about? Is it our vague conception that everything is made of atoms what constitutes a materialistic view of the universe? As we all know, not even the deepest theoretical physicists know what the hell they are talking about, in a fundamental sense, when they talk about matter, energy, quarks, gravity, etc. They only describe the result of measurements and abstract mental models that somehow, accommodate or shadow the results of these measurements. Where does this leave dualism? If the material world is just a mental construct of man, created to accommodate our sensorial input, there is suddenly no more dual in dualism, only experience, or whatever we want to call our sensorial life. So, one can hypothesize that there is no need to define a mysterious material basis for what is just sensorial experience. If windows 98 where considered conscious AI, would a version of windows 98 running on two different computers be one entity or two? Why would the universe create two souls, when one will suffice? If we consider ourselves to be just a sequence of states in a mathematical universe (a fairly modest hypothesis), the only condition for us having a sense of identity from one state to the next is not necessarily to pertain to the same material substrate (which may not even exist), but that the two states be related by some continuity, or memory. After all, my personal viewpoint always prefers to stick with me instead of switching back and forth with my dog, since his states our not a continuation of mine, memory-wise. If this interpretation is correct, it can be argued that we'll never be in the null state of death, because death is not a state which will remember any previous me. So, it follows that if there exists a plausible state or configuration which is a valid continuation, memory-wise, of my current state, then my personal viewpoint, will prefer this path over the death state. ergo, immortality !. PD: definition of viewpoint: an artificial construct to help visualize the succession of states that constitute my identity, - Original Message - From: Eric Cavalcanti [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 9:47 AM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor Hi, Sorry for the late reply to this: From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can assume anything you like! Seriously, we have had extensive and occasionally acrimonious debates on this topic in the past, without much success or resolution. I think that we have no good foundation for establishing the truth or falsehood of any theory of identity in absolute terms. Instead, these issues must be considered matters of taste. You can indeed choose to believe that as long as any version of yourself continues in any universe, then you will consider yourself to still be alive. You could also choose the contrary, that if the total measure (ie. probability) of your survival is extremely small, that you are dead. Hal Finney - Original Message - From: Frank [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi there, Hal, one nitpick about your comments: In the case of Quantum Immortality, I don't think it's a matter of taste, or interpretation. It is a theory that every one of us can and ultimately will test. Granted, we will only be aware of a positive result, but, nevertheless... cheers, Frank I agree with you. The QTI is after all experimentally testable, and of direct importance for all of us. But I guess the problems in this discussion is the lack of precise definition of the terms and of the philosophical framework. First, in this discussion I am always assuming MWI. In a materialistic framework - with nothing external to the physical world - it is hard to define personal identity if we take the MWI in account. But in this case there is clearly no 'soul' or anything other than the configuration of atoms to describe what we call 'ourselves'. In any branching of the multiverse there are multiple copies of my body being produced. Nevertheless, I only experience one of those states. Therefore, I guess the best I could say is that ' I ' is one of the instances of this configuration. Let me stress this point: *I am, for all practical purposes, one and only one specific configuration of atoms in a specific universe. I could never say that ' I ' is ALL the copies, since I NEVER experience what the other copies experience. The other copies are just similar configurations of atoms in other universes, which shared the same history, prior to a given point in time.* In some of these branching universes, this configuration of atoms that I call 'me' will not show signs of what we call life anymore. Notice that death is no different
Re: Quantum accident survivor
I have always found the RSSA rather strange. From the discussion between Mallah and Maloney: http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m1362.html one must first define you. There are three reasonable possibilities in the ASSA: 1. One particular observer-moment. You have no past and no future. 2. A set of observer moments linked by computation. With this definition the problem is that you may be two (or more) people at the same time! The advantage with this definition is that one can predict effective probabilities of what you will see at other times similar to what you want to do with the RSSA. Thing is, if there is nonconservation of measure, the predictions start to differ from the RSSA about things like how old you should expect to be. Remember, testable prediction do NOT depend on definitions, so it is often better to use def. #1 to prevent such confusion. 