Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-20 Thread Bruno Marchal

Hi Hal,

You say my theory is a subset of yours. I don't understand. I have no 
theory, just a deductive argument that IF we are (digital) machine then 
the physical world is in our head. Then I show how a Universal Turing 
Machine can discover it in its own head. This makes comp, or 
variants, testable.

I have no theory (beside theory of number and machine), I'm just 
listening to the machine. That's all. Then I compare the comp-physics 
with empirical physics.

Do you grasp the Universal Dovetailer Argument? Ask if not.

Regards,

Bruno



Le 20-févr.-07, à 04:42, Hal Ruhl a écrit :


 Hi Bruno:

 At 05:43 AM 2/19/2007, you wrote:


 Le 18-févr.-07, à 03:33, Hal Ruhl a écrit :


 Hi Bruno:

 In response I will start with some assumptions central to my 
 approach.

 The first has to do with the process of making a list.

 The assumption is:

 Making a list of items [which could be some of
 the elements of a set for example] is always a
 process of making a one to one mapping of the
 items to some of the counting numbers such as:

 1 - an item
 2 - an item not previously on the list
 3 - an item not previously on the list
 .
 .
 .
 n - last item and it was not previously on the list


 I don' t see clearly an assumption here. I guess you are assuming
 existence of things capable of being put in a list.

 What I am trying to do is establish what making a
 list is in my model and does it have any mathematical credence.

 I make it an assumption because some may believe
 that make a list means something different.

 Effectively? then
 why not use the Wi (cf Cutland's book or older explanations I have
 provided on the list. Help yourself with Podniek's page perhaps, or 
 try
 to be just informal.


 See below





 My second assumption is:

 Objects [such as states of universes for example] have properties.


 You talk like if it was an axiomatic. A good test to see if it is an
 axiomatic consists to change the primitive words you are using by
 arbitrary words. You are saying glass of bears have trees and 
 garden.

 Did you mean class not glass?

 You can add that you mean that the term glass of bear is *intended
 for states of universes,

 I am not a mathematician so I do not quite understand the above.

  but recall the goal is to provide an
 explanation for the appearance of the states of universes.

 If I understand you, that comes later in the walk through of my model

  In general
 properties are modelized by sets. It is ok to presuppose some naive 
 set
 theory, but then you axiomatic has to be clean.


 See below




 My third assumption is:

 All of the properties it is possible for objects to have can be 
 listed.


 I guess you assume church thesis, and you are talking about effective
 properties.


 To me at this point the Church Thesis is an
 ingredient in some of the possible state
 succession sequences allowed in my model.

 I mean all properties I do not know if that is
 the same as your effective properties.



 My fourth assumption is:

 The list of possible properties of objects is countably infinite.


 ? (lists are supposed to be countably infinite (or finite)).


 This is my point above - to list inherently a
 countably infinite [as max length] process.

 I would add that my third assumption becomes more
 important later as one of the keys to my model's dynamic.




 Conclusions so far:
 [All possible objects are defined by all the sub lists of the full
 list.]
 [The number of objects is uncountably infinite]

 What is the full list?

 The list of all possible properties of objects.



 I will stop there for now and await comments.

 As to the remainder of the post:

 In the above I have not reached the point of
 deriving the dynamic of my model but I am not
 focusing on computations when I say that any
 succession of states is allowed.  Logically
 related successions are allowed.  Successions
 displaying any degree of randomness are also allowed.


 I have already mentionned that comp entails some strong form of (first
 person) randomness. Indeed, a priori to much.


 Yes we have discussed this before, and it is one
 of the reasons I continue to believe that your approach is a sub set 
 of mine.

 I know it has taken a long time for me to reach a
 level in my model where I could even begin to use
 an axiom based description and I appreciate your patience.


 I would like to finish the walk through of my
 model before discussing white rabbits and observation.


 I am really sorry Hall. It looks you want to be both informal and
 formal. It does not help me to understand what you are trying to say.

 I have read that it takes 10 years of focused
 practice to become an expert in a given sub discipline.

 At this point in my practice of engineering I am
 on my way to becoming an expert in a fifth sub discipline.

 I hope you can understand why I must continue to
 find a path to the development and expression of
 my ideas in this venue that is short of becoming
 an expert in mathematical 

Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-20 Thread John Mikes
Thanks, Bruno, lots of remarkable notions in your remarks (I mean: I can
write remarks to them 0 sorry for the pun). Let me interject in Italics
below.
John

On 2/5/07, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Hi John,


 Le 03-févr.-07, à 17:20, John Mikes a écrit :

  Stathis, Bruno,
 
   This summary sounds fine if I accept to 'let words go'. Is there a
  way to
   'understand' (=use with comprehension) the 'words' used here without
  the
   'technical' acceptance of the theoretical platform?


 I am not sure. Avoiding technical acceptance of a theoretical platform
 can be done for presenting result, not really for discussing about
 them.


Before discussing, I want to 'understand' - definitely without first
'accepting' the platform I may discuss. One has to be able to express ideas
for people who do not know them in advance.

  There are sacrosanct 'words' used without explaining them (over and
  over again?, BUT
   at least once for the benefit of that newcomer 'alien' who comes from
  another vista' ,
   like
 
   (absolute?) probability - is there such a thing as probability, the
  figment that
if it happend x times it WILL happen the (X+one)th time as well?


 This is inductive inference, not probability.


There are probability-discussions going on on  2 lists. aLL FALL into your
term. Do you have an example for probability (as pointed out from a
muiltitude of possible occurrences)?

 combined with
the statistical hoax of counting from select members in a limited
  group the version
'A' models and assuming its 'probability'?


 That is why to use probability and/or any uncertainty measure we have
 to be clear about the axioms we are willing to admit, at least for the
 sake of some argument.


I do not accept 'axioms', they are postulated to make a theoretical position
feasible. I will come back to this at your 'numbers'.


   observer moment (observer, for that matter), whether the moment is a
  time-concept
in it and the 'observer' must be conscious (btw: identifying
  'conscious')


 The expression observer moment has originated with Nick Bostrom, in
 context similar to the doomsday argument. I would call them first
 person observer moment. I will try to explain how to translate them in
 comp.


Translate it please first into plain English. Without those symbols which
may be looked up in half an hour just to find 8 other ones in the
explanation which then can be looked up to find 5-6 further ones in each and
so on.
this is the reason for my FIRST par question.


   number (in the broader sense, yet applied as real integers) (Btw: are
  the 'non-Arabic'
numbers also numbers? the figments of evolutionary languages
  alp[habetical or not?
Is zero a number? Was not in Platonia - a millennium before its
  invention(?!)


 Number, by default are the so called natural number: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4,
 ...
 They correspond to the number of strokes in the following sequence of
 sets:
 { }, { I }, { II }, { III }, {  }, { I  }, { II  }, {
 III  }, {   }, etc.


Does that mean that you cannot distinguish whether 3, 30, 101010, 120, 1002,
etcetera, ALL SYMBOLISED BY {III}   (plus the unmarked zeroes)
(You did not include the hiatus and position, as number, as I see).
Which would nicely fit into the Number=God statement, as infinite
variations of infinite many meanings..

Zero is a number by definition. But this is just a question of
 definition. For the Greeks number begins with three. Like the adjective
 numerous still rarely applies when only two things are referred too.


Like Teen(ager) starts at 13. Early development counted to 5, (fingers?)
above that it was many. In Russian there is a singular and a  dual case,
then a 'small plural' for 3,4,5, then comes the big plural 6-10 in every
decimal size repeatedly.  Ancient Hungarian etc. music was pentatonal. Now
we are decimalic (for practical reasons, except for some backward countries,
e.g. USA) - our toddler computers are binary. So I presume (induction-wise)
that there will be developed other number-systems as well in the future,
unless we accept humbly to be omniscient and sit at the top of the epistemic
enrichment.


   The 'extensions' of machine into (loebian etc.) [non?]-machine, like
  comp into the nondigital



 ? comp does not go out of the digital, except from a first person point
 of view (but that is an hard technical point, to be sure).


Do you deny the analogue computing? or(!!) transcribe the participants of
any analogy into numbers? I called above the digital computing  toddler.

In english I would define a universal (digital) machine, by a
 digital machine potentially capable of emulating (simulating perfectly)
 any other digital machine from a description of it. Today's computers
 and interpreters are typical example of such hard and soft
 (respectively) universal machines. Now a universal digital machine is
 lobian when she knows that she is universal. Defining knows has to
 be a bit 

Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-20 Thread Hal Ruhl

Hi Bruno:

As to my grasp of the UDA I think I understood it at one time well 
enough for my purpose but that will become clearer as I progress 
through my model.   There are not too many more steps.

Examining the complete list of possible properties of objects we 
should find Empty of all information.

This would on a sub list.   It would from at least part of the sub 
list that could be assigned the name The Nothing or just Nothing.

The Nothing would also be incomplete if there was a meaningful 
question it must answer.  The question would be Can The Nothing 
sustain its of property of being empty of information?  It can not 
answer this question so it is incomplete.  However, it must answer 
this question so its incompleteness is unstable.  It must eventually 
eat its way into the rest of the list so to speak - eventually having 
an countably infinite number of properties.  This is the source of my 
model's dynamic.

The list itself has properties and these are on a sub list.

We actually do not need the list if we allow for simplicity that the 
objects it and its sub lists define are themselves the sufficient 
elements of the model.  The list is then an object and contains 
itself.  It is infinitely nested.  Each nesting has its unstably 
incomplete Nothing.  An infinite nesting of dynamic potential.

If the list is complete which seems certain then it should be [I 
believe] inconsistent [will answer all questions all ways] which we 
have touched on before.  The inconsistency is inherited by the 
dynamic so the dynamic  has a random content.

All levels of randomness of trips to completeness are allowed.

A UD trace if I understand it correctly would be equivalent to a 
Nothing on a reasonably monotonic trip to completeness.

Yours

Hal Ruhl



At 12:10 PM 2/20/2007, you wrote:

Hi Hal,

You say my theory is a subset of yours. I don't understand. I have no
theory, just a deductive argument that IF we are (digital) machine then
the physical world is in our head. Then I show how a Universal Turing
Machine can discover it in its own head. This makes comp, or
variants, testable.

I have no theory (beside theory of number and machine), I'm just
listening to the machine. That's all. Then I compare the comp-physics
with empirical physics.

Do you grasp the Universal Dovetailer Argument? Ask if not.

Regards,

Bruno


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-19 Thread Bruno Marchal


Le 18-févr.-07, à 03:33, Hal Ruhl a écrit :


 Hi Bruno:

 In response I will start with some assumptions central to my approach.

 The first has to do with the process of making a list.

 The assumption is:

 Making a list of items [which could be some of
 the elements of a set for example] is always a
 process of making a one to one mapping of the
 items to some of the counting numbers such as:

 1 - an item
 2 - an item not previously on the list
 3 - an item not previously on the list
 .
 .
 .
 n - last item and it was not previously on the list


I don' t see clearly an assumption here. I guess you are assuming 
existence of things capable of being put in a list. Effectively? then 
why not use the Wi (cf Cutland's book or older explanations I have  
provided on the list. Help yourself with Podniek's page perhaps, or try 
to be just informal.





 My second assumption is:

 Objects [such as states of universes for example] have properties.


