Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
William wrote: > A simple way of picturing this, would be that at the big bang; the > universe is 1 piece of paper, and from then on, every second, the > piece(s) of paper is cut in half; giving 1, 2, 4, 8, ... universes. The > total area of paper remains the same and all the pieces get smaller all > the time, this means that the chance of being in a particular universe > as the universe splitting progresses, even decreases :). I consider this a very insightful way of looking at it. Starting with the universe's intitial conditions defined to have probability 1, every branched history that follows will occur with some fractional probability, and the sum of all the histories in any single point of time will all have equal probabilities. In effect every point of time would be equally weighted statistically. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com 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: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > That is, once you are a conscious entity, you will follow a constrained > branching > path through the multiverse giving the illusion of a single linear history. > Measure is > redefined at every branching point: the subjective probability of your next > moment. > Since the branches of the multiverse will never come to an abrupt stop, there > will always > be a "next moment" and your stream of consciousness will never end. This the > quantum > immortality idea, underpinned by what this list has called the relative > self-sampling > assumption (RSSA). > > Stathis Papaioannou I think a lot of confusion comes from the use of pronounds such as "you". In the realm of multiverses, block time, and many-worlds, the word "you" becomes much harder to define. Consider time: since your brain is in a different state from one moment to the next how can you be said to be the same person? As you examine your branched selves in more and more distantly branched universes, you will find a greater and greater discrepancy. You could even imagine at the moment of your conception a different sperm may have fertalized you, would a copy of "you" with only one gene's difference still be enough like you to be you? Where can the line be drawn as to who you are and who you are not? I believe that if one accepts that he or she will be conscious of their perspective five minutes from now, they must accept that they will perceive conscious perspectives of their selves in other branched universes. If one accepts they will be conscious of and perceive these other perspecties, they must also therefore be conscious of everyone else's perspective. And if you accept that, then you must be conscious of every conscious creatures perspective, in every point of time, in every branched history, in every universe. To illustrate problems with personal identity, consider these thought experiments: 1. Imagine a technologically advanced race that created simulations of their brains that run on computers. If two brains were being simulated on the same computer by sharing time on the CPU, both individuals would be conscious within the computer at the same time, but neither simulated individual remembers being the other because the programs are restricted from accessing each other's memory space. In the same way those brains were simulated on the same computer, our brains are computed by the physics of this universe. The universe experiences all conscious perspectives simultaneously, yet we as individuals do not remember being conscious of these other perspectives since our memory is not shared. 2. For a second example, consider that with each successive point in time, a new copy of you is created in a slightly modified state. However, if that state is constantly changing, you are essentially a different person from one point in time to the next. If time is indeed discrete, it should be even more apparent that we have no continuous identity. If we have no continuous identity, by what means could consciousness be tied to one creature's perspective? There could be no simple rule to define whose brain state you will perceive from one point in time to the next. All that could be said is that all conscious perspectives will be perceived, but no one could say who will perceive them. 3. Imagine that using advanced technology, the current state of your body was recorded and then an exact duplicate of you was constructed. Would you perceive the world from the viewpoint of your double? Common sense says no, but then consider this slightly different example: A recording of your state is recorded, and then you are completely destroyed. Every atom in your body is taken apart. Then the recording of your state is used to reconstruct you. Would you not have been brought back to life by this procedure? Would you not perceive the viewpoint of this recreation? In the first scenario we are less likely to claim we would perceive the duplicate's perspective, but it is no different from the second scenario where you are destroyed and recreated. Now consider this even more bizarre scenario: Your state is recorded, you are destroyed, and then 5 duplicates of yourself in the recorded state are created. Which one's perspective do you take? There can be only one answer: You take all of them. The above scenario seems unlikely and you probably have doubts as to whether or not is technically feasible. Nevertheless, duplicates of you are being created all the time as the universe branches. In each case you end up in a slightly different universe, in some you end up slightly changed yourself. To me this leaves two equally valid definitions for the term "you". Either it refers to one conscious observer's perspective, at one point of time, in one universe, in one branched history line OR it could refer to reality's single first-person perspective of itself. For this reason I don't believe there can be a simple definition of "observers",
Multi-universes probably doesn't exist
I think it is impossible that multiuniverses exist. The reason is located in chapter 27 of a paper I wrote. You can download this paper at www.grand-theory.com. The problem is that I develop a new idea about universe and to understand it, you may probably read the previous chapter before chapter 27. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com 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: ASSA and Many-Worlds