3. A particular implementation of an extended computation. Similar to 2; allows death, when that implementation ends. I prefer this or #1. #1 seems the most reasonable option to me. You do away with the reference class problem. Also it is fully consistent with ''normal'' physics. Saibal - Oorspronkelijk bericht - Van: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: Sunday, November 02, 2003 05:45 AM Onderwerp: Re: Quantum accident survivor I disagree. You can only get an effect like this if the RSSA is invalid. You've been on this list long enough to remember the big debates about RSSA vs ASSA. I believe the ASSA is actually contrary to experience - but never mind - in order to get the effect you want you would need an SSA that is neither RSSA nor ASSA, but something *much* weirder. Cheers Saibal Mitra wrote: There have been many replies to this. I would say that you wouldn't expect to survive such accidents. Assume that we are sampled from a probability distribution over a set of possible states. E.g. in eternal inflation theories all possible quantum states the observable universe can be in are all realized, so all possible situations you can be in, do occur with some finite probability. In such theories you ''always'' exist. But this doesn't mean that if you are Mohammed Atta saying your prayer just before impact with the WTC, your next experience is that the plane has tunneled through the WTC without doing any harm. This is because there are many more Mohammed Attas in the universe that do not have this experience. So, you would ''survive'', but in a different branch with memory loss plus some aditional ''false'' memories. In that branch you wouldn't have been in that plane to begin with. You should think of yourself at any time as if you were chosen by a random generator sampled from a fixed probability distribution over the set of all possible states you can be in. The state that corresponds to you have experienced flying through the WTC is assigned an extremely small probability. How does this square with the normal experience of continuity through time? Well, every ''observer moment'' as chosen by the random generator has a memory of past experiences. So, if you go to bed now and wake up the next morning, you have the feeling of continuity, but this is only because the person waking up has the memory of going to bed. You could just as well say that the person going to bed survives in any one of the possible states he can be in. The state that happens to have the memory of going to bed is just one of these possible states. That particular state has the illusion of being the continuation of the first state. Oorspronkelijk bericht - Van: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: Friday, October 31, 2003 02:58 AM Onderwerp: Quantum accident survivor Another quickie: Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive) Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive other such life/death branches? Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? David Kwinter -- -- A/Prof Russell StandishDirector High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 () Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centre http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Dear Saibal and Russell, Does not this entire notion of quantum immortality assume some kind of mind/body dualism in that the mind, consciousness, is independent of the particular physical circumstances? There must be some way for the Moments, specifiec in #1, to be strung together in a first person way. This is, IMHO, strongly implied in Marchal's ideas using the UD. Even Barbour's time capsules imply this. I must confess to a bias toward dualistic models, particularly Vaughan Pratt's Chu space transform based idea, but this is something that is implied but does not seem to ever be discussed. Why? Stephen - Original Message - From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 7:27 AM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor I have always found the RSSA rather strange. From the discussion between Mallah and Maloney: http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m1362.html one must first define you. There are three reasonable possibilities in the ASSA: 1. One particular observer-moment. You have no past and no future. 2. A set of observer moments linked by computation. With this definition the problem is that you may be two (or more) people at the same time! The advantage with this definition is that one can predict effective probabilities of what you will see at other times similar to what you want to do with the RSSA. Thing is, if there is nonconservation of measure, the predictions start to differ from the RSSA about things like how old you should expect to be. Remember, testable prediction do NOT depend on definitions, so it is often better to use def. #1 to prevent such confusion. 3. A particular implementation of an extended computation. Similar to 2; allows death, when that implementation ends. I prefer this or #1. #1 seems the most reasonable option to me. You do away with the reference class problem. Also it is fully consistent with ''normal'' physics. Saibal - Oorspronkelijk bericht - Van: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: Sunday, November 02, 2003 05:45 AM Onderwerp: Re: Quantum accident survivor I disagree. You can only get an effect like this if the RSSA is invalid. You've been on this list long enough to remember the big debates about RSSA vs ASSA. I believe the ASSA is actually contrary to experience - but never mind - in order to get the effect you want you would need an SSA that is neither RSSA nor ASSA, but something *much* weirder. Cheers snip
