Re: Free Will Theorem
Le 26-avr.-05, à 21:36, John M a écrit : Russell wrote: Ah John, if only I could understand what you're saying... * Sorry, Russell, I fell back into my wholitic lingo with several items that are not identical to the 'general usage'. I wish you could point out 'some' which I should try to elaborate on. Maybe we could do this in private exchange, to be nice to the list. That would not be nice to the list, imo. I'm sure people on the list can trash by themselves the threads in which they are not interested. We have good training with the spam. But also, I think we can progress only by understanding misunderstandings ... In particular I intend to make somme comments on a post by John asap, and so I would prefer the thread stays online. This is Wei Dai non-moderate list, and I know non-moderation makes people tending to moderate themselves a little bit too much ... :) The reason I'm interested in the John/Russell debate is that I suspect Russell can swallow my methodology but not yet entirely the conclusions; and I suspect John can swallow my conclusions, but not really the methodology. So I could (selfishly) be helped in communicating my work by finding a sort of mean between Russell and John. I will elaborate later. Bruno John M - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 10:30 PM Subject: Re: Free Will Theorem http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Implications of MWI
Did accepting and understanding the MWI drastically alter your philosophical worldview? If so, how? I cannot answer this question myself because I do not truly understand many parts of it. Thanks -- Mark Fancey Anti-Bushite Bullshite
Re: Free Will Theorem
Dear Bruno, again a post from you with your wits. I will post my reply (if I get the relevant points from Russell and - if I can - ) onlist. However your expression: ... I think we can progress only by understanding misunderstandings ... (what I assume as 'the list's understanding of 'my' mis...) assumes a position of judging the content of a proper understanding. I wonder... With friendship John M PS: with apologies I correct my typo in the post to Russell: please read WHOLISTIC instead of 'wholitic' in my 1st sentence.J. - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 2:49 AM Subject: Re: Free Will Theorem Le 26-avr.-05, à 21:36, John M a écrit : Russell wrote: Ah John, if only I could understand what you're saying... * Sorry, Russell, I fell back into my wholitic lingo with several items that are not identical to the 'general usage'. I wish you could point out 'some' which I should try to elaborate on. Maybe we could do this in private exchange, to be nice to the list. That would not be nice to the list, imo. I'm sure people on the list can trash by themselves the threads in which they are not interested. We have good training with the spam. But also, I think we can progress only by understanding misunderstandings ... In particular I intend to make somme comments on a post by John asap, and so I would prefer the thread stays online. This is Wei Dai non-moderate list, and I know non-moderation makes people tending to moderate themselves a little bit too much ... :) The reason I'm interested in the John/Russell debate is that I suspect Russell can swallow my methodology but not yet entirely the conclusions; and I suspect John can swallow my conclusions, but not really the methodology. So I could (selfishly) be helped in communicating my work by finding a sort of mean between Russell and John. I will elaborate later. Bruno John M - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 10:30 PM Subject: Re: Free Will Theorem http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Implications of MWI
Mark Fancey writes: Did accepting and understanding the MWI drastically alter your philosophical worldview? If so, how? I don't know if I would describe it as a drastic alteration, but I do tend to think of my actions as provoking a continuum of results rather than a single result. For example, sometimes when I drive too fast and nothing happens, I think about how I have fractionally killed people by my actions. Somewhere in the multiverse, kids ran out in front of my car and I was not able to stop due to my speed. Even though I didn't see it, I killed those people just as surely as a pilot who drops a bomb and doesn't stick around to see the results. My decision to take that risky action reduced the measure of those people's existence in the multiverse. This has made me a little more careful; I no longer think back to all the times when nothing happened and assume that the same will hold true in the future. I know that even though I SAW nothing happen, bad things did happen as a result of my actions. They were out of sight but they happened anyway. My actions have consequences even beyond those that I see. Another way it has influenced my thinking is about future indeterminacy. I now believe, for example, that there is no meaning to certain questions that people ask about future conditions. For example, who will be the next president? I don't think this question is meaningful. Many people will be the next president. My consciousness spans multiple universes where different people will be president. Any question like this which presupposes only one future has a similar problem. Another one we often hear is, are we in a speculative bubble in real estate (or stocks, or whatever). That's a meaningless question. Bubbles can only be defined retrospectively. If prices fall, then we were in a bubble; if they don't, then we weren't. But both futures exist. I live in worlds where we are in a bubble and worlds where we are not in a bubble. The question has no answer. Hal Finney
Re: Implications of MWI
Hal: You say that you are more careful now (and everyone should always be more careful!); but is it not, in fact, irrelevant? This is because the worlds in which you cause great tragedy exist even before you arrive at a branch point that could take you to them. I am taking this from the saying: 'everything that can happen does happen and is happening right now' It is also my understanding that time travel (travelling along timelike curves) is quite possible; I have always grown up being told that it is not possible. Altering my worldview on that one is taking some time! To me it is the ultimate surveillance tool and makes me quite jittery! Mark
