The ASSA leads to a unique utilitarism
In this message, I neither want to support the ASSA nor utilitarism. But I will argue that the former has remarkable consequences for the latter. To give a short overview of the concepts, I remind you that utilitarism is a doctrine measuring the morality of an action only by its outcome. Those actions are said to be more moral than others if they cause a greater sum of happiness or pleasure (for all people involved). Though this theory seems to be attractive, it has to cope with a lot of problems. Maybe the most fundamental problem is to define how 'happiness' and 'pleasure' are measured: In order to decide which action is the most moral one, we need a 'felicific calculus'. However, it seems that there is no chance to find a unique felicific calculus everyone would agree upon. Until today, there is a lot of arbitrariness: - How do we measure happiness? - How do we compare the happiness of different people? - How do we account for pain and suffering? Which weight is assigned to them? - Even maximizing 'the sum of happiness' in some felicific calculus does not necessarily determine a unique action. Maybe it's possible to increase the happiness of some individuals and to decrease the happiness of other individuals without changing the 'sum of happiness'. What is preferable? Most of us have a mathematical or scientific background. We know that such a situation can lead to an infinity of possible felicific calculi each one defined by arbitrary measures and parameters. In the sciences, one would usually discard a theory that contains so much arbitrariness (philosophy however is not that rigorous). The application of the ASSA can help to surmount these conceptual difficulties. Assuming the ASSA, we are able to define a uniquely determined utilitarism. Nonetheless, the practical problem of deciding which action one has to prefer remains rather unchanged. 1st step: Reducing the number of utilitarisms to the number of human beings. The ASSA states that my next experience is randomly chosen out of all observer moments. For the decision of my action, only those observer moments are of interest that are significantly influenced by my decision (e.g. observer moments in the past aren't). Since my next observer moment can be any of those observer moments, I am driven to a utilitarian action. Utilitarism directly arises whenever an observer wants to act rationally while assuming the ASSA. I could say that utilitarism is 'egoism + ASSA'. 2nd step: The unique utilitarism. Starting from the definition that utilitarism is egoism in combination with the ASSA, I argue that all observers will agree upon the same action. At first you might think that the preferred action depends on the individual preferences of the deciding individual. For example, if I was suffering from hunger, I could perform an action to minimize hunger in the world. But this is a wrong conclusion. When I experience another observer moment, I am no longer affected by my former needs and preferences. Directly speaking: Since all observers must expect to get their next observer moments out of the same ensemble of observer moments, there is no reason to insist on different preferences. But there is still one problem left. Different observers have different states of knowledge about the consequences of a potential action. In theory, we can exclude this problem by defining utilitarism as the rational decision of a hypothetic observer that knows all the consequences of all potential actions (of course while assuming the ASSA). It's a nice feature of the ASSA that it naturally leads to a theory of morality. The RSSA does not seem to provide such a result. Though, I'd like to have similar concepts out of the RSSA (according to Stathis, I belong to the RSSA camp). Youness Ayaita --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: against UD+ASSA, part 1
On 01/10/2007, Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is the DA incompatible with QI? According to MWI, your measure in the multiverse is constantly dropping with age as versions of you meet their demise. According to DA, your present OM is 95% likely to be in the first 95% of all OM's available to you. Well, that's why you're a few decades old, rather than thousands of years old at the ever-thinning tail end of the curve. But this is still consistent with the expectation of an infinite subjective lifespan as per QI. Well, this view would imply that although I am likely to reach reasonable conclusions about measure if I assume my current OM is typical, I am inevitably going to find myself in lower and lower measure OMs in the future, where the assumption that the current one is typical will lead to more and more erroneous conclusions. That's right, but the same is true in any case for the atypical observers who assume that they are typical. Suppose I've forgotten how old I am, but I am reliably informed that I will live to the age of 120 years and one minute. Then I would be foolish to guess that I am currently over 120 years old; but at the same time, I know with certainty that I will *eventually* reach that age. I guess if you believe there is no real temporal relation between OMs, that any sense of an observer who is successively experiencing a series of different OMs is an illusion and that the only real connection between OMs is that memories one has may resemble the current experiences of another, then there isn't really a problem with this perspective (after all, I have no problem with the idea that the ordinary Doomsday Argument applied to civilizations implies that eventually the last remaining humans will have a position unusually close to the end, and they'll all reach erroneous conclusions if they attempt to apply the Doomsday Argument to their own birth order...the reason I have no problem with this is that I don't expect to inevitably 'become' them, they are separate individuals who happen to have an