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Not dualism per se - I'm sure Bruno would argue that he doesn't need the hypothesis of a concrete universe with physial bodies in it. However, I think you are correct in suggesting it does depend on an independence of substrate, which is what Bruno means by COMP - survivability of first person experience through substitution of the substrate. NB even though Bruno calls this hypothesis COMP, it is really more general than computationalism, in that computationalism = COMP but the reverse syllogism is not demonstrated anywhere to my knowledge. Cheers Stephen Paul King wrote: Dear Saibal and Russell, Does not this entire notion of quantum immortality assume some kind of mind/body dualism in that the mind, consciousness, is independent of the particular physical circumstances? There must be some way for the Moments, specifiec in #1, to be strung together in a first person way. This is, IMHO, strongly implied in Marchal's ideas using the UD. Even Barbour's time capsules imply this. I must confess to a bias toward dualistic models, particularly Vaughan Pratt's Chu space transform based idea, but this is something that is implied but does not seem to ever be discussed. Why? Stephen A/Prof Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 () Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centrehttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Stephen Paul King, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: My problem is that COMP requires the existence of an infinite computational system that is immune from the laws of thermodynamics. That makes it HIGHLY suspect in my book. First, I'm not sure that Bruno's COMP hypothesis (which is basically that minds can't tell what is computing them) does require this, but arguably the hypothesis that our entire universe is a computer program, and that all such programs and all such universes exist, requires some such assumption. But is this any more problematic than the conventional view that there exists an infinitely reliable set of mathematical equations that specify the laws of nature? Even if we make the leap of faith and assume that all that exists is numbers and the relations among them, how do we explain the reason that the illusion of a flow of time occurs? That's a good question, and I would suggest two answers. The first is that when we apply the anthropic principle and look for universes that contain observers, we are implicitly assuming that observers require a flow of time. It is almost impossible to conceive of an observer that would be timeless, and if such a thing existed, we would not recognize it as an observer. But if we do accept that in some sense timeless observers could exist, then no doubt they do exist, in universes that may not have anything like a flow of time. The second answer is that it may be that the simplest set of laws that allows for observers like ourselves to exist inherently requires something like time to exist as well. We are complex, and we know that in our universe, we were the result of the process of evolution starting with simple chemistry and building up complex biology. To get our level of complexity you either need a complex universe, which implies a large and improbable program, or you need a simple universe with a flow of time sufficient to let something like evolution operate. Therefore it is more likely that systems complex enough to be called observers will exist in universes where there is causality, consistency and evolution. Hal
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Dear Hal, Interleaving. - Original Message - From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 9:10 PM Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor Stephen Paul King, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: My problem is that COMP requires the existence of an infinite computational system that is immune from the laws of thermodynamics. That makes it HIGHLY suspect in my book. [HF] First, I'm not sure that Bruno's COMP hypothesis (which is basically that minds can't tell what is computing them) does require this, but arguably the hypothesis that our entire universe is a computer program, and that all such programs and all such universes exist, requires some such assumption. But is this any more problematic than the conventional view that there exists an infinitely reliable set of mathematical equations that specify the laws of nature? [SPK] Is it that there is a requirement of an infinitely reliable set of mathematics or, as I would put it, an infallible representation, or is it like I have asked previously: What if we consider that the best possible simulation of some object is indistinguishable from a actual object? It has often been stated that there is more that one curve that connects together the same set of points in the same order. We also have reasons to appeal to Occam's razor to help us find the best theory. But are we sure that our specifications of the laws of physics are something that is unproblematic? I often wonder if we are just communicating within the commonalities of our individual existences and not some pre-specifiable laws of physics! Have you read J. Wheeler's essay Law without law? Wheeler, J. A. (1983), Law Without Law. In Quantum Theory and Measurement, ed. J. Wheeler and W. Zurek. