Re: Quantum Time Travel
On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Mon, 21 Feb 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Since I do not buy the concept of objective reality, I do not Then you are no better than a Copenhagenist. It's precisely the fact that non-belief in objective reality is a form of insanity that spawned the MWI in the first place. The Copenhagen school lost faith in the power of reason and they did not believe 100% in QM. They failed to explore the full implications of QM (without the wave collapse phenomemon). Einstein who opposed the Copenhagen School, died in 1955 in Princeton. That same year, a young graduate student, Hugh Everett III, joined Princeton University and two years later, under the guidance of John Archibald Wheeler, he published his doctoral dissertation which he called a Relative State Formulation of quantum mechanics in the Reviews of Modern Physics, Volumer 29, No. 3, pages 454-462, July 1957. This paper clearly positions him as a relativist. Einstein claimed that no observer in an inertial frame is privileged; Everett asserted that no observer state in superposition is privileged. Everett had the courage and vision to continue the quest that Einstein started. He is the true inheritor of Einstein's mantle. It is well known that Einstein believed in an objective reality. That's why he made the EPR argument to Bohr. Everett did indeed extend the work of Einstein. That part I agree with. Like Einstein, he believed in an objective reality. When he talked about observers in a superposition, he clearly believed that they exist in some objective sense. That's how he could go beyond Copenhagen. Jacques, to call me no better than a Copenhagenist shows me your true measure and your unfortunate lack of comprehension in this matter. I am a relativist. No, you yourself said you're a subjectivist, anti-realist. That's the problem, not the fact that you don't privilege one term in a superposition, because neither do I. As far as your own measure I took that long ago. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Physicist / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: normalization
On Tue, 18 Jan 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The RSSA is not another way of viewing the world; it is a category error. I use the RSSA as the basis for calculating what I call the relative probability, in this group the first person probability, or, equivalently, the probability conditional on the life of the observer. The ASSA is by extension, the assumption for calculating the 3rd person probability. Let us perform a thought experiment. Imagine that you are the scientist in the Schroedinger cat experiment. Scratch that. Right now let's stick to the example with Bruno and the 3 cities, because it's better for the current point. Suppose Bruno, in 1999, wants to know if he is more likely to be in Washington or in Moscow during 2001. First of all, that is not a well defined question, because Bruno must be defined. Suppose we define it to mean the set of all Bruno-like observations, where by Bruno-like we can assume we know what qualifies. But then the question becomes meaningless, because it is 100% certain that he will be in *both* cities. A 3rd person would have to agree with that, he is in *both* cities. So let's ask a meaningful question. Among the set of Bruno-like observations in 2001, what is the effective probability of such an observation being in Moscow? This is just a conditional effective probability so we use the same rule we always use: p(Moscow|Bruno in 2001) = M(Moscow, Bru. 2001) / [M(Moscow, Bru. 2001) + M(Washington, Bru. 2001)] where M is the measure. So in this case the conditional effective probability of him seeing Moscow at that time is 10%, and in *1999* he knows he should brush up on his English because his future 'selves' will be affected by that. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Physicist / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: Doom2k
On Tue, 7 Dec 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Suppose there are two possibilities: you live in a universe where there will be 100 billion people total, or in a universe where there will be 100 trillion people total, and a priori you think there is a 50-50 chance which one is the case. You check your birth order and find that you are about number 50 billion. Now, that would be pretty likely if you were in the 100-billion universe, but it would be very unlikely if you were in the 100-trillion universe. Hence by Bayesian reasoning you find you are more likely to be in the 100-billion universe, and therefore the human race is likely to end relatively soon. This is the Doomsday argument. However introducing the all-universe model and the self-selection assumption (that you are a random individual from among all individuals in all universes) then a priori the chances that you are in the 100-trillion universe are ten times greater than that you are in the 100-billion universe. This exactly counters the shift which you made in the Doomsday argument, based on your birth order, which made you think you were more likely to be in the 100-billion universe. The Doomsday argument still works. The uncertainty is not which universe you're in; as you say, if both universes exist and you know that, there's no Doomsday argument. But the thing is, you don't know that. Suppose there are N universes that all exist. Some X of them have 10^11 people, (N-X) have 10^14, but you don't know what fraction X/N is. If your number is 5*10^10, this suggests X/N is large: Doomsday. Of course, if you could calculate X/N from first principles, there would be no argument. The one-world case is just N=1; again, if you could calculate whether X=0 or X=1 in this case, there would be no argument. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: tautology