You talk like if it was an axiomatic. A good test to see if it is an 
axiomatic consists to change the primitive words you are using by 
arbitrary words. You are saying glass of bears have trees and garden. 
You can add that you mean that the term glass of bear is *intended 
for states of universes, but recall the goal is to provide an 
explanation for the appearance of the states of universes. In general 
properties are modelized by sets. It is ok to presuppose some naive set 
theory, but then you axiomatic has to be clean.




 My third assumption is:

 All of the properties it is possible for objects to have can be listed.


I guess you assume church thesis, and you are talking about effective 
properties.




 My fourth assumption is:

 The list of possible properties of objects is countably infinite.


? (lists are supposed to be countably infinite (or finite)).




 Conclusions so far:
 [All possible objects are defined by all the sub lists of the full 
 list.]
 [The number of objects is uncountably infinite]

What is the full list?



 I will stop there for now and await comments.

 As to the remainder of the post:

 In the above I have not reached the point of
 deriving the dynamic of my model but I am not
 focusing on computations when I say that any
 succession of states is allowed.  Logically
 related successions are allowed.  Successions
 displaying any degree of randomness are also allowed.


I have already mentionned that comp entails some strong form of (first 
person) randomness. Indeed, a priori to much.



 I would like to finish the walk through of my
 model before discussing white rabbits and observation.


I am really sorry Hall. It looks you want to be both informal and 
formal. It does not help me to understand what you are trying to say.


Bruno


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-19 Thread Hal Ruhl

Hi Bruno:

At 05:43 AM 2/19/2007, you wrote:


Le 18-févr.-07, à 03:33, Hal Ruhl a écrit :

 
  Hi Bruno:
 
  In response I will start with some assumptions central to my approach.
 
  The first has to do with the process of making a list.
 
  The assumption is:
 
  Making a list of items [which could be some of
  the elements of a set for example] is always a
  process of making a one to one mapping of the
  items to some of the counting numbers such as:
 
  1 - an item
  2 - an item not previously on the list
  3 - an item not previously on the list
  .
  .
  .
  n - last item and it was not previously on the list


I don' t see clearly an assumption here. I guess you are assuming
existence of things capable of being put in a list.

What I am trying to do is establish what making a 
list is in my model and does it have any mathematical credence.

I make it an assumption because some may believe 
that make a list means something different.

Effectively? then
why not use the Wi (cf Cutland's book or older explanations I have
provided on the list. Help yourself with Podniek's page perhaps, or try
to be just informal.


See below




 
  My second assumption is:
 
  Objects [such as states of universes for example] have properties.


You talk like if it was an axiomatic. A good test to see if it is an
axiomatic consists to change the primitive words you are using by
arbitrary words. You are saying glass of bears have trees and garden.

Did you mean class not glass?

You can add that you mean that the term glass of bear is *intended
for states of universes,

I am not a mathematician so I do not quite understand the above.

  but recall the goal is to provide an
explanation for the appearance of the states of universes.

If I understand you, that comes later in the walk through of my model

  In general
properties are modelized by sets. It is ok to presuppose some naive set
theory, but then you axiomatic has to be clean.


See below



 
  My third assumption is:
 
  All of the properties it is possible for objects to have can be listed.


I guess you assume church thesis, and you are talking about effective
properties.


To me at this point the Church Thesis is an 
ingredient in some of the possible state 
succession sequences allowed in my model.

I mean all properties I do not know if that is 
the same as your effective properties.


 
  My fourth assumption is:
 
  The list of possible properties of objects is countably infinite.


? (lists are supposed to be countably infinite (or finite)).


This is my point above - to list inherently a 
countably infinite [as max length] process.

I would add that my third assumption becomes more 
important later as one of the keys to my model's dynamic.



 
  Conclusions so far:
  [All possible objects are defined by all the sub lists of the full
  list.]
  [The number of objects is uncountably infinite]

What is the full list?

The list of all possible properties of objects.


 
  I will stop there for now and await comments.
 
  As to the remainder of the post:
 
  In the above I have not reached the point of
  deriving the dynamic of my model but I am not
  focusing on computations when I say that any
  succession of states is allowed.  Logically
  related successions are allowed.  Successions
  displaying any degree of randomness are also allowed.


I have already mentionned that comp entails some strong form of (first
person) randomness. Indeed, a priori to much.


Yes we have discussed this before, and it is one 
of the reasons I continue to believe that your approach is a sub set of mine.

I know it has taken a long time for me to reach a 
level in my model where I could even begin to use 
an axiom based description and I appreciate your patience.

 
  I would like to finish the walk through of my
  model before discussing white rabbits and observation.


I am really sorry Hall. It looks you want to be both informal and
formal. It does not help me to understand what you are trying to say.

I have read that it takes 10 years of focused 
practice to become an expert in a given sub discipline.

At this point in my practice of engineering I am 
on my way to becoming an expert in a fifth sub discipline.

I hope you can understand why I must continue to 
find a path to the development and expression of 
my ideas in this venue that is short of becoming 
an expert in mathematical expression.

I appreciate your help and perhaps with a little 
more of it I can reach what you are asking for.

Perhaps it is also a good idea to exhaust the 
idea of whether or not your approach is or is not 
a sub set of another approach.

Yours

Hal Ruhl





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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-17 Thread Hal Ruhl

Hi Bruno:

In response I will start with some assumptions central to my approach.

The first has to do with the process of making a list.

The assumption is:

Making a list of items [which could be some of 
the elements of a set for example] is always a 
process of making a one to one mapping of the 
items to some of the counting numbers such as:

1 - an item
2 - an item not previously on the list
3 - an item not previously on the list
.
.
.
n - last item and it was not previously on the list

My second assumption is:

Objects [such as states of universes for example] have properties.

My third assumption is:

All of the properties it is possible for objects to have can be listed.

My fourth assumption is:

The list of possible properties of objects is countably infinite.

Conclusions so far:
[All possible objects are defined by all the sub lists of the full list.]
[The number of objects is uncountably infinite]

I will stop there for now and await comments.

As to the remainder of the post:

In the above I have not reached the point of 
deriving the dynamic of my model but I am not 
focusing on computations when I say that any 
succession of states is allowed.  Logically 
related successions are allowed.  Successions 
displaying any degree of randomness are also allowed.

I would like to finish the walk through of my 
model before discussing white rabbits and observation.

Yours

Hal Ruhl

At 09:49 AM 2/12/2007, you wrote:

Hi Hal,


Le 12-févr.-07, à 03:37, Hal Ruhl a écrit :

 
  Hi Bruno:
 
  I was using some of the main components of my
  model to indicate that it allows white rabbits of
  all degree.  Any succession of states is
  allowed.  If the presence of SAS in certain
  successions requires a certain family of white
  rabbit distributions then these distributions are present.


Well, thanks for the white rabbit, but the current goal consists in
explaining why we don't see them. When you say any succession of states
is allowed, are you talking about computations? In computations the
states are logically related, and not all succession of states can be
allowed, or you talk about something else, but then what exactly?
What are your assumption, and what are your conclusion? I know you have
made an effort in clarity, but in your last definitions you adopt the
axiomatic way of talking, but not the axiomatic way of reasoning. This
makes your talk neither informally convincing (granted some sharable
intuition) nor formally clear. I have always been willing to attribute
to you some intuition, I continue doing so, and I have suggested to you
some books capable of providing helps toward much clarity, which is
what is needed to communicate to others, especially when working on
extremely  hard subject like what we are discussing.
I hope that Jason, who kindly proposes some act of systematization,
will be able to help you to develop your probably interesting ideas,

Regards,

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-17 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi John:

This is what brought me to the idea that while 
all objects have simultaneous existence they 
also can have degrees of hyper existence. Hyper 
existence is like a tag that indicates states 
that are, those that are becoming, and those 
that have recently been [so to speak].

Hal Ruhl




At 04:26 PM 2/15/2007, you wrote:
Hal:
you seem to have mastered the problem I got 
stuck with in the 'timelessness' speculation
(Any succession of states is allowed. )
  I could not handle successions in reverse, if 
 time (as an indicator of succession) is cut out.
I did not want to resort to an atemporal system 
where ALL steps of processes (what is a process???) live side by side together.

John M
- Original Message -
From: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Hal Ruhl
To: mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.comeverything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007 9:37 PM
Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds


Hi Bruno:

I was using some of the main components of my
model to indicate that it allows white rabbits of
all degree.  Any succession of states is
allowed.  If the presence of SAS in certain
successions requires a certain family of white
rabbit distributions then these distributions are present.

Hal Ruhl

At 04:23 AM 2/9/2007, you wrote:


 Le 07-févr.-07, à 02:45, Hal Ruhl a écrit :
 
Given an uncountably infinite number of objects generated from a
   countably infinite list of properties and an uncountably infinite
   number of UD's in the metaphor I can not see an issue with this re my
   model.  As I said above Our World can be as precisely as random as
   it needs to be.
 
 
 I don't understand.
 
 Bruno
 
 
 
 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
 
 
 


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- Release Date: 2/11/2007 6:50 PM



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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-12 Thread Bruno Marchal

Hi Hal,


Le 12-févr.-07, à 03:37, Hal Ruhl a écrit :


 Hi Bruno:

 I was using some of the main components of my
 model to indicate that it allows white rabbits of
 all degree.  Any succession of states is
 allowed.  If the presence of SAS in certain
 successions requires a certain family of white
 rabbit distributions then these distributions are present.


Well, thanks for the white rabbit, but the current goal consists in 
explaining why we don't see them. When you say any succession of states 
is allowed, are you talking about computations? In computations the 
states are logically related, and not all succession of states can be 
allowed, or you talk about something else, but then what exactly?
What are your assumption, and what are your conclusion? I know you have 
made an effort in clarity, but in your last definitions you adopt the 
axiomatic way of talking, but not the axiomatic way of reasoning. This 
makes your talk neither informally convincing (granted some sharable 
intuition) nor formally clear. I have always been willing to attribute 
to you some intuition, I continue doing so, and I have suggested to you 
some books capable of providing helps toward much clarity, which is 
what is needed to communicate to others, especially when working on 
extremely  hard subject like what we are discussing.
I hope that Jason, who kindly proposes some act of systematization, 
will be able to help you to develop your probably interesting ideas,

Regards,

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-11 Thread Hal Ruhl

Hi Bruno:

I was using some of the main components of my 
model to indicate that it allows white rabbits of 
all degree.  Any succession of states is 
allowed.  If the presence of SAS in certain 
successions requires a certain family of white 
rabbit distributions then these distributions are present.

Hal Ruhl

At 04:23 AM 2/9/2007, you wrote:


Le 07-févr.-07, à 02:45, Hal Ruhl a écrit :

   Given an uncountably infinite number of objects generated from a
  countably infinite list of properties and an uncountably infinite
  number of UD's in the metaphor I can not see an issue with this re my
  model.  As I said above Our World can be as precisely as random as
  it needs to be.


I don't understand.

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-09 Thread Bruno Marchal


Le 06-févr.-07, à 03:06, Russell Standish a écrit :

 The informatic destructive effects are due to conflicting
 information reducing the total amount of information.

Perhaps you could expand?

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-09 Thread Bruno Marchal


Le 07-févr.-07, à 02:45, Hal Ruhl a écrit :

  Given an uncountably infinite number of objects generated from a 
 countably infinite list of properties and an uncountably infinite 
 number of UD's in the metaphor I can not see an issue with this re my 
 model.  As I said above Our World can be as precisely as random as 
 it needs to be.