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univ. Press. [SPK] Even if we make the leap of faith and assume that all that exists is numbers and the relations among them, how do we explain the reason that the illusion of a flow of time occurs? [HF] That's a good question, and I would suggest two answers. The first is that when we apply the anthropic principle and look for universes that contain observers, we are implicitly assuming that observers require a flow of time. It is almost impossible to conceive of an observer that would be timeless, and if such a thing existed, we would not recognize it as an observer. But if we do accept that in some sense timeless observers could exist, then no doubt they do exist, in universes that may not have anything like a flow of time. [SPK] Sure, but you are explicitly only considering entities like you and I as prototypical. This reminds me of the way that people tend to define life and involves things like DNA and carbon. But it is that this line of thought seems to allow a kind of teleological thinking that has no place in philosophy of science. While it is a probability of 1 that an observer will find itself in a universe that is consistent with the existence of that observer, this tells us nothing at all whether or not such an observer is a priori possible. The latter requires us to postulate such things as Plenitudes, Platonias and Kripkean and Leibnizian analogs of possible worlds. The problem that I see is that these collections of all possible do not include some necessity of the experience of time and its included distingtions between past and future. We can recall the debate that Boltzman had with his critics regarding the H-theorem as an illustration. It is one thing to see the necessity of all possibilities, it is something else entirely to necesitate my own experience of a flow of time. Something is happening and it isn't just a static set of relations. [HF] The second answer is that it may be that the simplest set of laws that allows for observers like ourselves to exist inherently requires something like time to exist as well. We are complex, and we know that in our universe, we were the result of the process of evolution starting with simple chemistry and building up complex biology. To get our level of complexity you either need a complex universe, which implies a large and improbable program, or you need a simple universe with a flow of time sufficient to let something like evolution operate. Therefore it is more likely that systems complex enough to be called observers will exist in universes where there is causality, consistency and evolution. [SPK] That I can go along with. I only ask for some reasoning as to how it is that we have an arrow of time. My suggestion is that we consider that there is process both implicit in and necessary for computation. ;-) Kindest regards, Stephen
Re: Quantum accident survivor
At 09:05 31/10/03 -0800, Eric Hawthorne wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Then I would like to underline some basic considerations. A universe where the only weird thing is the fact to obtain number 6 any time you throw a die doesn't violate any extremely possibility-constraining constraints. A universe where, by chance, the Lutezio element always occupy 99.5679459 percent of the volume available only when it is in a Astato box, doesn't transgress the constraints of the existence of self-organization. And so on. There could be an infinite of other examples (...and beyond!). This is not correct. I have never written those lines, nor the other you quote. Bruno
Re: Quantum accident survivor
There have been many replies to this. I would say that you wouldn't expect to survive such accidents. Assume that we are sampled from a probability distribution over a set of possible states. E.g. in eternal inflation theories all possible quantum states the observable universe can be in are all realized, so all possible situations you can be in, do occur with some finite probability. In such theories you ''always'' exist. But this doesn't mean that if you are Mohammed Atta saying your prayer just before impact with the WTC, your next experience is that the plane has tunneled through the WTC without doing any harm. This is because there are many more Mohammed Attas in the universe that do not have this experience. So, you would ''survive'', but in a different branch with memory loss plus some aditional ''false'' memories. In that branch you wouldn't have been in that plane to begin with. You should think of yourself at any time as if you were chosen by a random generator sampled from a fixed probability distribution over the set of all possible states you can be in. The state that corresponds to you have experienced flying through the WTC is assigned an extremely small probability. How does this square with the normal experience of continuity through time? Well, every ''observer moment'' as chosen by the random generator has a memory of past experiences. So, if you go to bed now and wake up the next morning, you have the feeling of continuity, but this is only because the person waking up has the memory of going to bed. You could just as well say that the person going to bed survives in any one of the possible states he can be in. The state that happens to have the memory of going to bed is just one of these possible states. That particular state has the illusion of being the continuation of the first state. Oorspronkelijk bericht - Van: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: Friday, October 31, 2003 02:58 AM Onderwerp: Quantum accident survivor Another quickie: Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive) Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive other such life/death branches? Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? David Kwinter
Re: Quantum accident survivor
get fucked
Re: Quantum accident survivor