William wrote: I have been reading up on this subject a little bit and about the quantum immortality, I believe it is a common misconception that this means you will never die; if all future branches involve your death, then you will die ... Quantum immortality does not imply that you can dodge every bullet and that the "you of today" will still live tomorrow, although the "you of yesterday" could still live tomorrow whilst the "you of today" does not. Also I personally do not believe ASSA favours a MWI interpretation of quantum mechanics over a deterministic one because a "single MWI universe" will be less probable than a "single deterministic universe". But it might favour MWI over Copenhagen interpretation. If the universe splits into 2 universes each second; I do not necissarily see an issue as explained by Stathis Papaioannou in his post. And it is even a fact that you are more probable to live in the year 2000 than in the year 1000 because the human population has grown; but once we go to infinities, the same approach might not work anymore (although I am still debating about this myself) ... Anyway, I do not believe that MWI favours later moments in time over earlier moments in time. Although the number of universes increases, their individual probability decreases, keeping the total probability equal (although relativity might complicate a more rigorous approach). A simple way of picturing this, would be that at the big bang; the universe is 1 piece of paper, and from then on, every second, the piece(s) of paper is cut in half; giving 1, 2, 4, 8, ... universes. The total area of paper remains the same and all the pieces get smaller all the time, this means that the chance of being in a particular universe as the universe splitting progresses, even decreases :). That's a good way to look at it. Everett originally called his interpretation a 'relative state'; emphasizing that observed states were relative to the observer. 'Multiple universes' is a convenient way of talking, but the idea comes from holding onto the unitary evolution of the state vector in a Hilbert space describing states of the universe. So there is only one universe and it is the projection onto different semi-classical subspaces (the only kind we can experience) that correspond to different 'universes'. In QM you can have negative information (due to the correlations of entanglement) and so from the Hilbert space view the total information may be zero, even though the projection onto subspaces is very complex. I also think that the modeling of the inner product in Hilbert space as real number is probably and approximation. QM and general relativity together imply that there are smallest units of time and space, the Planck units. When a quantum theory of gravity is invented I think it may imply a smallest unit of probability - so that the arbitrarily small probabilities required for Tegmark to survive his machine gun will not exist. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com 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: Rép : The Meaning of Life
Brent, I must go, so I will just comment one line before commenting the other paragraph (tomorrow, normally). Le 18-janv.-07, à 06:38, Brent Meeker a écrit : Why isn't the computer (or rock) associated with an infinity of computations? I'm assuming you mean a potential countable infinity in the future. I don't know if computers or rocks "really exist", nor what you mean exactly by such words, but as far as you can associate a computational state to the computer or to the rocks, it belongs to a (first person actual) NON COUNTABLE infinity of computational histories, including quite dummy one, like a program which dovetails on some loopy local simulation of the rock (or the computer) together with a (infinite) dovetailing on the real numbers. Cf my old conversation with Jurgen Schmidhuber. OK? That is why comp predicts a priori not only some white rabbits, but continua of white rabbits. QM eliminates them by "destructive interference", and my point is just that if we take comp seriously enough, then we have to justify those destructive interference by classical computer science/number theory alone. Now, a way to see what happens ( a shortcut!) consists in interviewing a correct lobian machine which looks inward, and, because such a machine has to take into account the modal nuances forced by the incompleteness phenomenon, i.e. the nuance between p, Bp, Bp & p, Bp & Dp, etc., the structure of the space of possible histories appears to be arithmetically quantized in some way. Enough to associate a universal quantum field in the neighborhood of universal machine? Well, that is still an open problem. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com 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: The Meaning of Life
Dear John, Le 17-janv.-07, à 18:11, John M a écrit : Dear Bruno, may I ask you to spell out your "B" and "D"? in your: >Let D = the proposition "God exists", "~" = NOT, B = believes.< Where I think I cannot substitute your "~" for the "=NOT" - or, if the entire line is meaning ONE idea, that "B" believes both the affirmative and the negatory. Also: the difference between ~BD and ~B~D? In this paragraph you should interpret B by "believes" or by "the subject believes". And D is an abbreviation of "God exists" (careful! in other context D is an abbreviation of "~B~", that is "the subject does not believe in the negation of ". Example: B(it rains) = the subject believes it rains. BD = the subject believes that God exists. the tilde symbol ~represents the classical negation. A logician will write~(it rains) for saying that it does not rain. So we recover the four modal negation cases already known by Aristotle (as the aristotelian square): BD = the subject believes that God exists B(~D) = the subject believes that God does not exist ~BD = the subject does not believe that God exists ~B~D = the subject does not believe that God does not exist. We have: BD is true for the so-called "believer" (in God) B(~D) is true for the atheist (he is a believer: he believes that God does not exist) ~BD is true for a (consistent) atheist or for an agnostic ~B~D is true for a (consistent) believer or for an agnostic. To characterize an agnostic, you have to say that both ~BD and ~B~D are true for him. He does neither believe in God, nor in the inexistence of God. If you replace God by Santa-Klaus, or by "Primary matter" you get the corresponding notion of believer, atheist, agnostic relatively to Santa Klaus existence or Matter existence ... I have the feeling that we both are on the same ground in our nonexistent beliefs and I expressed that also as being an agnostic, rather than the atheist (who needs a god-concept (incl. matter, for that matter) to DENY.) We agree on this, and I think we even agree that we agree on this :) It is contrary to the German common usage of "gottlos" (same in my language) - but we try to step further than the conventional common historically used vocabulary. Yes. Br: >I do neither believe in the inexistence of God, nor in the >inexistence of Matter. I wait for more data.