unusual place in the order of all human births). That's exactly how I view OM's. It is necessary that they be at least this, since even if they are strung together temporally in some other way (such as being generated in the same head) they won't form a continuous stream of consciousness unless they have the appropriate memory relationship. It is also sufficient, since I would have the sense of continuity of consciousness even if my OM's were generated at different points in space and time. But I've always favored the idea that a theory of consciousness would determine some more objective notion of temporal flow than just qualitative similarities in memories, that if my current OM is X then there would be some definite ratio between the probability that my next OM would be Y vs. Z. If you assume that the probability is determined by the ratio of the measure of Y to Z, given that Y and Z are equally good candidate successor OM's, this takes care of it and is moreover completely independent of any theory of consciousness. All that is needed is that the appropriate OM's be generated; how, when, where or by whom is irrelevant. This leads me to the analogy of pools of water with water flowing between them that I discussed in this post: http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/msg/07cd5c7676f6f6a1 Consider the following analogy--we have a bunch of tanks of water, and each tank is constantly pumping a certain amount of its own water to a bunch of other tanks, and having water pumped into it from other tanks. The ratio between the rates that a given tank is pumping water into two other tanks corresponds to the ratio between the probabilities that a given observer-moment will be succeeded by one of two other possible OMs--if you imagine individual water molecules as observers, then the ratio between rates water is going to the two tanks will be the same as the ratio between the probabilities that a given molecule in the current tank will subsequently find itself in one of those two tanks. Meanwhile, the total amount of water in a tank would correspond to the absolute probability of a given OM--at any given time, if you randomly select a single water molecule from the collection of all molecules in all tanks, the amount of water in a tank is proportional to the probability your randomly-selected molecule will be in that tank. Now, for most ways of arranging this system, the total amount of water in different tanks will be changing over time. In terms of the analogy, this would be like imposing some sort of universal time-coordinate on the whole multiverse and saying the absolute probability of finding yourself experiencing a given OM changes with time, which seems pretty implausible to me. But if the system is balanced in such a way that, for each tank, the total rate that water is being pumped out is equal to the total rate that
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
On 4/29/07, Jason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Two things in my mind make personal identity fuzzy: 1. The MWI of quantum mechanics, which if true means each person experiences a perhaps infinite number of histories across the multi- verse. Should personal identity extend to just one branch or to all branches? If all branches where do you draw the line between who is and is not that person? Remember across the multi-verse you can move across branches that differ only by the location of one photon, therefore there is a continuum linking a person in one branch to any other person. 2. Duplication/transportation/simulation thought experiments, which show that minds can't be tied to a single physical body, simulation thought experiments suggest there doesn't even have to be a physical body for there to be a person. If a person can be reduced to information is it the same person if you modify some bits (as time does), how many bits must be modified before you no longer consider it to be the same person? What happens if you make copies of those bits (as the MWI implies happens), or destroy one copy and reconstitute it elsewhere? Person identity is useful when talking about everyday situations, but I think it muddies things, especially if one tries to bind a continuous conscious experience with a person. For example, how can you explain what happens if one were to make 5 exact duplicates of some individual? Do you say their consciousness fractures, do you say it multiplies, do you say it selects one of them? Just because observers have memories of experiencing the same observer's past perspectives in no way implies there is a single consciousness that follows a person as they evolve through time (even though it very much seems that way subjectively). Jason On Apr 26, 3:11 pm, John Mikes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interleaving ONE tiny question: On 4/20/07, Jason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (Jason:) ...Personhood becomes fuzzy and a truly object treatment of conscious experience might do well to abandon the idea of personal identity altogether. ... Sais WHO? John I've thought of two other ideas which further complicate personal identity: 3. Mind uploading / Simulation Argument / Game worlds in the context of infinite universes. If all universes are real there are an infinite number of causes for your current observer moment, including the explanation that your OM is instantiated in a computer simulation or game world. The instantiation could be part of a game some alien who uploaded his mind is playing, perhaps the game is called simhuman, when the being awakens from the game all the memories of your human life will be integrated into the alien being's memories. Therefore it could be said that there are an infinite number of observers (each with highly varied experiences and memories) to which this OM belongs. A nice consequence of this is that it can provide escape from eternal agedness implied by many worlds. 4. All particles in the observable universe are interacting. The neurons in our brain which instantiate thoughts are not closed loops, they are fed in with data from the senses, thoughts can be communicated between brains (as they are now when you read this post), my neural activity can affect your neural activity, there is only a longer and slower path connecting neurons between everyone's brain. Think of a grid computer consisting of super computers connected with 14.4 Kbps modems, the bandwidth is not sufficient for transferring large amounts of data or the content of their hard drives in any reasonable time, but short and compressed information can still be shared. If they are interacting as part of the same large state machine then minds are not islands, and it lends credence to their being a universal mind. Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