I disagree. You can only get an effect like this if the RSSA is invalid. You've been on this list long enough to remember the big debates about RSSA vs ASSA. I believe the ASSA is actually contrary to experience - but never mind - in order to get the effect you want you would need an SSA that is neither RSSA nor ASSA, but something *much* weirder. Cheers Saibal Mitra wrote: There have been many replies to this. I would say that you wouldn't expect to survive such accidents. Assume that we are sampled from a probability distribution over a set of possible states. E.g. in eternal inflation theories all possible quantum states the observable universe can be in are all realized, so all possible situations you can be in, do occur with some finite probability. In such theories you ''always'' exist. But this doesn't mean that if you are Mohammed Atta saying your prayer just before impact with the WTC, your next experience is that the plane has tunneled through the WTC without doing any harm. This is because there are many more Mohammed Attas in the universe that do not have this experience. So, you would ''survive'', but in a different branch with memory loss plus some aditional ''false'' memories. In that branch you wouldn't have been in that plane to begin with. You should think of yourself at any time as if you were chosen by a random generator sampled from a fixed probability distribution over the set of all possible states you can be in. The state that corresponds to you have experienced flying through the WTC is assigned an extremely small probability. How does this square with the normal experience of continuity through time? Well, every ''observer moment'' as chosen by the random generator has a memory of past experiences. So, if you go to bed now and wake up the next morning, you have the feeling of continuity, but this is only because the person waking up has the memory of going to bed. You could just as well say that the person going to bed survives in any one of the possible states he can be in. The state that happens to have the memory of going to bed is just one of these possible states. That particular state has the illusion of being the continuation of the first state. Oorspronkelijk bericht - Van: David Kwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: Friday, October 31, 2003 02:58 AM Onderwerp: Quantum accident survivor Another quickie: Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive) Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive other such life/death branches? Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? David Kwinter A/Prof Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 () Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centrehttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
Re: Quantum accident survivor
David wrote: Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? David Kwinter In case, after the crash, there is somebody who is really dying (and who does not believe in MWI) you can also try this desperate procedure. - Measure on the dying subject, at the 'right' moment, that is to say when he is 'really' dying, the projection operator on the state 'psi'; - There are chances that the state of the dying subject will become 'psi'; - Then measure whether the resulting dying subject, in the state 'psi', is alive or dead; - There are chances it will turn out to be alive; - You can also repeat this procedure more times, in case of necessity.
Re: Quantum accident survivor
- Measure on the dying subject, at the 'right' moment, that is to say when he is 'really' dying, the projection operator on the state 'psi'; Of course this state 'psi' would be a superposition of the kind 1/sqrt2 (|live + |dead) or, better, 1/sqrt2 (|live + exp(i phase)|dead)
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hello Hal, Hal Finney wrote: You can indeed choose to believe that as long as any version of yourself continues in any universe, then you will consider yourself to still be alive. You could also choose the contrary, that if the total measure (ie. probability) of your survival is extremely small, that you are dead. How is this different from the current situation? Isn't your measure extremely small compared with the rest of the multiverse already? Wouldn't this mean that mean you're already dead by this definition? If so then I'm not really expecting a reply :-) Matt. When God plays dice with the Universe, He throws every number at once...
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi Benjamin, Benjamin Udell wrote: Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive) Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive other such life/death branches? Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? Yes, this is Quantum Immortality in a nutshell. If the MWI is correct, it is impossible to die from a subjective point of view. Hooray! Survive as what, though? And in what condition? I know from personal experience that one does not always experience oneself in that world-branch in which one is in tip-top shape. Reminds me of the ancient Greek myth of the goddess whose mortal lover was granted immortality at her request by Zeus, but not eternal youth, because it didn't occur to the goddess to ask Zeus to grant her lover that too. So the lover never died, but grew ever older, more wrinkled bent, till he became a grasshopper. This is the story of Tithonos and Eos. A similar thing happened to Sibyl, too. Perhaps QI imposes some kind of limit on how physically decrepit one can actually get. Another possibility is that QI does not say that it is impossible to lose consciousness, it says that it is impossible to lose it forever. So perhaps really all it does is guarantee some kind of afterlife (in the most physically likely set of circumstances where that can occur). Matt. When God plays dice with the Universe, He throws every number at once...