< I took a more straightforward stance when a 'believer' challenged me to prove: there is NO god, I said I can disprove only if he proved the existence. This is the quasi-definitive proof that you are a lobian machine ... in case, you accept to interpret arithmetically Plotinus' ONE by "truth". Lobian machine can disprove any attempt to define truth ... (this is mainly a consequence of Tarski theorem) Another (redface) ignorance of mine: it seems that your Wi and Fi references appeared in the parts more technical than I could consciously absorb, so I am at a loss. It is not very difficult. According to Norman Samish it looks too much technical for the list, but I am not sure. In general those who have some problem with the technical stuff have just some lack of elementary "modern math". I will have to come back on the Wi and the Fi, if people are interested in the real stuff Computable must mean more than "Turing emulable" (R.Rosen) since the unrestricted totality is not available in toto for this later concept. "total computable" means more than "turing emulable" (partially computable). Let us not enter in the technics right now, but keep insisting :-) Br asked: >You seem quite sure about that. How do you know? >Why couldn'it be that *you* find this "limited" due to your >own prejudice about numbers and machines? < I was impregnated by some commi dialectic materialism over 2 decades and found a perspective of things developing gradually reasonable. AI emulates (some) human mental characteristics and I don't believe that this process has been completed. Of course, but I am a theoretician interested in guessing where "matter" and "mind" comes from. Also I have theoretical reasons to believe that AI will never proVably succeed. Comp can be used to predict that even some of the AI products will never believe in AI. Some machine will be anticomputationalist. I see additional possibilities to extend into, especially in mental events we have not yet discovered. Hmmm... Careful with this type of argument. It is like saying that I don't believe in quantum mechanics because it does not explain how Uri Geller can change the shape of a fork without touching it. I mean few theories can explain things not yet discovered (even theoretically). This 'feeling' is not due to my - as you say - prejudice about numbers and machines. I could not spell out such 'prejudice', not in the least because of my above argument in agnosticism: I did not get so far a firm support for the 'numbers' being the
Re: The Meaning of [your] Life
Hi Mark, Le 16-janv.-07, à 13:41, Mark Peaty a écrit : Bruno: 'To be honest I always fear a bit those who want to help me or others, but thanks anyway for the good intentions (which pave the way to hell ... :) ' MP: yes, I can relate to that. Be reassured then that as I understand it [AIUI], helping you and others is very much in my own interest. Cool. I must feel that my life has meaning. Without this, getting up in the morning would become a terrible effort never mind going to work in the oxymoronic, Sisyphus-world of bureaucracy. Amongst other things this entails belief that the things I do contribute to the well being and survival prospects of those I love and also to the benefit of those upon whom my children and their children will depend in the future. As I like to say: the human universe is always potentially infinite, so long as it exists and we believe it to be so. OK. However I have not met anyone who can reassure me that the human species has anything much more than a 50% chance of surviving beyond the next 200 years. Ah but this is something else. To comment this I need to comment your last paragraph before, so ... see below. I can see how all the pieces necessary to create sustainable and enduring social and cultural networks and systems already exist; the technology has already been invented, the theory has all been written down. What is not clear to me however is how to ensure that everybody with the need [effectively everybody on the planet] can access the information they need to make fully informed decisions about the crucial issues which affect us. I am pretty much convinced that the answer/s involves person to person dialogue rather than propaganda and oratory, and the empowerment of individuals to undertake human sized projects rather than the regimenting of industrial clone armies in massive organisations. Well ... OK. AIUI the practice of sceptical inquiry is fundamental to getting things right. I agree. (But I think skeptical inquiry in the field of scientific (= modest, doubting) has been abandoned since 1500 years when the academy of Athena has been closed. The Enlightenment has been only half-Enlightenment: scientific theology remained stuck in the authoritative mode of thinking). In this vein, we all need to help each other to see on the one hand the formidable danger which affects absolutely ALL of us, and on the other hand to see the utterly amazing potential for creatively solving all the practical problems that confront us. Such is the nature of the modern world as it is transformed again and again by the fruits of the application of scientific method. I would say it is like that since the very beginning. Bruno: 'Then I can explain you with all details why the proposition "we will all 1-die" is provably "put in doubt" once we assume either just comp or even just quantum mechanics. With QM this is not wishful thinking but "terrorful" thinking: a priori the QM