RE: Implications of MWI
Mark Fancey writes: Did accepting and understanding the MWI drastically alter your philosophical worldview? If so, how? Hal: I don't know if I would describe it as a drastic alteration, but I do tend to think of my actions as provoking a continuum of results rather than a single result. snip Another way it has influenced my thinking is about future indeterminacy. I now believe, for example, that there is no meaning to certain questions that people ask about future conditions. For example, who will be the next president? I don't think this question is meaningful. Many people will be the next president. My consciousness spans multiple universes where different people will be president. But there are likely many many more universes where Colin Powell is the next president than there are where my 6 year old neice is. So it is a meaningful question. Any question like this which presupposes only one future has a similar problem. Another one we often hear is, are we in a speculative bubble in real estate (or stocks, or whatever). That's a meaningless question. Bubbles can only be defined retrospectively. If prices fall, then we were in a bubble; if they don't, then we weren't. But both futures exist. I live in worlds where we are in a bubble and worlds where we are not in a bubble. The question has no answer. But again we can make a probabilistic argument that there are many more universes where house prices continue climbing than there are where all houses become worthless tomorrow. Jonathan Colvin
Quantum Behavior of Deterministic Systems with Information Loss. Path Integral Approach
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0504200 Quantum Behavior of Deterministic Systems with Information Loss. Path Integral ApproachAuthors: M. Blasone, P. Jizba, H. KleinertComments: 11 pages, RevTeXSubj-class: Quantum Physics; Mathematical Physics 't Hooft's derivation of quantum from classical physics is analyzed by means of the classical path integral of Gozzi et al.. It is shown how the key element of this procedure - the loss of information constraint - can be implemented by means of Faddeev-Jackiw's treatment of constrained systems. It is argued that the emergent quantum systems are identical with systems obtained in [quant-ph/0409021] through Dirac-Bergmann's analysis. We illustrate our approach with two simple examples - free particle and linear harmonic oscillator. Potential Liouville anomalies are shown to be absent. -Defeat Spammers by launching DDoS attacks on Spam-Websites: http://www.hillscapital.com/antispam/
Re: Implications of MWI
Mark, What does happening right now mean in the MWI concept? Einstein showed that there is no universal right now. Are you confusing this with a saying that I've seen attributed to C. A. Pickover, in his book Keys to Infinity? It goes In infinite time and infinite space, whatever can happen, must happen, not only once but an infinite number of times. Norman - Original Message - From: Mark Fancey [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 2:30 PM Subject: Re: Implications of MWI Hal: You say that you are more careful now (and everyone should always be more careful!); but is it not, in fact, irrelevant? This is because the worlds in which you cause great tragedy exist even before you arrive at a branch point that could take you to them. I am taking this from the saying: 'everything that can happen does happen and is happening right now' It is also my understanding that time travel (travelling along timelike curves) is quite possible; I have always grown up being told that it is not possible. Altering my worldview on that one is taking some time! To me it is the ultimate surveillance tool and makes me quite jittery! Mark
RE: Implications of MWI
Norman wrote: If it is true that In infinite time and infinite space, whatever can happen, must happen, not only once but an infinite number of times, then what does probability mean? In your example below, there must be an infinity of worlds where Colin Powell is president and an infinity of worlds where your 6-year old niece is president. Are you saying that the Colin Powell infinity is bigger than the 6-year old niece infinity? Yes. Or; It takes an infinite amount time for everything to happen an infinite number of times. Therefore there is no time T where anything has happened an infinite number of times (I'm assuming T= infinity has no real meaning in any world). At any *particular* time T (at which we or anyone exists), nothing will have happened an infinite number of times; thus at any time T there will be far more universes where Colin Powell is president than my six year old neice. Jonathan Colvin Mark Fancey writes: Did accepting and understanding the MWI drastically alter your philosophical worldview? If so, how? Hal: I don't know if I would describe it as a drastic alteration, but I do tend to think of my actions as provoking a continuum of results rather than a single result. snip Another way it has influenced my thinking is about future indeterminacy. I now believe, for example, that there is no meaning to certain questions that people ask about future conditions. For example, who will be the next president? I don't think this question is meaningful. Many people will be the next president. My consciousness spans multiple universes where different people will be president. But there are likely many many more universes where Colin Powell is the next president than there are where my 6 year old neice is. So it is a meaningful question. Any question like this which presupposes only one future has a similar problem. Another one we often hear is, are we in a speculative bubble in real estate (or stocks, or whatever). That's a meaningless question. Bubbles can only be defined retrospectively. If prices fall, then we were in a bubble; if they don't, then we weren't. But both futures exist. I live in worlds where we are in a bubble and worlds where we are not in a bubble. The question has no answer. But again we can make a probabilistic argument that there are many more universes where house prices continue climbing than there are where all houses become worthless tomorrow.