On Thu, 4 Nov 1999, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, 26 Oct 1999, Russell Standish wrote: [JM wrote] [BTW I am getting tired of RS omitting the attribution] ^^^ Blame my email software. I almost always leave the .signatures in to make it obvious who I'm responding to. Since your software is bad, you should add it manually. It is obvious that p(Y1X) = p(Y1Z), because in all instances in It is not obvious, for the same reason that p(Y1X) = p(Y2X) is not obvious. If QTI is true, then it is clearly not true. Don't assume what you're trying to prove. Perhaps I should have been a little more clear. I am discussing the ASSA, not trying to prove it but to show that it is self consistent. You are right in the sense that I left something out. I am assuming a reasonable measure distribution based on the physical situation. For example, the measure could be proprtional to the number of implementations of a computation, as I like to assume. It is also possible to assume an unreasonable measure distribution, like the RSSA. This of course would require new, strange and complicated laws of psycho-physics. So what I am really doing is showing that (ASSA + reasonable measure (RM)) is self consistent. However, the way we have been using the term ASSA, RM has almost always been assumed. In any case it is always true that some way of calculating the measure distribution is needed. Your claim was that the RSSA is needed. My example shows that RM does the job. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: tautology
On Wed, 20 Oct 1999, Russell Standish wrote: The measure of Jack Mallah is irrelevant to this situation. The probability of Jack Mallah seeing Joe Schmoe with a large age is proportional to Joe Schmoe's measure - because - Joe Schmoe is independent of Jack Mallah. However, Jack Mallah is clearly not independent of Jack Mallah, and predictions of the probability of Jack Mallah seeing a Jack Mallah with large age cannot be made with the existing assumptions of ASSA. The claim is that RSSA has the additional assumptions required. That's total BS. I'll review, although I've said it so many times, how effective probabilities work in the ASSA. You can take this as a definition of ASSA, so you can NOT deny that this is how things would work if the ASSA is true. The only thing you could try, is to claim that the ASSA is false. The effective probability of an observation with characteristic 'X' is (measure of observations with 'X') / (total measure). The conditional effective probability that an observation has characteristic Y, given that it has characteristic X, is p(Y|X) = (measure of observations with X and with Y) / (measure with X). OK, these definitions are true in general. Let's apply them to the situation in question. 'X' = being Jack Mallah and seeing an age for Joe Shmoe and for Jack Mallah, and seeing that Joe also sees both ages and sees that Jack sees both ages. Suppose that objectively (e.g. to a 3rd party) Jack and Joe have their ages drawn from the same type of distribution. (i.e. they are the same species). Case 1: 'Y1' = the age seen for Joe is large. Case 2: 'Y2' = the age seen for Jack is large. Clearly P(Y1|X) = P(Y2|X). - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: tautology
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Russell Standish wrote: [JM wrote] Obviously you don't understand. With the ASSA, it is always possible to find the conditional probability of an observation given a suitable condition. Choosing a condition and asking a question about it changes nothing about the real situation. The difference between the ASSA and RSSA really becomes apparent when the ASSA predicts nonconservation of measure as a function of time. Obviously this does not happen in most everyday, nonfatal situations. Unless you've changed your spots Jacques, you are starting to become incoherent. ASSA is not defined with reference to time, so therefore cannot make any statements about it. The RSSA is. What are you talking about? I really don't know. The ASSA states, and always has, that the effective probability of an observer moment is proportional to it measure. Time doesn't enter this definition, in the same way that seeing a color doesn't enter; the general rule needs no modification to be applied in either case. It was super-obvious in my post that when I talked about a function of time above I was referring to the fact that the measure of observer moments along a computational continuation varies with time. The RSSA, as far as I can see, is not defined at all. I have tried to extropolate the descriptions you guys give into some kind of coherent position for me to attack, but it seems to me that you often contradict yourselves while denying any such contradictions. The role of time in the RSSA is a case in point. BTW, while I'm posting I might as well ask, if you guys are so darn sure consciousness is continuous and that it somehow means it cannot end, how come you seem to have no problem with birth? It seems to me that your arguments would apply equally in that direction. How come you have no trouble picturing a boundary for it in the past? I'm sure you'll come up with some BS answer but this once again shows the foolishness of your position. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: tautology