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Yes, this is Quantum Immortality in a nutshell. If the MWI is correct, it is impossible to die from a subjective point of view. Hooray! Yes but there can be no communication from one possible world to another (thus no cross-world awareness), because, think about it, if I could communicate with another world, then the other world would by definition be in my world (where I define my world as all parts of the universe that I can influence with a lightspeed communication), so it would just be some other part of my world. Oops. The bottom line is that if there are other possible worlds existing, they can be of nothing other than theoretical interest to us. Damn. So try to avoid running into any creatures weilding large scythes or other sharp implements tonight. Eric
Re: Quantum accident survivor
You are quite right in one point, Hal: ...probably a lot of things!. But you should have written: Certainly a lot of things, each one with high probability. If you pick photons rather than, say, flying massive debris, you should in all honesty, include photons along all the spectrum including, of course, gamma rays, which will kill you not just now, but keep on killing softly you forever by blasting the nuclear structure of your atoms and persuading them to decay. You would conclude that if you survive the blast, you would, with the help of QM be able to calculate precisely how dead you already are! So there is a branching event for you: if you survive a nuclear blast, how sure could you be that you really survived? Laurie Anderson was fond of saying: What kills you is not the bullett, its the hole!. -Joao Leao Hal Finney wrote: David Kwinter writes: The concept of what makes a real quantum branch irks me. Surely a man standing beside a nuclear explosion will never survive. Not necessarily. What exactly kills a man standing by a nuclear explosion? Well, probably a lot of things, but let's think about the radiant heat energy released by the blast. This heat is carried by photons, each of which is emitted by some atom in the nuclear device. When an atom emits a photon, the direction of its emission is random. With the large numbers of atoms and photons involved, the emission is, on average, uniform in all directions, which is what we expect. But each individual emission is a quantum effect, and there is a chance that all of the atoms in the nuclear device could happen to emit their photons in a different direction than towards the man. In that case he would not experience the heat energy from the device and would not be killed by it. I think similar arguments are possible for the radiation and all other sources of destruction coming from the nuclear explosion. So a man standing beside such an explosion could in fact survive. It's also possible that the photons and other radiation from the device might happen to pass through the man's body without being absorbed. Each photon has a certain probability of being absorbed, per unit distance that it travels through biological tissue. And each absorption event is governed by quantum randomness. Therefore there is a nonzero chance that a photon could pass entirely through the man's body, and in fact that all of the photons could do so. In effect the man might just happen to become transparent at the precise instant necessary to survive the blast. Probably there are other bizarre quantum coincidences which could occur to let him survive as well. Hal Finney -- Joao Pedro Leao ::: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics 1815 Massachussetts Av. , Cambridge MA 02140 Work Phone: (617)-496-7990 extension 124 Cell-Phone: (617)-817-1800 -- All generalizations are abusive (specially this one!) ---
Re: Quantum accident survivor
OK, what about heat? Heat fills low pressure areas uniformly so there could be no bubble of non-vaporizing heat for the scientist to live in. Isn't the heat an absolute killer? On Friday, October 31, 2003, at 10:55 AM, Hal Finney wrote: David Kwinter writes: The concept of what makes a real quantum branch irks me. Surely a man standing beside a nuclear explosion will never survive. Not necessarily. What exactly kills a man standing by a nuclear explosion? Well, probably a lot of things, but let's think about the radiant heat energy released by the blast. This heat is carried by photons, each of which is emitted by some atom in the nuclear device. When an atom emits a photon, the direction of its emission is random. With the large numbers of atoms and photons involved, the emission is, on average, uniform in all directions, which is what we expect. But each individual emission is a quantum effect, and there is a chance that all of the atoms in the nuclear device could happen to emit their photons in a different direction than towards the man. In that case he would not experience the heat energy from the device and would not be killed by it. I think similar arguments are possible for the radiation and all other sources of destruction coming from the nuclear explosion. So a man standing beside such an explosion could in fact survive. It's also possible that the photons and other radiation from the device might happen to pass through the man's body without being absorbed. Each photon has a certain probability of being absorbed, per unit distance that it travels through biological tissue. And each absorption event is governed by quantum randomness. Therefore there is a nonzero chance that a photon could pass entirely through the man's body, and in fact that all of the photons could do so. In effect the man might just happen to become transparent at the precise instant necessary to survive the blast. Probably there are other bizarre quantum coincidences which could occur to let him survive as well. Hal Finney David Kwinter
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Joao Leao, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: You are quite right in one point, Hal: ...probably a lot of things!. But you should have written: Certainly a lot of things, each one with high probability. If you pick photons rather than, say, flying massive debris, you should in all honesty, include photons along all the spectrum including, of course, gamma rays, which will kill you not just now, but keep on killing softly you forever by blasting the nuclear structure of your atoms and persuading them to decay. You would conclude that if you survive the blast, you would, with the help of QM be able to calculate precisely how dead you already are! I'm not sure if you are joking here; do you agree that even gamma ray photons may happen to miss your body due to the quantum randomness in their emission and absorption events? So there is a branching event for you: if you survive a nuclear blast, how sure could you be that you really survived? Which brings up another possibility, which is that your body could spontaneously re-assemble from atoms in the environment even if it were temporarily destroyed. In that case you might have genuine uncertainty as to whether you really survived, depending on your views of personal identity and survival. Hal
Quantum accident survivor
Another quickie: Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive) Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive other such life/death branches? Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? David Kwinter
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hello David, David Kwinter wrote: Another quickie: Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive) Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive other such life/death branches? Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? Yes, this is Quantum Immortality in a nutshell. If the MWI is correct, it is impossible to die from a subjective point of view. Hooray! Matt. When God plays dice with the Universe, He throws every number at once...