I don't understand.

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-08 Thread John Mikes
Hi, Hal:
and you really think there would be an end? Look at this list with allegedly
like-minded chaps and no end of picking on 'everything'. Include
like-minded lists - meaning 'unlike' really - and the internet would fill
up.
Does it make a difference to argue here, or at another site?
Our (meaning the potential scientific crowd) views are so diversified (what
a nice expression for 'underdeveloped') with diverse angles to look at it
FROM, that a wider agreement is IMO hopeless. Even with the reason of 'a'
George Levy's clarity. I introduced this list to a friend from another list
(complexity) who is math-phys minded and his refusal came: these guys are
'too' Platonistic for me.
I think Jason's idea is great, if he can do it we will have a  maybe wider
sortiment of ideas, I doubt a possibility of crystallized-out agreed upon
identifications. But I am a skeptic.
Best regards
John

On 2/7/07, Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  Hi John:

 I think the idea before was to provide an acronym list and also give each
 person or like minded group a limit of a few pages in the FAQ document in
 which to present a summary of their point of view.

 Hal Ruhl

 At 11:59 AM 2/7/2007, you wrote:

 Hal:
 you really believe that anybody could provide responses acceptable for all
 others? (I did not say understandable)
 Everybody sits in his own mindset and speaks his own scientific religion
 (=scientific belief system) - [said so, whether I aggraveted  now (again)
 Russell or not.]
 We are in a pretty liquid exchange-state (liquid OM).
 Otherwise the idea is excellent, with multiple choice.
 John
  - Original Message -
 From: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
 Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 8:49 PM
 Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

 Hi John:

 Long ago there was some effort to write a FAQ for the list.  Perhaps we
 should give it another try.

 Hal Ruhl




 At 11:30 AM 2/6/2007, you wrote:

 Hal and list:
 I do not think anybody fully understands what other listers write, even
 if one thinks so.
 Or is it only my handicap?
 John M - Original Message - From: Hal Ruhl[EMAIL PROTECTED] To:
 everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:24 PM 
 Subject:
 Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

 Hi Bruno:
 I do not think I fully understand what you are saying.
 Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its evolving universes -
 meaning I take it that all successive states are fully logical
 consequences of their prior state.
 I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two.
 Lets us say that you are correct about this result re your model, this
 just seems to reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order to avoid
 the information generating selection in the full set.
 Yours
 Hal Ruhl

 At 11:30 AM 2/5/2007, you wrote:

 Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit : As far as I can tell
 from this, my model may include Bruno's model as   a subset.   This
 means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person) white
 rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does not
 reintroduce new one.  Bruno
 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ 
  


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 5:52 PM



 


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-07 Thread John M
Hal:
you really believe that anybody could provide responses acceptable for all 
others? (I did not say understandable) 
Everybody sits in his own mindset and speaks his own scientific religion 
(=scientific belief system) - [said so, whether I aggraveted  now (again) 
Russell or not.]  
We are in a pretty liquid exchange-state (liquid OM).
Otherwise the idea is excellent, with multiple choice. 
John
  - Original Message - 
  From: Hal Ruhl 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 8:49 PM
  Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds


  Hi John:

  Long ago there was some effort to write a FAQ for the list.  Perhaps we 
should give it another try.

  Hal Ruhl 




  At 11:30 AM 2/6/2007, you wrote:

Hal and list:
I do not think anybody fully understands what other listers write, even 
if one thinks so.
Or is it only my handicap?
John M

  - Original Message - 

  From: Hal Ruhl 

  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 

  Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:24 PM

  Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds



  Hi Bruno:


  I do not think I fully understand what you are saying.


  Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its 

  evolving universes - meaning I take it that all 

  successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state.


  I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two.


  Lets us say that you are correct about this 

  result re your model, this just seems to 

  reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order 

  to avoid the information generating selection in the full set.


  Yours


  Hal Ruhl



  At 11:30 AM 2/5/2007, you wrote:



  Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit :

  

 As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as

a subset.

  

  

  This means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person)

  white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does

  not reintroduce new one.

  

  Bruno

  

  

   http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

  

  

  





  



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  Checked by AVG Free Edition.
  Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.17.29/673 - Release Date: 2/6/2007 
5:52 PM

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-07 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi John:

I think the idea before was to provide an acronym 
list and also give each person or like minded 
group a limit of a few pages in the FAQ document 
in which to present a summary of their point of view.

Hal Ruhl

At 11:59 AM 2/7/2007, you wrote:
Hal:
you really believe that anybody could provide 
responses acceptable for all others? (I did not say understandable)
Everybody sits in his own mindset and speaks his 
own scientific religion (=scientific belief 
system) - [said so, whether I aggraveted  now (again) Russell or not.]
We are in a pretty liquid exchange-state (liquid OM).
Otherwise the idea is excellent, with multiple choice.
John
- Original Message -
From: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Hal Ruhl
To: mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.comeverything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

Hi John:

Long ago there was some effort to write a FAQ 
for the list.  Perhaps we should give it another try.

Hal Ruhl




At 11:30 AM 2/6/2007, you wrote:
Hal and list:
I do not think anybody fully understands what 
other listers write, even if one thinks so.
Or is it only my handicap?
John M
- Original Message -
From: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Hal Ruhl
To: 
mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.comeverything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:24 PM
Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

Hi Bruno:
I do not think I fully understand what you are saying.
Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its
evolving universes - meaning I take it that all
successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state.
I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two.
Lets us say that you are correct about this
result re your model, this just seems to
reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order
to avoid the information generating selection in the full set.
Yours
Hal Ruhl

At 11:30 AM 2/5/2007, you wrote:

 Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit :
 
As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as
   a subset.
 
 
 This means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person)
 white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does
 not reintroduce new one.
 
 Bruno
 
 
  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
 
 
 



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No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.17.29/673 
- Release Date: 2/6/2007 5:52 PM



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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-06 Thread Bruno Marchal

Le 06-févr.-07, à 05:25, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :

 Hal Ruhl writes:
   
   Hi Bruno:
 
  I do not think I fully understand what you are saying.
 
  Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its
  evolving universes - meaning I take it that all
  successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior 
 state.

  You mean physical consequences or something similar, don't you? I 
 don't see anything logically inconsistent about a talking white rabbit 
 or even the atoms of my keyboard reassembling themselves into a 
 fire-breathing dragon.


I agree with Stathis. Much more, I can prove to you that the sound 
lobian machine agrees with Stathis!
It is a key point: there is nothing inconsistent with my seeing and 
measuring white rabbits (cf dreams, videa, ...). Both with QM and/or 
comp, we can only hope such events are relatively rare.
Now, a naive reading of the UD can give the feeling that with comp 
white rabbits are not rare at all, and that is why I insist at some 
point that we have to take more fully into account the objective 
constraints of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic 
(some of which are counter-intuitive and even necessarily so).


Hal Ruhl continued:


 I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two.

 Lets us say that you are correct about this
 result re your model, this just seems to
 reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order
 to avoid the information generating selection in the full set.



It *could* be the contrary. In quantum mechanics a case can be given 
that it *is* the contrary. It is by taking the full set of (relative 
histories) that the quantum phase randomization can eliminate the 
quantum aberrant histories (cf Feynman paths).
It works with the QM because of the existence of destructive 
interferences, and somehow what the computationalist has to justify is 
the (first person plural) appearance of such destructive effects.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-06 Thread John M
Hal and list:
I do not think anybody fully understands what other listers write, even if 
one thinks so.
Or is it only my handicap?
John M
  - Original Message - 
  From: Hal Ruhl 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:24 PM
  Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds



  Hi Bruno:

  I do not think I fully understand what you are saying.

  Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its 
  evolving universes - meaning I take it that all 
  successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state.

  I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two.

  Lets us say that you are correct about this 
  result re your model, this just seems to 
  reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order 
  to avoid the information generating selection in the full set.

  Yours

  Hal Ruhl


  At 11:30 AM 2/5/2007, you wrote:


  Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit :
  
 As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as
a subset.
  
  
  This means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person)
  white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does
  not reintroduce new one.
  
  Bruno
  
  
  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
  
  
  


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-06 Thread Russell Standish

On Tue, Feb 06, 2007 at 12:23:19PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
 
 It *could* be the contrary. In quantum mechanics a case can be given 
 that it *is* the contrary. It is by taking the full set of (relative 
 histories) that the quantum phase randomization can eliminate the 
 quantum aberrant histories (cf Feynman paths). 
 It works with the QM because of the existence of destructive 
 interferences, and somehow what the computationalist has to justify is 
 the (first person plural) appearance of such destructive effects. 
 
 Bruno 
 
 
 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 
 

The informatic destructive effects are due to conflicting
information reducing the total amount of information.

If I have the sentence the sheep is totally black and the sheep is
totally white, then I have rather less information about the sheep
than if I had (say) the sheep is totally black.

Addition of information obeys the triangle inequality

  I(a+b) \leq I(a) + I(b)

Curiously, addition of wave amplitudes in QM also obey the triangle
inequality. I suspect there is more to this connection than mere
coincidence, although I haven't spent too much time trying to work out
the details.

Cheers

-- 


A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-06 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi Bruno:

At 06:23 AM 2/6/2007, you wrote:

Le 06-févr.-07, à 05:25, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :

Hal Ruhl writes:

  Hi Bruno:
 
  I do not think I fully understand what you are saying.
 
  Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its
  evolving universes - meaning I take it that all
  successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state.

You mean physical consequences or something 
similar, don't you? I don't see anything 
logically inconsistent about a talking white 
rabbit or even the atoms of my keyboard 
reassembling themselves into a fire-breathing dragon.


My model taps the inconsistency of a complete 
collection of information to give the dynamic of 
its universe state to state succession at least 
some random content.  There is no conflict in my 
approach with talking white rabbits or uncommonly 
evolving keyboards.  What I indicated is that all 
I needed to encompass our world in a UD metaphor 
of a sub set of my model was a compatible ongoing 
intersection of a set [an infinite set most likely] of UD traces.

The picture is a set of say twenty traces all 
arriving at twenty Our World compatible 
successive states simultaneously.  If the traces 
assign a compatible degree of hyper existence to 
their respective states then the result is twenty 
immediately successive states with a rising then 
falling degree of Hyper existence.  The 
intersecting traces are not even necessarily 
logically related just compatibly coincident for 
one of Our World's ticks so to speak.  At the 
next tick of our world a completely different 
set of twenty traces can be involved.  Our 
World can be precisely as random as it needs to be.

I agree with Stathis. Much more, I can prove to 
you that the sound lobian machine agrees with Stathis!
It is a key point: there is nothing inconsistent 
with my seeing and measuring white rabbits (cf 
dreams, videa, ...). Both with QM and/or comp, 
we can only hope such events are relatively rare.
Now, a naive reading of the UD can give the 
feeling that with comp white rabbits are not 
rare at all, and that is why I insist at some 
point that we have to take more fully into 
account the objective constraints of 
theoretical computer science and mathematical 
logic (some of which are counter-intuitive and even necessarily so).


Hal Ruhl continued:


I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two.

Lets us say that you are correct about this
result re your model, this just seems to
reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order
to avoid the information generating selection in the full set.