On Mon, 6 Sep 1999, Russell Standish wrote: On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Russell Standish wrote: Then maybe I misunderstood you. A tautology is a term with redundant parts, ie it is equivalent to some subset of itself. I took your statement that ASSA is a tautology to mean that ASSA is equivalent to SSA (symbolically ASSA = SSA). I directly contradict this in my first sentence. [JM wrote] From WordNet (r) 1.6 (wn) tautology n 1: (in logic) a statement that is necessarily true; the statement `he is brave or he is not brave' is a tautology 2: useless repetition; to say that something is `adequate enough' is a tautology I was not aware of meaning 2 of the word, while I have frequently encountered the word used for meaning 1. The definition I gave and the one you quoted are equivalent. I quoted two very different definitions. The one you gave is equivalent to #2. The one I meant in my 'zombie wives' post was #1. Sorry, I missed the second definition. It is merely a colloquial generalisation of definition 1, and is definitely the one I was using. Generalization? That's BS. They are totally different. Example of def. 1: A or not A Example of def. 2: A and A - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: zombie wives
On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, Russell Standish wrote: I use the terms SSA, ASSA, RSSA only because others on the list insist on using them. In my opinion the 'ASSA' is a tautology and not an assumption, while the 'RSSA' is an error. ASSA != SSA. ASSA makes explicit the sample set over which SSA is applied. So does RSSA (the sample set being different to the ASSA case). A third possibility is SSA of birth rank, as used in Leslie Carter's arguments. Ok. Nothing in your paragraph contradicts what I said. Under relative SSA, there is time. Each observer moment is connected to a range (presumably infinite) of future observer moments. The Here's where the position of the QS camp appears to diverge from other positions of QSers, notably Higgo James, who of course endorses both seemingly contradictory positions. Sorry - what are the seemingly contradictory position? Whether one assumes ASSA or RSSA? (these are contradictory positions, and give rise to different predictions about QTI) No, the role of time. Higgo James has often stated his belief that moments in time are really not connected. No. If every observer sees all future moments, then the amount of Whoa there! Noone said anything about every observer seeing all future moments. Where did this piece of nonsense come from? It's the QTI claim together with the claim that an observer is extended over all times at which he exists. Nonsense, yes. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank you Jacques for your detailed reply to my post asking about your concept of measure. It seems to me that you have made the assumption that the MWI only deals with splitting of the observer and not the merging. This leads to the conclusion that under the Relative SSA the measure keeps increasing and we find ourselves to be very old in the most probable worlds. However, if we include merging of the observer, then we could end up with a Relative SSA in which measure is conserved. Nope. The measure is conserved in the RSSA leading to the infinite expected value for the age. This said, I find it difficult to talk about increase and decrease and making comparisons of the measure when the quantity in question is infinite. Then take a calculus course. I consider the question a non-issue, and I just spelled it out explicitly to try to get past it. Some limiting proceedure is required. Same as always when dealing with infinities in physics. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: zombie wives
I use the terms SSA, ASSA, RSSA only because others on the list insist on using them. In my opinion the 'ASSA' is a tautology and not an assumption, while the 'RSSA' is an error. On Mon, 23 Aug 1999, Russell Standish wrote: Now this implies that an individual's measure decreases the older that individual gets. This is the basis of Jacques' argument against QTI. In absolute SSA, an individual concious being is a sample from the set of all observer moments. There is no time, one just is. Under this picture, one could never expect to be all that old. Ok so far. Under relative SSA, there is time. Each observer moment is connected to a range (presumably infinite) of future observer moments. The Here's where the position of the QS camp appears to diverge from other positions of QSers, notably Higgo James, who of course endorses both seemingly contradictory positions. relative SSA predicts that the observer will see at the next instant of time an observer moment with the greatest measure, subject to its lying in the future of the current observer moment. That measure may be fantastically small (eg just prior to a fatal crash) - it just has to be the largest from that set. No. If every observer sees all future moments, then the amount of consciousness does not decrease with time, and thus the measure stays constant over time. This has the consequence that, for a given observer, over most of his lifetime he will find himself to be very old. It may seem that I am mixing in the ASSA when I say that, therefore, the fact that we do not find ourselves old is evidence against the RSSA. The truth is I can not avoid this way of thinking any more than I could believe that 1+1=3. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: zombie wives