Also single mind can be regarded as collection of parts interacting with each other. If each part can be regarded as its information content, each physical implementation ties together instantiations of parts. If single mind can be implemented by multiple implementations, each of these implementations also implements all parts of mind, so mind can be composed of different parts, where each of the parts is implemented in different universe. So, brain can be half- p-zombie and half-conscious. On 10/1/07, Jason Resch [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 4. All particles in the observable universe are interacting. The neurons in our brain which instantiate thoughts are not closed loops, they are fed in with data from the senses, thoughts can be communicated between brains (as they are now when you read this post), my neural activity can affect your neural activity, there is only a longer and slower path connecting neurons between everyone's brain. Think of a grid computer consisting of super computers connected with 14.4 Kbps modems, the bandwidth is not sufficient for transferring large amounts of data or the content of their hard drives in any reasonable time, but short and compressed information can still be shared. If they are interacting as part of the same large state machine then minds are not islands, and it lends credence to their being a universal mind. Jason -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
On 02/10/2007, Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also single mind can be regarded as collection of parts interacting with each other. If each part can be regarded as its information content, each physical implementation ties together instantiations of parts. If single mind can be implemented by multiple implementations, each of these implementations also implements all parts of mind, so mind can be composed of different parts, where each of the parts is implemented in different universe. So, brain can be half- p-zombie and half-conscious. I don't see in what sense it could be a single mind if part of it is zombified. If your visual cortex were unconscious, you would be blind, and you would know you were blind. (Except for unusual situations like Anton's Syndrome, where people don't realise that they're blind). -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: against UD+ASSA, part 1
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 01/10/2007, Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I guess if you believe there is no real temporal relation between OMs, that any sense of an observer who is successively experiencing a series of different OMs is an illusion and that the only real connection between OMs is that memories one has may resemble the current experiences of another, then there isn't really a problem with this perspective (after all, I have no problem with the idea that the ordinary Doomsday Argument applied to civilizations implies that eventually the last remaining humans will have a position unusually close to the end, and they'll all reach erroneous conclusions if they attempt to apply the Doomsday Argument to their own birth order...the reason I have no problem with this is that I don't expect to inevitably 'become' them, they are separate individuals who happen to have an unusual place in the order of all human births). That's exactly how I view OM's. It is necessary that they be at least this, since even if they are strung together temporally in some other way (such as being generated in the same head) they won't form a continuous stream of consciousness unless they have the appropriate memory relationship. It is also sufficient, since I would have the sense of continuity of consciousness even if my OM's were generated at different points in space and time. I'm not talking about whether they are generated at different points in space in time or not from a 3rd-person perspective, I'm talking about whether there is a theory of consciousness that determines some sort of objective truths about the temporal flow between OMs from a 1st-person perspective (for example, an objective truth about the relative probabilities that an experience of OM X will be followed by OM Y vs. OM Z), or whether there is no such well-defined and objectively correct theory, and the only thing we can say is that the memories of some OMs have purely qualitative similarities to the experiences of others. Are you advocating the latter? But I've always favored the idea that a theory of consciousness would determine some more objective notion of temporal flow than just qualitative similarities in memories, that if my current OM is X then there would be some definite ratio between the probability that my next OM would be Y vs. Z. If you assume that the probability is determined by the ratio of the measure of Y to Z, given that Y and Z are equally good candidate successor OM's, this takes care of it and is moreover completely independent of any theory of consciousness. But the theory of consciousness is needed to decide whether Y and Z are indeed