It *could* be the contrary. In quantum mechanics 
a case can be given that it *is* the contrary. 
It is by taking the full set of (relative 
histories) that the quantum phase randomization 
can eliminate the quantum aberrant histories (cf Feynman paths).
It works with the QM because of the existence of 
destructive interferences, and somehow what the 
computationalist has to justify is the (first 
person plural) appearance of such destructive effects.

Bruno

Given an uncountably infinite number of objects 
generated from a countably infinite list of 
properties and an uncountably infinite number of 
UD's in the metaphor I can not see an issue with 
this re my model.  As I said above Our World 
can be as precisely as random as it needs to be.

Hal Ruhl


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-06 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi John:

Long ago there was some effort to write a FAQ for 
the list.  Perhaps we should give it another try.

Hal Ruhl




At 11:30 AM 2/6/2007, you wrote:
Hal and list:
I do not think anybody fully understands what 
other listers write, even if one thinks so.
Or is it only my handicap?
John M
- Original Message -
From: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Hal Ruhl
To: mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.comeverything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:24 PM
Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds


Hi Bruno:

I do not think I fully understand what you are saying.

Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its
evolving universes - meaning I take it that all
successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state.

I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two.

Lets us say that you are correct about this
result re your model, this just seems to
reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order
to avoid the information generating selection in the full set.

Yours

Hal Ruhl


At 11:30 AM 2/5/2007, you wrote:


 Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit :
 
As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as
   a subset.
 
 
 This means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person)
 white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does
 not reintroduce new one.
 
 Bruno
 
 
 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
 
 
 



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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-06 Thread Hal Ruhl

Just to clarify - in the metaphor a UD trace that assigns a Hyper 
Existence of say 0.2 does so to all states it lands on because the 
UD is that type of UD.

Hal Ruhl


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-05 Thread Bruno Marchal
Hi John,


Le 03-févr.-07, à 17:20, John Mikes a écrit :

 Stathis, Bruno,

  This summary sounds fine if I accept to 'let words go'. Is there a 
 way to
  'understand' (=use with comprehension) the 'words' used here without 
 the
  'technical' acceptance of the theoretical platform?


I am not sure. Avoiding technical acceptance of a theoretical platform 
can be done for presenting result, not really for discussing about 
them.



  There are sacrosanct 'words' used without explaining them (over and 
 over again?, BUT
  at least once for the benefit of that newcomer 'alien' who comes from 
 another vista' ,
  like

  (absolute?) probability - is there such a thing as probability, the 
 figment that
     if it happend x times it WILL happen the (X+one)th time as well?


This is inductive inference, not probability.




 combined with
     the statistical hoax of counting from select members in a limited 
 group the version
    'A' models  and assuming its 'probability'?


That is why to use probability and/or any uncertainty measure we have 
to be clear about the axioms we are willing to admit, at least for the 
sake of some argument.





  observer moment (observer, for that matter), whether the moment is a 
 time-concept
    in it and the 'observer' must be conscious (btw: identifying 
 'conscious')


The expression observer moment has originated with Nick Bostrom, in 
context similar to the doomsday argument. I would call them first 
person observer moment. I will try to explain how to translate them in 
comp.





  number (in the broader sense, yet applied as real integers) (Btw: are 
 the 'non-Arabic'
    numbers also numbers? the figments of evolutionary languages 
 alp[habetical or not?
    Is zero a number? Was not in Platonia - a millennium before its 
 invention(?!)


Number, by default are the so called natural number: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 
...
They correspond to the number of strokes in the following sequence of 
sets:
{ }, { I }, { II }, { III }, {  }, { I  }, { II  }, { 
III  }, {   }, etc.

Zero is a number by definition. But this is just a question of 
definition. For the Greeks number begins with three. Like the adjective 
numerous still rarely applies when only two things are referred too.





  The 'extensions' of machine into (loebian etc.) [non?]-machine, like 
 comp into the nondigital



? comp does not go out of the digital, except from a first person point 
of view (but that is an hard technical point, to be sure).

In english I would define a universal (digital) machine, by a 
digital machine potentially capable of emulating (simulating perfectly) 
any other digital machine from a description of it. Today's computers 
and interpreters are typical example of such hard and soft 
(respectively) universal machines. Now a universal digital machine is 
lobian when she knows that she is universal. Defining knows has to 
be a bit technical. This is not at all an official definition. Look at 
my SANE04 paper for a more offical definition. It is related to a sort 
of placebo phenomenon. If we continue this conversation there will be 
plenty of time to make this clear. But you are right to ask for 
definition, or for more explanations.




    and mixing our mental interpretations with what has been 
 interpreted (unknowable).


Don't hesitate to come back on this? Out of context I could say to much 
things and then have to repeat it.





  Just some picked examples promoting a not-so-technical glossary for 
 the rest of the world


Make a list, and send it. So we can think about. Not all 
conversation-threads ask for the same level of precision.


Bruno




  John M





 On 2/3/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 wrote:Bruno Marchal writes:

  What is correct, and has been singled out by Stathis, is that comp
  eludes the material implementation problem, given that we take all
  abstract possible relationship between those objects, and they are 
 all
  well defined as purely number theoretical relations. Note that this 
 is
  something I have tried to explain to Jacques Mallah sometimes ago, 
 but
  without much success. This does not make much sense in ASSA 
 approaches,
  but, like George Levy I think, I don't believe in absolute 
 probability
  of being me, or of living my current observer moment. Such a
  probability can be given the value one (said George) but it is 
 close of
  saying that the universe is here, which tells us nothing, really. 
 It is
  like answering who are you? by I am me.

 I'm satisfied with this summary. The physical implementation problem 
 is not
 a problem when considering abstract machines.

 Stathis Papaioannou




  

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-05 Thread Jason

On Feb 2, 10:03 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 This is a bit ambiguous. The UD dovetails on all computations. Let us
 write (comp i k j) for k-th step of computation i on input j.
 One computation can then be identified (in a first approximation at
 least) with a sequence like:
 (comp 777 1 24) (comp 777 2 24) (comp 777 3 24) (comp 777 4 24) (comp
 777 5 24) (comp 777 6 24) (comp 777 7 24) (comp 777 8 24) (comp 777 9
 24) (comp 777 10 24) 
 This represents the computation of F_777(24), that is the 777th partial
 recursive function on input 24.
 Now we know that F_777(24) could be undefined, and that is why the UD
 has to dovetetail. So the order of the states generated by the UD is
 not, strictly speaking the order of states defining a computation.
 Also, the UD is infinitely redundant: in particular the function F_777
 has other code, for example , i.e. F_777 = F_. It could be that
 the computation (comp 777 i 24) and (comp  i 24) are equivalent
 (same algorithm) or completely different (different algorithm), but
 actually it is not easy at all to define such equivalence relation
 between computation an states.
 I mean, even from a pure third person point of view, it is not obvious
 to define computations and order on them.
 Then, from a first person point of view, the difficulty is made bigger.
 It could be, that although F_a and F_b computes different function (and
 thus follows completely different algorithm), it could be that (comp a
 234 24) and some sub-state of (comp b 34 1000), say, are equivalent
 from a first person point of view, which needs to take into account all
 the infinity of computations going through my current state.
 So I'm afraid that at some point we have to take a more abstract route
 (like with the combinators, which better represent possible
 computations, or like with the lobian interview).
 What is correct, and has been singled out by Stathis, is that comp
 eludes the material implementation problem, given that we take all
 abstract possible relationship between those objects, and they are all
 well defined as purely number theoretical relations. Note that this is
 something I have tried to explain to Jacques Mallah sometimes ago, but
 without much success. This does not make much sense in ASSA approaches,
 but, like George Levy I think, I don't believe in absolute probability
 of being me, or of living my current observer moment. Such a
 probability can be given the value one (said George) but it is close of
 saying that the universe is here, which tells us nothing, really. It is
 like answering who are you? by I am me.


Bruno,

Let me begin with saying that I believe in a form of computationalism
in that ultimate ensemble, or plato's heaven contains a turing machine
running every possible program.  I also beleive this universe is, on a
small enough scale, purely digital.  My question to you is, without
accepting some form of fundamental probability, how can the Universal
Dovetailer be preferred over Jürgen Schmidhuber's program?  Both the
UD and JS's iterative counting program will produce all possible
output states.  The difference to me is that every state is equally
likely under JS's program, while the UD will prefer some states and
evolutions of states.  The multiplicity of some states, to me, creates
a probability question.  Therefore it becomes meaningful to consider
what programs will contain the largest number of observer moments, and
how common will those programs be within the UD.


Best Regards,

Jason


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-05 Thread Bruno Marchal

Hi jason,


Le 05-févr.-07, à 17:05, Jason a écrit :


 On Feb 2, 10:03 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 This is a bit ambiguous. The UD dovetails on all computations. Let us
 write (comp i k j) for k-th step of computation i on input j.
 One computation can then be identified (in a first approximation at
 least) with a sequence like:
 (comp 777 1 24) (comp 777 2 24) (comp 777 3 24) (comp 777 4 24) (comp
 777 5 24) (comp 777 6 24) (comp 777 7 24) (comp 777 8 24) (comp 777 9
 24) (comp 777 10 24) 
 This represents the computation of F_777(24), that is the 777th 
 partial
 recursive function on input 24.
 Now we know that F_777(24) could be undefined, and that is why the UD
 has to dovetetail. So the order of the states generated by the UD is
 not, strictly speaking the order of states defining a computation.
 Also, the UD is infinitely redundant: in particular the function F_777
 has other code, for example , i.e. F_777 = F_. It could be 
 that
 the computation (comp 777 i 24) and (comp  i 24) are equivalent
 (same algorithm) or completely different (different algorithm), but
 actually it is not easy at all to define such equivalence relation
 between computation an states.
 I mean, even from a pure third person point of view, it is not obvious
 to define computations and order on them.
 Then, from a first person point of view, the difficulty is made 
 bigger.
 It could be, that although F_a and F_b computes different function 
 (and
 thus follows completely different algorithm), it could be that (comp a
 234 24) and some sub-state of (comp b 34 1000), say, are equivalent
 from a first person point of view, which needs to take into account 
 all
 the infinity of computations going through my current state.
 So I'm afraid that at some point we have to take a more abstract route
 (like with the combinators, which better represent possible
 computations, or like with the lobian interview).
 What is correct, and has been singled out by Stathis, is that comp
 eludes the material implementation problem, given that we take all
 abstract possible relationship between those objects, and they are all
 well defined as purely number theoretical relations. Note that this is
 something I have tried to explain to Jacques Mallah sometimes ago, but
 without much success. This does not make much sense in ASSA 
 approaches,
 but, like George Levy I think, I don't believe in absolute probability
 of being me, or of living my current observer moment. Such a
 probability can be given the value one (said George) but it is close 
 of
 saying that the universe is here, which tells us nothing, really. It 
 is
 like answering who are you? by I am me.


 Bruno,

 Let me begin with saying that I believe in a form of computationalism
 in that ultimate ensemble, or plato's heaven contains a turing machine
 running every possible program.  I also beleive this universe is, on a
 small enough scale, purely digital.  My question to you is, without
 accepting some form of fundamental probability, how can the Universal
 Dovetailer be preferred over Jürgen Schmidhuber's program?  Both the
 UD and JS's iterative counting program will produce all possible
 output states.  The difference to me is that every state is equally
 likely under JS's program, while the UD will prefer some states and
 evolutions of states.