On Mon, 23 Aug 1999, Jacques M. Mallah wrote: Life will continue but with decreasing measure. Still it seems that you can make a refutable prediction: namely, that the universe we are in is not optimised for us to be here, but is optimised to give you a long lifetime. Basically you are saying that what the measure ratio (say, between two universes) will be in the future affects the measure ratio in the present. For example a universe in which lives decay polynomially would be favored over one in which they decay exponentially. This may be confusing since I mixed apples with oranges. I should have said the universes in which the (absolute) SSA would predict a slower decrease in measure, since, with the relative SSA, those universes would *increase* in measure. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: zombie wives
On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, Russell Standish wrote: [Jack wrote] What I am trying to do is to look at the consequences of the claims made by the quantum suicide camp. The claim is that consciousness 'flows into' possible continuations of oneself and is, in effect, conserved as long as such continuations exist. I by no means accept this claim. However I see no reason why you say it would deny the existence of copying machines. Because copying machines increase one's measure, but not effective probability, which remains normalised. I agree with that statement but don't agree that it's consistent with QS. In this copying machine incident, we assume that a person experiencing the event has a 50% chance of experiencing being either copy. However, each Jane will be fully concsious - there is no diluting of that conciousness. An outside observer will be unable to distinguish who was the real Jane. Neither would an inside observer. I maintain that the distinction is meaningless. [I wrote] If the problem is that QSers may deny that measure is conserved, that problem is not my fault. By their other words it is clear that they believe it is. (You may be included in the group I mean by 'them'.) I am the one using the term correctly. [this paragraph still applies] I still don't see what measure has to do with conciousness! That is the problem. From: Higgo James [EMAIL PROTECTED] We of the 'quantum suicide camp' deny absolutely that consciousness, or anything else 'flows'. Flow is a function of time, which is subjective, not an objective feature of reality. To say consciousness flows, is like saying a program creates the hardware on which it runs, and the programming language in which it is written. I'd say there's a split in your camp - and you have been on both sides of it! I don't see how you can say the above but reject the SSA. Consciousness is not some special property you can bottle, for God's sake. But if I am conscious in this universe, and the next one is virtually identical, then I am virtually certain that I will be conscious in that one. The above paragraph is incomprehensible, starting with your use of the letter 'I'. I am not sure what this letter is supposed to signify in that context. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
zombie wives
referring to t0 | | t1 T / \ H / \ t2 / / \ | | \ t3 Y R B Assume that all three branches occur (two copying events). Gilles Henri wrote: With the color cards, each Jane will measure subjectively a probability 1/2 of yellow, 1/4 of red (1/2 H *1/2 being chosen as Jane 1) and 1/4 blue, so again p(H) = p(T)=1/2 with the conditional probability formula. The probability 2/3 is indeed the chance of finding someone who saw H after the first experiment from a bird perspective, because duplicating introduces a bias. I agree that according to the approach taken by the q-su's, namely that one's measure is somehow distributed among the so called computational continuations of one's brain activity, the probabilities would be (1/2,1/4,1/4). It is a history dependent claim: t0 | | t1 W / \ H / \ t2 T/ \H \ | \ \ t3 Y R B where W=wait to show the coin to her until the second copying event. Since she doesn't know when copying occurs this looks identical from her perspective, but the measure distribution is (1/4,1/4,1/2) according to the QS claim. Presumably this measure distribution would remain the same years later. I think this is already both ill-defined and anti-intuitive. To extend the example suppose that to counter the unfortunate demographic imbalance in China, someone figures out how to instantly make a million copies of Gong Li. According to the flow of measure claim, each of these copies would have just one millionth of a normal human measure. So these women would practically be zombies. It would not be justified to give them equal rights since they have so much less consciousness. This would remain true even as life experiences give them different perspectives and evolved personalities, some of them come to America, etc. I think this shows how ridiculous the claim is. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: minimal theory of consciousness