equally good candidate successor OMs. For example, what if X is an observer-moment of the actual historical Napoleon, Y is another OM of the historical Napoleon, while Z is an OM of a delusional patient who thinks he's Napoleon, and who by luck happens to have a set of fantasy memories which happen to be quite similar to memories that the actual Napoleon had. Is there some real fact of the matter about whether Z can qualify as a valid successor, or is it just a matter of opinion? I also see no reason to think that the question of whether observer-moment Y is sufficiently similar to observer-moment X to qualify as a successor should be a purely binary question as opposed to a fuzzy one. After all, if you say the answer is yes, and if Y can be described in some mathematical language as a particular computation or pattern of cause-and-effect or somesuch, then you can consider making a series of small modifications to the computation/causal pattern, giving a series of similar OMs Y', Y'', Y''', etc...eventually you'd end with a totally different OM that had virtually no resemblance to either X or Y. So is there some point in the sequence where you have an observer-moment that qualifies as a valid successor to X, and then you change one bit of the computation or one neural-firing event, and suddenly you have an observer-moment that is completely invalid as a successor to X? This seems implausible to me, it makes more sense that a theory of consciousness would determine something like a degree of similarity between an OM X and a candidate successor OM Y, and that this degree of similarity would factor into the probability that an experience of X would be followed by an experience of Y. In this case, if I am currently experiencing X, the relative probabilities that my next OM is Y or Z might be determined by both the relative degree of similarity of Y and Z to X *and* the absolute measure of Y and Z (or it might be even more complicated; perhaps it would depend on some measure of the internal coherence of all the different infinite sequences of OMs which contain X and which have Y or Z as a successor). If you have time you might want to take a look at the discussion in the thread FW: Quantum
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
Not single mind is half-zombified, but single brain. Half of the brain implements half of the mind, and another half of the brain is zombie. Another half of the mind (corresponding to zombie part of the brain) exists as information content and can be implemented in different universe. This view can be applied to gradual uploading argument. On 10/2/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 02/10/2007, Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also single mind can be regarded as collection of parts interacting with each other. If each part can be regarded as its information content, each physical implementation ties together instantiations of parts. If single mind can be implemented by multiple implementations, each of these implementations also implements all parts of mind, so mind can be composed of different parts, where each of the parts is implemented in different universe. So, brain can be half- p-zombie and half-conscious. I don't see in what sense it could be a single mind if part of it is zombified. If your visual cortex were unconscious, you would be blind, and you would know you were blind. (Except for unusual situations like Anton's Syndrome, where people don't realise that they're blind). -- Stathis Papaioannou -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
Vladimir Nesov wrote: Not single mind is half-zombified, but single brain. Half of the brain implements half of the mind, and another half of the brain is zombie. Another half of the mind (corresponding to zombie part of the brain) exists as information content and can be implemented in different universe. This view can be applied to gradual uploading argument. But why do you think there could be any functionally identical implementations of a part of a brain that would be zombies, i.e. not really conscious? Jesse _ It's the Windows Live(tm) Hotmail(R) you love -- on your phone! http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/mobilehotmail/default.mspx?WT.mc_ID=MobileHMTagline2 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
Are you asking why I consider notion of p-zombieness meaningful? On 10/2/07, Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vladimir Nesov wrote: Not single mind is half-zombified, but single brain. Half of the brain implements half of the mind, and another half of the brain is zombie. Another half of the mind (corresponding to zombie part of the brain) exists as information content and can be implemented in different universe. This view can be applied to gradual uploading argument. But why do you think there could be any functionally identical implementations of a part of a brain that would be zombies, i.e. not really conscious? Jesse _ It's the Windows Live(tm) Hotmail(R) you love -- on your phone! http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/mobilehotmail/default.mspx?WT.mc_ID=MobileHMTagline2 -- Vladimir Nesovmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
On 02/10/2007, Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not single mind is half-zombified, but single brain. Half of the brain implements half of the mind, and another half of the brain is zombie. Another half of the mind (corresponding to zombie part of the brain) exists as information content and can be implemented in different universe. This view can be applied to gradual uploading argument. So what would it actually be like for you if in the next minute your visual cortex was zombified, i.e. still functioned processing visual signals (all visual signals - not selectively lacking in V1 function as in blindsight) but lacking phenomenal consciousness? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