JS great programmer, well I take it as an informal version of the UD. 
I think Wei Dai proposed the counting algorithm as a sort of UD.
Whatever. As you describe the UD, it should be clear it renders justice 
to the relative computational state, and is coherent with RSSA 
(relative self-sampling assumption).
But the main difference between the UD, as it has to be used with comp, 
and JS approach is that the UD Argument relies on the distinction 
between first person and third person points of view (which is not done 
by JS: see my conversation with him in the archive).

And then a result is that there is no primary physical universe, and 
the appearance of a physical universe has to be an appearance of 
something not entirely computable: If I am a machine then the UNIVERSE, 
or GOD or WHAT'S-ITS-NAME is not a computable object.

Somehow, Schmidhuber develops a constructive physics. This can be 
interesting, and can have application, but is useless for a theory of 
evreything including the mind and persons.




 The multiplicity of some states, to me, creates
 a probability question.


For all of us, I think. Indeed, it was my purpose to show that if comp 
is correct, the mind body problem, actually its  body problem part,  is 
reduced partially into a relative probability question on first person 
computational states/history.



 Therefore it becomes meaningful to consider
 what programs will contain the largest number of observer moments, and
 how common will those programs be within the UD.


I think this is only partially correct due to the fact that you are 
vague about the 1 or 3 - person distinction 

Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-05 Thread Bruno Marchal


Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit :

  As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as 
 a subset.


This means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person) 
white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does 
not reintroduce new one.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-05 Thread Bruno Marchal

So now we have to find some way sto tackle the problem of finding the 
right level of abstraction to pursue ...

Bruno


Le 03-févr.-07, à 10:05, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :

  Bruno Marchal writes:

  What is correct, and has been singled out by Stathis, is that comp
  eludes the material implementation problem, given that we take all
  abstract possible relationship between those objects, and they are 
 all
  well defined as purely number theoretical relations. Note that this 
 is
  something I have tried to explain to Jacques Mallah sometimes ago, 
 but
  without much success. This does not make much sense in ASSA 
 approaches,
  but, like George Levy I think, I don't believe in absolute 
 probability
  of being me, or of living my current observer moment. Such a
  probability can be given the value one (said George) but it is close 
 of
  saying that the universe is here, which tells us nothing, really. It 
 is
  like answering who are you? by I am me.

 I'm satisfied with this summary. The physical implementation problem 
 is not
 a problem when considering abstract machines.

 Stathis Papaioannou

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-05 Thread Hal Ruhl

Hi Bruno:

I do not think I fully understand what you are saying.

Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its 
evolving universes - meaning I take it that all 
successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state.

I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two.

Lets us say that you are correct about this 
result re your model, this just seems to 
reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order 
to avoid the information generating selection in the full set.

Yours

Hal Ruhl


At 11:30 AM 2/5/2007, you wrote:


Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit :

   As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as
  a subset.


This means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person)
white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does
not reintroduce new one.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-05 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Hal Ruhl writes:
 
 Hi Bruno:  I do not think I fully understand what you are saying.  
 Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its  evolving universes - meaning 
 I take it that all  successive states are fully logical consequences of 
 their prior state.
You mean physical consequences or something similar, don't you? I don't see 
anything logically inconsistent about a talking white rabbit or even the atoms 
of my keyboard reassembling themselves into a fire-breathing dragon.
 
Stathis Papaioannou
  I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two.  Lets us say 
  that you are correct about this  result re your model, this just seems to  
  reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order  to avoid the information 
  generating selection in the full set.  Yours  Hal Ruhl   At 11:30 AM 
  2/5/2007, you wrote:   Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit :   
   As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as   
  a subset.   This means that even if my theory makes disappear all 
  (1-person) white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset 
  does not reintroduce new one.  Bruno   
  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-04 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi John:

Sorry I did not respond earlier.
Lately I do not have time to read the list posts and respond during the week.


At 04:02 PM 1/29/2007, you wrote:
Hal, a decade ago I 'read' your text easier than now: you firmed up 
your vocabulary - gradually out of my understanding. Sorry.
*
You seem to accept 'observer moments' and their interaction - even 
postulate one variable needed.


Observer moments and states of universes I take as being identical.

To say that they do not interact is a selection.  Selections create 
information and I prefer the point of view that the top level system 
should have zero net information.  The All [has many other names 
suppose] has zero net information because it contains all 
information.  I separate out of the information zero All for 
examination a list of all properties that an object can have.   That 
is I select a boundary in the All from among its infinite number of 
boundaries.  My list being a list can be countably infinite and the 
set of all its sub sets would then be uncountably infinite.  There 
are then an uncountably infinite number of objects which can be taken 
to be states of universes.

How long is an OM? a million years (cosmology) or a msec?

States of universes have permanent uniform existence.  The question 
is how long can they have a non zero hyper existence.  The answer 
is all values [to avoid more selection].

Even if it is a portion of the latter, it makes the existence quite 
discontinuous - with all the difficulties in it. If it is 
continuous, then how can we talk about 'moments'? Should we assign 
an equal rate change to all existence (meaning: ONE selection for 
the OM length)? If it can be ANY, varying from the infinitely short 
to the other extreme, it would 'wash away' any sense of the meaning 
of an Observer MOMENT concept.

My flow of hyper existence with its possible non binary pulse shapes 
could make consciousness continuous for some sequences of 
states.  SAS might find a universe state sequence in which the pulse 
rises from zero to 1 and then back to zero in a many step stair case 
fashion user friendly.

I think the OM is the figment of us, human observers, who want to 
use an 'understandable' model. [Like: numbers (in the human logic sense).]

Then, in view of the resulting 'unfathomable', we 'complicate' these 
models - originally created FOR comprehension - into 
incomprehensibility. [The way as e.g. to bridge Bohm's Explicate to 
the Implicate (by Nic de  Cusa's 2nd principle, left out by Bohm: 
the Complicate - what I like to assign as math).]
*
That 'one' variable property you mention as needed for state- 
interaction is IMO not necessarily  o n e  within our (present) comprehension.

I identify my list's sub sets as states of universes.  The 
interaction variable I call hyper existence could be compared with a 
UD trace.  When the trace lands on a state it gets a non zero hyper 
existence.  You could have UDs that assign a 0.1 hyper existence, UDs 
that assign a 0.2 value,  UDs that assign a 0.8 value,  UDs that 
assign a 1.0 value etc. etc.  Now all my model would ask for next is 
for a sting of universe states that look like ours is in lasting 
[infinite] compatible set of UD trace intersections.  Since all UDs 
are infinitely nested, an infinite set of such trace intersection 
sets would be obtained.  My model has a dynamic originated in the 
incompleteness of some of the list sub sets and this dynamic has a 
random content due to the internal and external inconsistency of some 
of the list's sub sets.

As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as a subset.

Yours

Hal Ruhl


- Original Message -
From: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Hal Ruhl
To: mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.comeverything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007 11:02 PM
Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds



One thing that I do not agree with is what seems to me to be a common
holding regarding observer moments [by this I mean discrete states of
universes [which are a sub set of possible objects]] is that they
are each so far assumed to have a set of properties that are to some
extent the same as other observer moments and to some extent
different from all other observer moments [to distinguish individual
moments] but nevertheless the properties of an individual observer
moment are fixed for that observer moment.

This to me is not logical since it is a selection and why that
selection?  Why not have some blend of variable properties and fixed
properties as a possibility?  This seems more in accord with a zero
information ensemble.

Further, if it is also held that observer moments can not interact -
that is also a selection.

I have proposed in other posts that there should be at least one
variable property through which universe states can interact.  The
idea is that all possible universe states have a uniform existence
property, but also can have an addition property that is a variable
that one could

RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-03 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Bruno Marchal writes: What is correct, and has been singled out by Stathis, is 
that comp  eludes the material implementation problem, given that we take 
all  abstract possible relationship between those objects, and they are all  
well defined as purely number theoretical relations. Note that this is  
something I have tried to explain to Jacques Mallah sometimes ago, but  
without much success. This does not make much sense in ASSA approaches,  but, 
like George Levy I think, I don't believe in absolute probability  of being 
me, or of living my current observer moment. Such a  probability can be 
given the value one (said George) but it is close of  saying that the universe 
is here, which tells us nothing, really. It is  like answering who are you? 
by I am me.I'm satisfied with this summary. The physical implementation 
problem is not a problem when considering abstract machines. Stathis Papaioannou
_
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-03 Thread John Mikes
Stathis, Bruno,

This summary sounds fine if I accept to 'let words go'. Is there a way to
'understand' (=use with comprehension) the 'words' used here without the
'technical' acceptance of the theoretical platform?
There are sacrosanct 'words' used without explaining them (over and over
again?, BUT
at least once for the benefit of that newcomer 'alien' who comes from
another vista' ,
like

(absolute?) probability - is there such a thing as probability, the figment
that
   if it happend x times it WILL happen the (X+one)th time as well? combined
with
   the statistical hoax of counting from select members in a limited group
the version
  'A' models  and assuming its 'probability'?

observer moment (observer, for that matter), whether the moment is a
time-concept
  in it and the 'observer' must be conscious (btw: identifying 'conscious')

number (in the broader sense, yet applied as real integers) (Btw: are the
'non-Arabic'
  numbers also numbers? the figments of evolutionary languages alp[habetical
or not?
  Is zero a number? Was not in Platonia - a millennium before its
invention(?!)

The 'extensions' of machine into (loebian etc.) [non?]-machine, like comp
into the nondigital
  and mixing our mental interpretations with what has been interpreted
(unknowable).

Just some picked examples promoting a not-so-technical glossary for the rest
of the world

John M





On 2/3/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  Bruno Marchal writes:

  What is correct, and has been singled out by Stathis, is that comp
  eludes the material implementation problem, given that we take all
  abstract possible relationship between those objects, and they are all
  well defined as purely number theoretical relations. Note that this is
  something I have tried to explain to Jacques Mallah sometimes ago, but
  without much success. This does not make much sense in ASSA approaches,
  but, like George Levy I think, I don't believe in absolute probability
  of being me, or of living my current observer moment. Such a
  probability can be given the value one (said George) but it is close of
  saying that the universe is here, which tells us nothing, really. It is
  like answering who are you? by I am me.

 I'm satisfied with this summary. The physical implementation problem is
 not
 a problem when considering abstract machines.

 Stathis Papaioannou




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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-02 Thread Bruno Marchal


Le 01-févr.-07, à 18:46, Brent Meeker a écrit :


 Bruno Marchal wrote:

 Le 29-janv.-07, à 18:19, Brent Meeker a écrit :

 Bruno Marchal wrote:
 Le 28-janv.-07, à 20:21, Brent Meeker a écrit :



 OK, but that means observer moments are not fundamental and the
 illusion of their continuity may be provided by the continuity of
 their underpinning.  But I don't see how a strictly stepwise 
 discrete
 process as contemplated in the UD can provide that continuity.  It
 was
 my understanding that it assumed consciousness could be provided 
 by a
 series of disjoint states.



 Yes. But a series of discrete states (or their godel number) has to 
 be
 related by a computation for making sense.

 So it makes no sense to say that a sequence of number is a
 computation.
 You have to fix a universal environment. Let us fix once and for 
 all
 a godel numbering. Then it is only relative to some universal number
 that a sequence of number can be counted as a computation.
 That sounds good - but I don't understand universal environment and
 universal number.  We adopt a goedel numbering of arithmetic
 expressions.  Do we then represent the computation by a sequence of
 goedel numbers, each number corresponding to a mental state (assuming
 the computation is a simulation at a sufficient level to satisfy
 comp)?  But what number is universal?