On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do you think this variant would work. Suppose that there are multiple possible distinct universes, forming a set U of all possible universes, and a probability measure P() defined over elements of U, which tells how much contribution that universe makes. I think that is the direction many of us start from. Now suppose we need only answer the question, does anything in each universe from U give rise to my consciousness. Q(x) where x is selected from U is the probability that universe x instantiates my consciousness (I'm not sure whether we'd get probabilities other than 0 and 1 though). My motivation is to avoid the replay problem as it seems that so many of these paradoxes involve replays. I only have to decide whether my consciousness is ever instantiated in a universe, I don't have to decide whether each replay is separately conscious. Excuse me, what do you mean by 'paradoxes'? I recall no discussion of such. I can then apply your formula, letting x vary over all universes in U, computing sum over x of P(x)Q(x). I don't fully understand the meaning of the result, the probability that I feel the way I do, but I wonder if this would be a valid alternative way of getting to it. That makes NO sense. If you say all 'universes' exist, that's the same as saying one big universe exists. And if two copies of the same computation give you twice the measure when they are in different 'subuniverses', there's no reason that shouldn't be true in general. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: implementations
On 9 xxx -1, Marchal wrote: Oh ! It could help me if you answer the following question: Suppose you are right and you solve the implementation problem (in your sense). So you get a correctly implemented computer. This one is still emulable by a Turing Machine, correctly programmed, OK ? The running of that Turing machine will, if I understand you, be responsible for the presence of consciousness. OK ? What will happen, in this case, if a part of the machine doesn't work, and if an accidental bunch of cosmic rays, supplies to the non-functionning during some time. Will there still be consciousness during that time ? It depends how important the broken part is. The rest of the computer would still function and the data from the broken part (supplied by the coincidental rays) would act as input. The human brain has several backup systems. If the broken part was big and of major importance, then there would not be consciousness during that time. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
RE: Quantum Physics
On Fri, 9 Jul 1999, Higgo James wrote: So why don't we observe vacuum collapses, Jacques? I guess it never occurred to you that the vacuum might be stable? - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: Q Wars Episode 10^9: the Phantom Measure
On 31 xxx -1, Marchal wrote: I have probably missed something (in the 10^9 episodes!), but I still cannot figure out why should my measure decrease with time. At least, unlike some q-immorters, you admit that you do not think measure decreases with time. At least with comp, it seems to me that the measure can only grow, for I can have only a countable set of past histories, and (even without immortality) I have a uncountable set of futur histories (continuations). If you (or any one else) could elaborate on this, and/or refer me to the discussion-list, or to an URL, it would help me to understand the point. Before that, I want to establish a key point. Do you admit that if, in fact, your measure were to decrease (for example) exponentially with time, you would not be immortal in any meaningful sense? If you admit that, then we could have a discussion about whether measure does decrease or not. If you do not admit it, then we can't have much of a discussion since we apparently wouldn't be speaking the same language. I'm still open to the idea that such a measure doesn't exist (in wich case comp would be false). Where does your assurance come from ? If implementations of computations are well defined, I take the measure to be proportional to the number of such (there may be possible generalizations); more generally one could have a new law of physics to assign some other measure. If computationalism is false, one would need some new law to assign a measure on observations. Either way I don't see a problem with the idea of measure. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: who's on 1st
On Sun, 25 Apr 1999, Gilles HENRI wrote: But COMP is (if I understood it correctly) a stronger hypothesis: it is that at some finite level, you could reproduce or duplicate EXACTLY your conscious state, or at least you could simulate it to an arbitrary degree of accuracy (which is already somewhat different!) (James): I will not speak about COMP - it is not my term - but as far as duplicating your conscious state, you can. The idea is that by duplicating some computation, your conscious state would be duplicated, since consciouness is just as aspect of certain computations. that's necessary. I built an arificial neurone out of integrated circuits in 1984; I have no doubt that if I had enough of them I could simulate myself to an arbitrary degree of accuracy. To deny this is to bring in sprit by another name. James James' claim is wrong. The brain is much more complicated that that; there are chemical signals and many other connections of various strengths. Neurons are not simple systems of transistors. The brain could be simulated but only with a more complicated algorithm. Jacques, how do you define If he is implementing the same conscious computation as me? See my web page for my ideas on what 'implementing' means. Knowing which computations are conscious is another matter, but I use the Turing test as a rough guideline within the restricted set of computations that brains perform. (e.g. Huge look up tables could pass the Turing test, but are not used by the brain.) If you think that you have built a neural network almost identical to yourself, you know that YOU have built A MACHINE. But what does YOUR MACHINE know? If computationalism is true, it knows and feels pretty much what you know and feel. And if you succeed in building an intelligent machine (which IS possible in my opinion), this machine SHOULD know that it is a machine, and hence that it is not you, exactly for the same reason why you know that you are you, and not anybody else. That just depends on the view it has of the external world. You, Giles, *could* be an artificial digital intelligence in a simultated environment in a supercomputer, and you'd never know it if it's done well enough. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: who's on 1st