Re: Quantum accident survivor
David Kwinter, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive) Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive other such life/death branches? Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? You can assume anything you like! Seriously, we have had extensive and occasionally acrimonious debates on this topic in the past, without much success or resolution. I think that we have no good foundation for establishing the truth or falsehood of any theory of identity in absolute terms. Instead, these issues must be considered matters of taste. You can indeed choose to believe that as long as any version of yourself continues in any universe, then you will consider yourself to still be alive. You could also choose the contrary, that if the total measure (ie. probability) of your survival is extremely small, that you are dead. Hal Finney
Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hi there, Hal, one nitpick about your comments: In the case of Quantum Immortality, I don't think it's a matter of taste, or interpretation. It is a theory that every one of us can and ultimately will test. Granted, we will only be aware of a positive result, but, nevertheless... cheers, Frank From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can assume anything you like! Seriously, we have had extensive and occasionally acrimonious debates on this topic in the past, without much success or resolution. I think that we have no good foundation for establishing the truth or falsehood of any theory of identity in absolute terms. Instead, these issues must be considered matters of taste. You can indeed choose to believe that as long as any version of yourself continues in any universe, then you will consider yourself to still be alive. You could also choose the contrary, that if the total measure (ie. probability) of your survival is extremely small, that you are dead. Hal Finney
Quantum accident survivor
It would seem that there are a finite number of ways to survive (or die in) any given car accident. It that's the case, the number of many world branches would be limited by this value. Taken longitudinally, it would seem that the architecture of the world lines of these and similar events would limit the number of worlds associated with the individual. That is, after such a life-threatening event, the number of multiple copies of the individual become limited. R. Miller
Re: Quantum accident survivor
On Thursday, October 30, 2003, at 08:11 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote: Assume I survive a car/plane crash which we assume could have many different quantum outcomes including me (dead || alive) Since I was the same person (entire life history) up until the crash/quantum 'branch' - then can't I assume that since there was at least one outcome where I survived, that TO ME I will always survive other such life/death branches? Furthermore if I witness a crash where someone dies can I assume that the victim will survive in their own world so far as at least one quantum branch of survivability seems possible? Yes, this is Quantum Immortality in a nutshell. If the MWI is correct, it is impossible to die from a subjective point of view. Hooray! Survive as what, though? And in what condition? I know from personal experience that one does not always experience oneself in that world-branch in which one is in tip-top shape. Reminds me of the ancient Greek myth of the goddess whose mortal lover was granted immortality at her request by Zeus, but not eternal youth, because it didn't occur to the goddess to ask Zeus to grant her lover that too. So the lover never died, but grew ever older, more wrinkled bent, till he became a grasshopper. Hmm sounds like quantum immorality leaves us all old, crippled and miraculously dodging (typical) eventualities. The version of quantum self-preservation I find reasonable is where accidents have an estimated survivability of ~50%. ie, If you get killed by a comet, it's very safe to say that minor quantum events could've moved it a couple feet away. Being born in the 10th century for example and living forever could not have been possible via quantum branches, right? Technological evolution takes time.. Are there any really good arguments out there for QI? (not to bother you - I will research this on my own) Thanks David Kwinter