 OK, remind me if I forget to comment this, but to explain what happens
 here I do say a little more on the Fi and Wi. A universal number is
 just the code of a universal machine or interpreter (in a nutshell).
 I will come back on this.






 Now, from a first person point of view, we don't know in which
 computation we belong. So from a first person point of view, we have
 to
 take all equivalent computations (number sequence) relative to all
 universal number.

 This is enough to explain why from first person points of view,
 computations seem to require a continuum. In a sense we have to be
 related to the continuum of computations going through our states 
 (it
 includes the infinity of computations describing finer grained
 histories with respect to our comp level of substitution.
 OK. So the order of computation provides the order of conscious 
 states
 (which may really be very complex and include more than just atoms of
 experience); it is not inherent in the states.  And this order is
 relative to different  goedel numberings?


 I am not sure to understand the relation of your quote of me and the
 idea that the order of the computations provides the order of the
 conscious state, unless you are refering to the logical order defined
 by each computational state. If you run the UD, some internal first
 person future could be implemented before some internal first person
 past, buut this has nothing to do with the logical or arithmetical
 order. OK?
 I intend to explain a bit more through the use of the Fi and Wi, (= 
 the
 partial recursive functions and their domain of definition), but it
 would help me if you could explain what exactly (or more precisely) 
 you
 mean by order of computation. First person experiences have to be
 related to infinities of computational histories, right?

 I'm not sure.  I was considering two kinds of order of computation. 
 One is the time order in the real world of processes in my brain or a 
 computer simulating me.


Assuming some primitive existence of real world or brain processes, 
hypotheses whose coherence is put in doubt with the comp hypothesis.




  The other was the order of generation of states by the UD.


This is a bit ambiguous. The UD dovetails on all computations. Let us 
write (comp i k j) for k-th step of computation i on input j.
One computation can then be identified (in a first approximation at 
least) with a sequence like:
(comp 777 1 24) (comp 777 2 24) (comp 777 3 24) (comp 777 4 24) (comp 
777 5 24) (comp 777 6 24) (comp 777 7 24) (comp 777 8 24) (comp 777 9 
24) (comp 777 10 24) 
This represents the computation of F_777(24), that is the 777th partial 
recursive function on input 24.
Now we know that F_777(24) could be undefined, and that is why the UD 
has to dovetetail. So the order of the states generated by the UD is 
not, strictly speaking the order of states defining a computation.
Also, the UD is infinitely redundant: in particular the function F_777 
has other code, for example , i.e. F_777 = F_. It could be that 
the computation (comp 777 i 24) and (comp  i 24) are equivalent 
(same algorithm) or completely different (different algorithm), but 
actually it is not easy at all to define such equivalence relation 
between computation an states.
I mean, even from a pure third person point of view, it is not obvious 
to define computations and order on them.
Then, from a first person point of view, the difficulty is made bigger. 
It could be, that although F_a and F_b computes different function (and 
thus follows completely different algorithm), it could be that (comp a 
234 24) and some 

Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-01 Thread Jason

On Feb 1, 11:46 am, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Bruno Marchal wrote:

  Le 29-janv.-07, à 18:19, Brent Meeker a écrit :

  Bruno Marchal wrote:
  Le 28-janv.-07, à 20:21, Brent Meeker a écrit :

  OK, but that means observer moments are not fundamental and the
  illusion of their continuity may be provided by the continuity of
  their underpinning.  But I don't see how a strictly stepwise discrete
  process as contemplated in the UD can provide that continuity.  It
  was
  my understanding that it assumed consciousness could be provided by a
  series of disjoint states.

  Yes. But a series of discrete states (or their godel number) has to be
  related by a computation for making sense.

  So it makes no sense to say that a sequence of number is a
  computation.
  You have to fix a universal environment. Let us fix once and for all
  a godel numbering. Then it is only relative to some universal number
  that a sequence of number can be counted as a computation.
  That sounds good - but I don't understand universal environment and
  universal number.  We adopt a goedel numbering of arithmetic
  expressions.  Do we then represent the computation by a sequence of
  goedel numbers, each number corresponding to a mental state (assuming
  the computation is a simulation at a sufficient level to satisfy
  comp)?  But what number is universal?

  OK, remind me if I forget to comment this, but to explain what happens
  here I do say a little more on the Fi and Wi. A universal number is
  just the code of a universal machine or interpreter (in a nutshell).
  I will come back on this.

  Now, from a first person point of view, we don't know in which
  computation we belong. So from a first person point of view, we have
  to
  take all equivalent computations (number sequence) relative to all
  universal number.

  This is enough to explain why from first person points of view,
  computations seem to require a continuum. In a sense we have to be
  related to the continuum of computations going through our states (it
  includes the infinity of computations describing finer grained
  histories with respect to our comp level of substitution.
  OK. So the order of computation provides the order of conscious states
  (which may really be very complex and include more than just atoms of
  experience); it is not inherent in the states.  And this order is
  relative to different  goedel numberings?

  I am not sure to understand the relation of your quote of me and the
  idea that the order of the computations provides the order of the
  conscious state, unless you are refering to the logical order defined
  by each computational state. If you run the UD, some internal first
  person future could be implemented before some internal first person
  past, buut this has nothing to do with the logical or arithmetical
  order. OK?
  I intend to explain a bit more through the use of the Fi and Wi, (= the
  partial recursive functions and their domain of definition), but it
  would help me if you could explain what exactly (or more precisely) you
  mean by order of computation. First person experiences have to be
  related to infinities of computational histories, right?

 I'm not sure.  I was considering two kinds of order of computation. One is 
 the time order in the real world of processes in my brain or a computer 
 simulating me.  The other was the order of generation of states by the UD.  
 I understand from your answer above that the order of generation, in either 
 case, is regarded as contingent and that 1st person experience is supposed to 
 be ordered by inherent properties of the states.

 If this is correct, it leads back to the question of how big is a 
 computational state.  It seems that for the inherent order to be coded in 
 the state, the state must be much bigger than what one is conscious of in an 
 observer moment.  It also implies, contra Stathis, that one cannot 
 subdivide a conscious state very finely in time.  

Is an observer any less conscious from one planck time to another?
Although two consecutive planck times contain observer brains in
nearly identical states, I see this as meaning over the course of a
second, many subjectively indistinguishable observer moments are
produced, it is only when there is a significant enough change in the
state of the brain that one is able to notice it.  This I think, is
what sets our perceived speed of time (distinguishable observer
moments/second).

A simple thought experiment to determine if consciousness can be
infinitely divided:  If you were to freeze an observer in time, would
that observer stop being conscious?  I believe the representation of a
mind in a certain state is conscious even if not actively changing, as
it still contains in itself self references, information about its
environment at the time it was frozen, and other information we
consider part of consciousness.  When unpaused, this observer would of
course not perceive being frozen, 

RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-02-01 Thread Stathis Papaioannou


Brent Meeker writes:

 Bruno Marchal wrote:
  
  Le 29-janv.-07, à 18:19, Brent Meeker a écrit :
  
  Bruno Marchal wrote:
  Le 28-janv.-07, à 20:21, Brent Meeker a écrit :
 
 
 
  OK, but that means observer moments are not fundamental and the
  illusion of their continuity may be provided by the continuity of
  their underpinning.  But I don't see how a strictly stepwise discrete
  process as contemplated in the UD can provide that continuity.  It 
  was
  my understanding that it assumed consciousness could be provided by a
  series of disjoint states.
 
 
 
  Yes. But a series of discrete states (or their godel number) has to be
  related by a computation for making sense.
 
  So it makes no sense to say that a sequence of number is a 
  computation.
  You have to fix a universal environment. Let us fix once and for all
  a godel numbering. Then it is only relative to some universal number
  that a sequence of number can be counted as a computation.
  That sounds good - but I don't understand universal environment and 
  universal number.  We adopt a goedel numbering of arithmetic 
  expressions.  Do we then represent the computation by a sequence of 
  goedel numbers, each number corresponding to a mental state (assuming 
  the computation is a simulation at a sufficient level to satisfy 
  comp)?  But what number is universal?
  
  
  OK, remind me if I forget to comment this, but to explain what happens 
  here I do say a little more on the Fi and Wi. A universal number is 
  just the code of a universal machine or interpreter (in a nutshell). 
  I will come back on this.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Now, from a first person point of view, we don't know in which
  computation we belong. So from a first person point of view, we have 
  to
  take all equivalent computations (number sequence) relative to all
  universal number.
 
  This is enough to explain why from first person points of view,
  computations seem to require a continuum. In a sense we have to be
  related to the continuum of computations going through our states (it
  includes the infinity of computations describing finer grained
  histories with respect to our comp level of substitution.
  OK. So the order of computation provides the order of conscious states 
  (which may really be very complex and include more than just atoms of 
  experience); it is not inherent in the states.  And this order is 
  relative to different  goedel numberings?
  
  
  I am not sure to understand the relation of your quote of me and the 
  idea that the order of the computations provides the order of the 
  conscious state, unless you are refering to the logical order defined 
  by each computational state. If you run the UD, some internal first 
  person future could be implemented before some internal first person 
  past, buut this has nothing to do with the logical or arithmetical 
  order. OK?
  I intend to explain a bit more through the use of the Fi and Wi, (= the 
  partial recursive functions and their domain of definition), but it 
  would help me if you could explain what exactly (or more precisely) you 
  mean by order of computation. First person experiences have to be 
  related to infinities of computational histories, right?
 
 I'm not sure.  I was considering two kinds of order of computation. One is 
 the time order in the real world of processes in my brain or a computer 
 simulating me.  The other was the order of generation of states by the UD.  
 I understand from your answer above that the order of generation, in either 
 case, is regarded as contingent and that 1st person experience is supposed to 
 be ordered by inherent properties of the states.
 
 If this is correct, it leads back to the question of how big is a 
 computational state.  It seems that for the inherent order to be coded in 
 the state, the state must be much bigger than what one is conscious of in an 
 observer moment.  It also implies, contra Stathis, that one cannot 
 subdivide a conscious state very finely in time.  If you could then the finer 
 you divided it, the less information it contained, then the more histories it 
 would be consistent with.  So how do you decide how big a computational state 
 is?  If you make it big enough it may pick out a unique history, or at least 
 one that is unique over a significant time span (say many seconds)?

You seem to be using computational state and mental state interchangeably. 
Even if the physical computation is necessary and sufficient for the mental 
state, this not the same as saying the two are identical. One point of 
difference between them is that the subjective order of the mental states may 
be unrelated to the actual order of the physical states underpinning them.