On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, Gilles HENRI wrote: (note: I wrote) The point is that a human brain implements some digital computations. An analog system is perfectly capable of implementing digital computations; usually only for a certain set of initial conditions. The basic unit which is associated with consciousness is one time step of such a computation. To reproduce a particular observation - which you can call 'you' - you only need to implement the given computation by any means. The question I raise is: how do you define different implementations of the same person vs implementations of different persons (or thinking machines)? You don't. At least, you don't have to, but could for practical purposes. It's not a fundamental distinction. If you meet somebody who insures you that he is you, would you believe him and if not, why? It depends on the definition you use. If he is implementing the same conscious computation as me, then he's the same as me in that sense. (And this is the one that's involved in the duplication thought experiment.) But he's not me in the sense that there are still two of us. If he's just implementing ones that are very closely related to mine, such as my future self would do, or my counterparts in other MWI 'worlds' would do, then he's close enough to me for many practical purposes. For legal purposes (e.g. property rights), he's not me. You seem to adopt a very large definition of consciousness (any computation?) and you (any reproduction of any computation that you made at any time?). As any definition, it is perfectly respectable. But it does not fit into what is usually meant by these words in the all day life. No, only a conscious computation counts. Most computations have no consciouness, presumably. And no, it has to be the one I'm making now - so I'm a different person now than in the past, technically. And yes, it is different, because technical applications require precise definitions that describe the new way of thinking. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: who's on 1st
On Fri, 16 Apr 1999, Gilles HENRI wrote: A computer has a number of physical degrees of freedom (physical entropy) enormously greater than the number of its computational degrees of freedom (memory and processor size); that allows to reproduce the same computational complexity with many different material structures. So it is clear that if you want to simulate a physical system (down to detailed molecular structure) with a computer, you will need a computer huger than this system. But then this computer cannot behave PHYSICALLY like this system. The only possibility is to built a molecular computer that has exactly the same PHYSICAL behaviour than your system, that is in fact an exact PHYSICAL copy of you (usually what SF authors assume!). It's not necessary to simulate exactly 'your' behavior for all time. The point is that a human brain implements some digital computations. An analog system is perfectly capable of implementing digital computations; usually only for a certain set of initial conditions. The basic unit which is associated with consciousness is one time step of such a computation. To reproduce a particular observation - which you can call 'you' - you only need to implement the given computation by any means. If a computer 'fails' due to thermal coupling to the environment, then it + the environment did not implement the given computation. It + the environment implemented a different computation. (Of course in the MWI we don't expect to be able to observe the final state of such a system, which is given by its full wavefunction; presumably it will have many implementations of the same computation; see my web page for more details.) - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: Causation, Indexical facts Self-sampling
On Tue, 13 Apr 1999, Nick Bostrom wrote: The Self-Sampling Assumption (SSA), the idea that you should reason as if you were a random sample form the set of all observers, underlies many of the discussions we have had on this list. About half a year ago I discovered some paradoxical consequences of this assumption. It seems to imply that weird backwards causation and psychokinesis(!) is feasible in our world. In this small paper I describe these possible counterexamples and discuss whether they really are as paradoxical as they appear at first blush: http://www.anthropic-principle.com/preprints/cau/causation.doc There may actually be an interesting issue related to this. It's not surprising that the Copernican principle (or SSA as you call it) fails to be useful when the observer, like Adam, just happens to be in an atypical position. It remains true that it will work for most observers and that one should use it; even Adam. The interesting thing is that if Adam believed in the MWI, he could calculate (roughly) the distribution of observers, and then he would realize that the effective probability of him seeing himself have a child, and therefore of any correlated coin flips or deer crossings, was the same as a third party observer would calculate. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: valuable errors