immortality is not fun: each time we die clinically (in a relative third person way), from our personal point of view we survive in the closer normal comp. history. A case can been made that this entails a sort of eternal agony. Of course this can be nuanced too. With comp some weird gap seems to exist ... ' MP: I do not understand this. I am surprised to notice, however, a faint resemblance to something I read once concerning the teachings of George Gurdjieff, an ethnic Armenian who became a teacher of 'esoteric religion' and some very deep insights into how humans function, in the early 20 Century. He died in 1952 in France. Gurdjieff was asked what was the truth about reincarnation, and the reply was along the lines of: talk of souls transmigrating from body to body over millennia was misleading, it is more like that if a person could not see what they were really doing, and what they are, then they [we] are condemned to live and relive that same life - until we realise what is happening [I suppose, or some such ... ]. Well once upon a time I was very enthusiastic about George Gurdjieff's teachings but now I think just that his psychological insights and practical methods were good but too much of his metaphysics, for want of a better word, is pre-scientific in origin. To make things simple, let me say that I think somehow the contrary. I believe that his metaphysics insights are basically "correct" or at least coherent with facts, theories, and philosophical principles which I think are almost beyond reasonable doubts, but I am less far convinced in the practical use of such insights. Now if that can help some people, why not, but, like sometimes with mystics, I'm afraid his disciples didn't got him right. I don't think Gurdjieff metaphysics is pre-scientific, it is pre-aristotelian perhaps, and in that sense, it could be visionary. I know that I have much more to explain to you for making such things
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Hi, Le Vendredi 19 Janvier 2007 12:20, William a écrit : I have been reading up on this subject a little bit and about the quantum immortality, I believe it is a common misconception that this means you will never die; if all future branches involve your death, then you will die ... Quantum immortality does not imply that you can dodge every bullet and that the "you of today" will still live tomorrow, although the "you of yesterday" could still live tomorrow whilst the "you of today" does not. It would be the case if the multiverse contains "cul-de-sac" places... If you take the approach that every moments have a successor moment, then quantum immortality predict you'll never loose conscioussness. Also I personally do not believe ASSA favours a MWI interpretation of quantum mechanics over a deterministic one because a "single MWI universe" will be less probable than a "single deterministic universe". But it might favour MWI over Copenhagen interpretation. I personnaly believe ASSA is broken... because for one thing it cannot explain stream of consciousness, arrow of time and so on... RSSA can. With RSSA you don't assume that "you" is sampled from all moments, but only sampled from moments consistent where the current "you" is in. If the universe splits into 2 universes each second; I do not necissarily see an issue as explained by Stathis Papaioannou in his post. And it is even a fact that you are more probable to live in the year 2000 than in the year 1000 because the human population has grown; but once we go to infinities, the same approach might not work anymore (although I am still debating about this myself) ... Anyway, I do not believe that MWI favours later moments in time over earlier moments in time. Although the number of universes increases, their individual probability decreases, keeping the total probability equal (although relativity might complicate a more rigorous approach). A simple way of picturing this, would be that at the big bang; the universe is 1 piece of paper, and from then on, every second, the piece(s) of paper is cut in half; giving 1, 2, 4, 8, ... universes. The total area of paper remains the same and all the pieces get smaller all the time, this means that the chance of being in a particular universe as the universe splitting progresses, even decreases :). All of this is to kept ASSA which I don't think is true (not even logically true). Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com 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: ASSA and Many-Worlds
I have been reading up on this subject a little bit and about the quantum immortality, I believe it is a common misconception that this means you will never die; if all future branches involve your death, then you will die ... Quantum immortality does not imply that you can dodge every bullet and that the "you of today" will still live tomorrow, although the "you of yesterday" could still live tomorrow whilst the "you of today" does not. Also I personally do not believe ASSA favours a MWI interpretation of quantum mechanics over a deterministic one because a "single MWI universe" will be less probable than a "single deterministic universe". But it might favour MWI over Copenhagen interpretation. If the universe splits into 2 universes each second; I do not necissarily see an issue as explained by Stathis Papaioannou in his post. And it is even a fact that you are more probable to live in the year 2000 than in the year 1000 because the human population has grown; but once we go to infinities, the same approach might not work anymore (although I am still debating about this myself) ... Anyway, I do not believe that MWI favours later moments in time over earlier moments in time. Although the number of universes increases, their individual probability decreases, keeping the total probability equal (although relativity might complicate a more rigorous approach). A simple way of picturing this, would be that at the big bang; the universe is 1 piece of paper, and from then on, every second, the piece(s) of paper is cut in half; giving 1, 2, 4, 8, ... universes. The total area of paper remains the same and all the pieces get smaller all the time, this means that the chance of being in a particular universe as the universe splitting progresses, even decreases :). --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