Stathis Papaioannou
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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-29 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent Meeker writes: Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:57:15 -0800 From: [EMAIL 
PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: ASSA and 
Many-Worlds   Stathis Papaioannou wrote:  Brent Meeker writes:   
  OK, but that means observer moments are not fundamental and the 
illusion of their continuity may be provided by the continuity of 
their underpinning. But I don't see how a strictly stepwise discrete 
process as contemplated in the UD can provide that continuity. It   was my  
   understanding that it assumed consciousness could be provided by a 
series of disjoint states.   Brent Meeker 
It's an assumption of computationalism that the discrete computational 
steps will lead to continuity of consciousness. Moreover, it's an 
assumption of computationalism that a discontinuity in substrate of 
implementation (i.e. from brain to digital computer) will preserve 
continuity of consciousness.   Maybe that assumption is 
inconsistent.   Computational steps have an order in Platonia. In 
implementing them   in the material world, as in a computer, the 
sequentiallity (is that a   word?) of the steps is provided by the underlying 
physics just as the 1s   and 0s are provided by switches. But without the 
continuity of the   substrate it seems the states need some axiomatic, 
inherent order as in   Platonia. So then it is not clear that states can be 
chopped arbitrarily   finely and still function as computations - or a stream 
of conscious states.   Brent MeekerI don't see how it is 
possible to mix up something any more thoroughly   in the real world than it 
is already mixed up in Platonia.   Sure. In the real world I can write 1 2 4 
7 6 3...  But in arithmtic Platonia (a small part of the kingdom) there's no 
spacial or temporal order that can conflict with the inherent order.But 1 2 4 
7 6 3... is a string in Platonia, always there even if you don't explicitly 
state it (as you must do in the real world), and it doesn't manage to confuse 
the order of the counting numbers.  It's not as   if God has to explicitly 
put the integers in line one after the other:   they just naturally form a 
sequence, and they would no less form a   sequence if they were written on 
cards and thrown to the wind. Explicit   ordering in the physical world is 
important from a third person   perspective. If the putative sequence has a 
first person experience, and   the substrate of its implementation is 
transparent to that first person   experience (eg. an entity in a virtual 
reality environment with no   external input) then the implicit ordering in 
Platonia is sufficient to   create the first person impression of 
continuity. Stathis Papaioannou  I don't disagree with that.  But 
that means that a conscious, 1st person, pair of experiences, i.e. pair of 
numbers can have no order other than the inherent order of the numbers.  And if 
an experience corresponds to just a number, then experiences are discrete and 
can't be chopped finer than some limit.  The order of a pair of experiences is 
set by the fact that one is considered first and the other second, perhaps 
because there is a subjective sense of the passage of time, perhaps because the 
second experience contains a memory of the first, perhaps due to some other 
subtle aspect of the content of the experiences. In the real world, the 
subjective content reflects brain activity which in turn reflects environmental 
input (that's why the sense of order evolved in the first place), but this 
relationship is only a contingent one. If the pair of experiences are 
experienced in the order AB there is no way for the experiencer to know whether 
they were actually generated in the order AB or BA, unless reversing the order 
changes the content in some significant way.This means there is no natural 
order of physical states (or abstract machine states): the order can be 
anything, and the subjective order of experience will be unchanged. It also 
means there is no natural order of subjective states: that which seems first, 
seems first and that which seems second, seems second. This is good, because it 
doesn't depend on any theory or assumption about consciousness.  I guess I 
need a more explicit idea of how experiences occur in arithmetic Platonia.  Are 
we to imagine that some large number 3875835442... is a single, atomic 
experience and another number 3876976342... is another single, atomic 
experience and they have no other relation than their natural order?  In that 
case, they would be experiences in a certain bundle of streams of consciousness 
just in virtue of having some digits in common or having factors in common or 
what?  Or are we to imagine another Platonic object, a Turing machine, that 
generates both these numbers in a certain sequence (maybe the reverse of their 
natural order) - and that's what makes them parts of the same experience 
bundle?  Brent MeekerI would say

Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-29 Thread Bruno Marchal


Le 28-janv.-07, à 20:21, Brent Meeker a écrit :



 OK, but that means observer moments are not fundamental and the 
 illusion of their continuity may be provided by the continuity of 
 their underpinning.  But I don't see how a strictly stepwise discrete 
 process as contemplated in the UD can provide that continuity.  It was 
 my understanding that it assumed consciousness could be provided by a 
 series of disjoint states.




Yes. But a series of discrete states (or their godel number) has to be 
related by a computation for making sense.

So it makes no sense to say that a sequence of number is a computation. 
You have to fix a universal environment. Let us fix once and for all 
a godel numbering. Then it is only relative to some universal number 
that a sequence of number can be counted as a computation.

Now, from a first person point of view, we don't know in which 
computation we belong. So from a first person point of view, we have to 
take all equivalent computations (number sequence) relative to all 
universal number.

This is enough to explain why from first person points of view, 
computations seem to require a continuum. In a sense we have to be 
related to the continuum of computations going through our states (it 
includes the infinity of computations describing finer grained 
histories with respect to our comp level of substitution.

Consciousness is typically a first person notion. Strictly speaking it 
cannot be associated to one third person computation. Only this one can 
be described by a sequence of discrete states (more or less arbitrarily 
from a choice of a universal number/system). First person consciousness 
is associated with a uncountable (continuous) third person 
computation.

That is why all notion of self-correctness can make sense only 
relatively to the most *probable* computational histories. OK?


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-29 Thread Bruno Marchal


Le 29-janv.-07, à 00:11, Jason Resch a écrit :

 Thanks, that was an interesting read.  I find it surprising how many 
 people find MWI so disturbing, perhaps it is the pessimists always 
 assuming the worst is happening.  Instead of focusing on the good or 
 bad, I look at the variety it produces.  Many worlds leaves no rock 
 unturned and no path untread, it realizes every possibility and to me 
 this is an amazing and beautiful result.


Yes. Although it makes sense in QM only because QM justifies that some 
possibility have more weight than others.

Now a universal turing machine (in the mathematical sense) cannot 
distinguish ersatz linguistic worlds (cf David Lewis) from real one, 
and this asks already for a MWI interpretation of arithmetic.

It less clear that some world will be less weighted (and that is what 
we call the hunting of white rabbits).


Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-29 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Brent Meeker writes:
 
   Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:57:15 -0800
   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
   Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
  
  
   Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
Brent Meeker writes:
   
   OK, but that means observer moments are not fundamental and the
  illusion of their continuity may be provided by the continuity of
  their underpinning. But I don't see how a strictly stepwise 
 discrete
  process as contemplated in the UD can provide that continuity. It
was my
  understanding that it assumed consciousness could be provided by a
  series of disjoint states.
  
   Brent Meeker
 
  It's an assumption of computationalism that the discrete 
 computational
  steps will lead to continuity of consciousness. Moreover, it's an
  assumption of computationalism that a discontinuity in substrate of
  implementation (i.e. from brain to digital computer) will preserve
  continuity of consciousness.

 Maybe that assumption is inconsistent.

 Computational steps have an order in Platonia. In implementing them
in the material world, as in a computer, the sequentiallity (is that a
word?) of the steps is provided by the underlying physics just as 
 the 1s
and 0s are provided by switches. But without the continuity of the
substrate it seems the states need some axiomatic, inherent order 
 as in
Platonia. So then it is not clear that states can be chopped 
 arbitrarily
finely and still function as computations - or a stream of 
 conscious states.

 Brent Meeker
   
I don't see how it is possible to mix up something any more thoroughly
in the real world than it is already mixed up in Platonia.
  
   Sure. In the real world I can write 1 2 4 7 6 3... But in arithmtic 
 Platonia (a small part of the kingdom) there's no spacial or temporal 
 order that can conflict with the inherent order.
 
 But 1 2 4 7 6 3... is a string in Platonia, always there even if you 
 don't explicitly state it (as you must do in the real world), and it 
 doesn't manage to confuse the order of the counting numbers.
  
   It's not as
if God has to explicitly put the integers in line one after the other:
they just naturally form a sequence, and they would no less form a
sequence if they were written on cards and thrown to the wind. 
 Explicit
ordering in the physical world is important from a third person
perspective. If the putative sequence has a first person 
 experience, and
the substrate of its implementation is transparent to that first 
 person
experience (eg. an entity in a virtual reality environment with no
external input) then the implicit ordering in Platonia is 
 sufficient to
create the first person impression of continuity.
   
Stathis Papaioannou
  
   I don't disagree with that. But that means that a conscious, 1st 
 person, pair of experiences, i.e. pair of numbers can have no order 
 other than the inherent order of the numbers. And if an experience 
 corresponds to just a number, then experiences are discrete and can't be 
 chopped finer than some limit.
 
 The order of a pair of experiences is set by the fact that one is 
 considered first and the other second, perhaps because there is a 
 subjective sense of the passage of time, perhaps because the second 
 experience contains a memory of the first, perhaps due to some other 
 subtle aspect of the content of the experiences. 

But on this view an experience is a complex thing, far from the atomic 
perception of a red flash, and even includes parts that are not conscious.  
This comports with my speculation that a conscious atom is fairly complex and 
has a significant duration such that it overlaps the conscious atoms before and 
after. This overlap provides the ordering and the sense of time and continuity.

 In the real world, the 
 subjective content reflects brain activity which in turn reflects 
 environmental input (that's why the sense of order evolved in the first 
 place), but this relationship is only a contingent one. 

Well that's the question isn't it. Comp assumes it, but comp also leads to 
strange if not absurd conclusions. 

 If the pair of 
 experiences are experienced in the order AB there is no way for the 
 experiencer to know whether they were actually generated in the order AB 
 or BA, unless reversing the order changes the content in some 
 significant way.

That assumes the experiences can be discretely separated with not overlap.  
Certainly there are instances like that: the experience just before you lose 
consciousness due to a concussion and the experience just as you regain it are 
disjoint in this way.  You only recover continuity through accessing memories 
and there is a gap even in that memory.  But in ordinary circumstances the 
continuity might be inherent in the overlap of conscious atoms.
 
 This means

RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent Meeker writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote:  Brent Meeker writes:
This raises the question again of what is the minimum duration of a   
  conscious state? You mention 5sec as being a long time for a 
coincidental match (would there still be two consciousnesses for that 
5sec - I think not), but what about 300msec, or 100msec. There's not 
much consciousness in 100msec; so little that it may be occuring 
hundreds of times over in different brains.   Brent Meeker  
   I think the minimum duration of a conscious experience is of the 
order of 100 msec, so if you are shown a red flash it will take at 
least   this long before you perceive a red flash. This implies a 
minimum duration for an observer moment, although the interval can be 
divided up arbitrarily (for example, in teleportation thought 
experiments)   leaving the experience intact. However, this raises a 
difficulty. Suppose you are shown a red flash and 99 msec later you are 
teleported to a   distant place. Once you materialise, your neurons 
will continue their   processing of the red flash for another 1 msec 
and at that point (i.e. 100 msec after being shown the flash) you will 
perceive it. Next, suppose that you have no past but are created at the 
teleportation receiving   station from information *as if* you had 
been shown a red flash 99 msec ago. Your newly-created brain will 
process information for another 1   msec and then you should perceive 
the red flash. However, in this case you have only been alive for 1 
msec, and we can easily change the experiment to make this interval as 
short as we want. Does this mean that an   observer moment can 
actually be instantaneous? Stathis Papaioannou   This 
example implicitly assumes a kind of dualism or cartesian   theatre in which 
the brain does some processing *and then* you (the   really real you) 
perceives it. This is the idea Dennett criticizes in   Consciousness 
Explained. The perception must be the processing and   even if the flash is 
very short and it's perceived duration is very   short, the brain processes 
producing that perception can be much longer.   Brent Meeker
Do you doubt that you would perceive the red flash in the case where you   
have not had 100 msec to process it? At the least you would remember   seeing 
the flash, implying that the stream of consciousness will survive   division 
into arbitrarily small intervals.Stathis Papaioannou  Assuming that 
consciousness supervenes on the physics, this follows just from the continuity 
of the physics.  But it doesn't follow that there is some experience 
corresponding to 1msec of brain processing - it might be that seeing the 
flash spans some time interval.That's true, but it still allows that the 
process underpinning consciousness can be arbitrarily divided up. I think 
others on the list have used observer moment to mean these arbitrarily small 
time slices, even though you can't actually observe anything during one of 
them.Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Jason Resch
On 1/28/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 Consciousness *seems* to be continuous even if at a fundamental level time
 or brain processes are discrete. Also, although I agree that there is no
 necessary connection between observer moments, there *seems* to be a
 connection, in that almost by definition I won't suddenly find myself
 turning Chinese in the next moment even though there are 50 times as many
 Chinese as Australians in the world. If the feeling that I remain the same
 person from moment to moment is an illusion, then I am interested in how
 that illusion can be maintained, regardless of the underlying mechanisms of
 consciousness, time, whether or not there exists a real world, and so on.