On 14 xxx -1, Marchal wrote: OK, so you agree that a computationalist could, in case it is technologically feasible, use teletransport to move herself. Remember that the original is destroyed, and reconstituted elsewhere. I guess you agree that if someone survives teletransport, she will still survives teletransport in case of multiple and independent reconstitutions. Now, you were saying that the entrenched trivial errors concerns the measure issue. Could you tell me if there is already an entrenched trivial error for those who believes, like myself, that if people tell us in advance that there will be multiple reconstitutions, then, before teletransportation, their immediate futur is undetermined ? This is what I like to call Mechanist or Computationnalist Indeterminism. So my question is do you believe in Mechanist Indeterminism ?. The situation you described is completely deterministic, much like the MWI of QM. For all practical purposes, a person who is copied should expect their future selves to be effectively randomly chosen. If you want to talk about what is actually going on though, I don't even accept that 'individual identity' carries over from one time step of a computation to the next. It's just that the future self or selves are sufficiently similar to the current self to motivate an interest in his (or their) well being. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: valuable errors
On 13 Mar -1, Marchal wrote: Jacques M Mallah wrote: Yes, that's why I've enjoyed my discussions with Wei Dai. My problem is with what I see as the trivial errors that are so entrenched in many of the opinions. Could you be a little more explicit ? Could you give examples of trivial errors. I suspect everybody here want to make some progress. Or are you just thinking that the trivial errors are so much entrenched that you don't believe you will be able to correct them ? Yes, that has already been demonstrated - e. g. on the measure issue - and is consistent with my experience in other forums. I know that you present yourself as a computationalist, but just to clear things up, does it mean you are willing to accept a substitution of your brain (or body) by a digital one, at some level of substitution? I don't know why that would be unclear. In my view, in principle, a digital computer could simulate me in all the important respects and could be conscious. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Re: Quantum suicide
Hello. Max, you haven't responded to the arguments I've made against it. (e.g. http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/msg00287.html, http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/msg00306.html, http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/msg00313.html, http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/msg00349.html, etc.) If you will be in NYC again or want to come up here and have a discussion about about it, we could arrange a meeting, since that would probably allow a more effective discussion than by email. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/ | Add C | | ono | | n | |x n |x |ox e | |ooxc | |xoox t | | J.M. 4 |
Re: Jacques, champion of truth, justice and the American way
On Tue, Jan 26, 1999 at 09:51:53AM -, Higgo James wrote: Jacques, Darwin has a lot of work to do before I become a slave to my genes, which is what you advocate. I don't say consciousness jumps magically. Our consciousness, like anything, exists in the same form in very many sets of universes. It doesn't make sense to say 'I am that one' or 'no, I'm that one'. You are all of them, and as many sets you could call 'you' get 'shut down' because of a vacuum collapse or supernova or quantum suicide experiemnt, they become no longer you, and irrelevant to you. If the number of copies did not affect the measure, which is what you just said, then all possible observations would have the same measure, since at least one copy would exist somewhere. In that case there would be nothing to favor, say, observing consistent laws of physics. Our observations would be quite atypical. So we can dismiss that possibility right away. The only alternative is that the number of copies is relevant and does determine the measure. On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Wei Dai wrote: Seriously, why can't we agree that there is no single right answer here, just like there is no single right answer for the Coke vs Pepsi question. Whether or not QS is rational depends on one's subjective values. That's never been the issue. We all agree it depends on one's values. But if the QS advocates understood the facts, the values they have expressed clearly indicate that they would not want to commit suicide. They don't understand that it would reduce their measure, and while some may say they do but don't care about measure, it is obvious that they still don't understand measure. If they really didn't care about measure, they wouldn't care about immortality for instance; they would be content to have a short but good time, then die (really die). They would have a small amount of measure, but all of it 'good times'. But they don't want that; they want more life, more measure. p.s.I just got a Li Vitanyi and it looks like just what my toolkit can use. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