I think the reason the illusion is maintained is rather trivial, whenever
your brain has the
thought: How come I was born as Stathis Papaioannou, and only ever
remember being Stathis Papaioannou?  Your brain is limited to the
memories contained within it.  And since there is no way for your
brain to have integrated memories of what it is like to be other
observers, your illusion of personal identity is maintained.




 Either I'm one of few or one of many. If everyone guesses that they are
 one of many, more are going to be right than if everyone guesses that they
 are one of few. Therefore, I should guess that I'm one of many. Is that what
 you are suggesting?


Yes, and once we assume we are probably one of many similar or identical
observer-moments, we should ask Why should there be many?


The argument has some appeal assuming we have no other reason to favour
 guessing that we are one of many or one of few. However, lack of evidence
 against something does not necessarily mean that thing is likely or even
 possible. As it happens there is perhaps some evidence for MW from quantum
 mechanics, but were it not for this, we could easily class MW along with
 pink elephants as something very unlikely which cannot be rescued by the
 ASSA.


If many-worlds is true, consider for a second how many
histories lines (and copies of you) must have been created by now.  The
universe had been branching into untold numbers of copies, untold numbers of
times each second, for billions of years before you were born.  While not
every branch contains you, once you appeared in one history line, a new copy
of you has been created for every possible outcome of every quantum event
that happens anywhere in this universe.  I would be
astonished if many-worlds turned out to be false, not only because of ASSA,
but also due to due to the paradoxes that exist in other interpretations,
and David Deutsch's reasoning that the computations of a quantum computer
must be done somewhere, and single-world views cannot explain,
for example, how Shor's algorithm works.

From a mathematical/computational perspective a many-world universe has only
marginally more complicated description (program) than a universe that has a
one-to-one mapping of states.

For a simple example of how this is possible, consider the Fibonacci
sequence, defined as:
F(0) = 1
F(1) = 1
F(n1) = F(n-1) + F(n-2)

But a sequence that defines an exponentially growing number of
states can be made just by changing the + to a plus or minus:
F(0) = 1
F(1) = 1
F(n1) = F(n-1) ± F(n-2)

Therefore mathematical descriptions of universes like our own should be
common, and only slightly rarer than universes that lack the property of
many-worlds.  However, many-worlds universes define so many more states, and
so many more observers that most of reality should be generated by short
programs that define massive numbers of states before halting.  An
interesting question: What about programs that loop, would
observers and states in such a universe have an infinite measure or should
looping be treated the same as halting?

Jason

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Brent Meeker writes:
 
   Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
Brent Meeker writes:
   
   This raises the question again of what is the minimum 
 duration of a
  conscious state? You mention 5sec as being a long time for a
  coincidental match (would there still be two consciousnesses 
 for that
  5sec - I think not), but what about 300msec, or 100msec. 
 There's not
  much consciousness in 100msec; so little that it may be occuring
  hundreds of times over in different brains.
  
   Brent Meeker
 
  I think the minimum duration of a conscious experience is of 
 the order
  of 100 msec, so if you are shown a red flash it will take at least
this
  long before you perceive a red flash. This implies a minimum 
 duration
  for an observer moment, although the interval can be divided up
  arbitrarily (for example, in teleportation thought experiments)
leaving
  the experience intact. However, this raises a difficulty. 
 Suppose you
  are shown a red flash and 99 msec later you are teleported to a
distant
  place. Once you materialise, your neurons will continue their
processing
  of the red flash for another 1 msec and at that point (i.e. 100 
 msec
  after being shown the flash) you will perceive it. Next, 
 suppose that
  you have no past but are created at the teleportation receiving
station
  from information *as if* you had been shown a red flash 99 msec 
 ago.
  Your newly-created brain will process information for another 1
msec and
  then you should perceive the red flash. However, in this case 
 you have
  only been alive for 1 msec, and we can easily change the 
 experiment to
  make this interval as short as we want. Does this mean that an
observer
  moment can actually be instantaneous?
 
  Stathis Papaioannou

 This example implicitly assumes a kind of dualism or cartesian
theatre in which the brain does some processing *and then* you (the
really real you) perceives it. This is the idea Dennett criticizes in
Consciousness Explained. The perception must be the processing and
even if the flash is very short and it's perceived duration is very
short, the brain processes producing that perception can be much 
 longer.

 Brent Meeker
   
Do you doubt that you would perceive the red flash in the case 
 where you
have not had 100 msec to process it? At the least you would remember
seeing the flash, implying that the stream of consciousness will 
 survive
division into arbitrarily small intervals.
   
Stathis Papaioannou
  
   Assuming that consciousness supervenes on the physics, this follows 
 just from the continuity of the physics. But it doesn't follow that 
 there is some experience corresponding to 1msec of brain processing - it 
 might be that seeing the flash spans some time interval.
 
 That's true, but it still allows that the process underpinning 
 consciousness can be arbitrarily divided up. I think others on the list 
 have used observer moment to mean these arbitrarily small time slices, 
 even though you can't actually observe anything during one of them.
 
 Stathis Papaioannou

OK, but that means observer moments are not fundamental and the illusion of 
their continuity may be provided by the continuity of their underpinning.  But 
I don't see how a strictly stepwise discrete process as contemplated in the UD 
can provide that continuity.  It was my understanding that it assumed 
consciousness could be provided by a series of disjoint states.

Brent Meeker

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Brent Meeker

Jason Resch wrote:
 On 1/28/07, *Stathis Papaioannou* [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 
 Consciousness *seems* to be continuous even if at a fundamental level
 time or brain processes are discrete. Also, although I agree that
 there is no necessary connection between observer moments, there
 *seems* to be a connection, in that almost by definition I won't
 suddenly find myself turning Chinese in the next moment even though
 there are 50 times as many Chinese as Australians in the world. If
 the feeling that I remain the same person from moment to moment is an
 illusion, then I am interested in how that illusion can be
 maintained, regardless of the underlying mechanisms of consciousness,
 time, whether or not there exists a real world, and so on.
 
 
 
 I think the reason the illusion is maintained is rather trivial, 
 whenever your brain has the thought: How come I was born as Stathis
 Papaioannou, and only ever remember being Stathis Papaioannou?  Your
 brain is limited to the memories contained within it.  And since
 there is no way for your brain to have integrated memories of what it
 is like to be other observers, your illusion of personal identity is
 maintained.
 
 
 
 
 Either I'm one of few or one of many. If everyone guesses that they 
 are one of many, more are going to be right than if everyone guesses 
 that they are one of few. Therefore, I should guess that I'm one of 
 many. Is that what you are suggesting?
 
 
 Yes, and once we assume we are probably one of many similar or
 identical observer-moments, we should ask Why should there be many?
 
 
 
 The argument has some appeal assuming we have no other reason to 
 favour guessing that we are one of many or one of few. However, lack 
 of evidence against something does not necessarily mean that thing is
 likely or even possible. As it happens there is perhaps some evidence
 for MW from quantum mechanics, but were it not for this, we could
 easily class MW along with pink elephants as something very unlikely
 which cannot be rescued by the ASSA.
 
 
 If many-worlds is true, consider for a second how many histories
 lines (and copies of you) must have been created by now.  The 
 universe had been branching into untold numbers of copies, untold 
 numbers of times each second, for billions of years before you were 
 born.  While not every branch contains you, once you appeared in one
  history line, a new copy of you has been created for every possible
  outcome of every quantum event that happens anywhere in this
 universe. 

I don't think this is the way to look at it.  It's true that QM predicts an 
uncountably infinite number of branchings, even for an universe containing only 
a single unstable particle.  But these branchings don't produce different 
copies of Stathis.  As a big macroscopic object he is described by a reduced 
density matrix that has only extremely tiny off-diagonal terms. So he is a 
stable entity against these microscopic quantum events unless they are 
amplified so as to change his macroscopic state - as for example if he heard a 
geiger counter click.  The microscopic events just add a little fuzz to his 
reduced density matrix - and the same for all of the classical world.

You might be interested in Greg Egan's excellent SF story Singleton which is 
available online:

ttp://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/MISC/SINGLETON/Singleton.html

Egan says People who professed belief in the MWI never seemed to want to take 
it seriously, let alone personally.  So he wrote a story in which it is taken 
personally.

Brent Meeker

I would be astonished if many-worlds turned out to be
 false, not only because of ASSA, but also due to due to the paradoxes
 that exist in other interpretations, and David Deutsch's reasoning
 that the computations of a quantum computer must be done somewhere,
 and single-world views cannot explain, for example, how Shor's
 algorithm works.



 
 From a mathematical/computational perspective a many-world universe
 has only marginally more complicated description (program) than a
 universe that has a one-to-one mapping of states.
 
 For a simple example of how this is possible, consider the Fibonacci
  sequence, defined as: F(0) = 1 F(1) = 1 F(n1) = F(n-1) + F(n-2)
 
 But a sequence that defines an exponentially growing number of states
 can be made just by changing the + to a plus or minus: F(0) = 1 F(1)
 = 1 F(n1) = F(n-1) ± F(n-2)
 
 Therefore mathematical descriptions of universes like our own should
 be common, and only slightly rarer than universes that lack the
 property of many-worlds.  However, many-worlds universes define so
 many more states, and so many more observers that most of reality
 should be generated by short programs that define massive numbers of
 states before halting.  An interesting question: What about programs
 that loop, would observers and states in such a universe have an
 infinite measure or should looping be treated the same as halting?
 
 Jason

Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Jason Resch
On 1/28/07, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 I don't think this is the way to look at it.  It's true that QM predicts
 an uncountably infinite number of branchings, even for an universe
 containing only a single unstable particle.  But these branchings don't
 produce different copies of Stathis.  As a big macroscopic object he is
 described by a reduced density matrix that has only extremely tiny
 off-diagonal terms. So he is a stable entity against these microscopic
 quantum events unless they are amplified so as to change his macroscopic
 state - as for example if he heard a geiger counter click.  The microscopic
 events just add a little fuzz to his reduced density matrix - and the same
 for all of the classical world.



Although microscopic quantum events don't immediatly produce macroscopic
changes, I think the butterfly effect implies that given sufficient
time, they certainly do.  Consider how brownian motion could effect
which sperm results in a pregnancy.  Considering this, I
think that
if you looked at two histories that branched a century ago, you would
find two Earths inhabited by entirely different sets of individuals.
 Even if Stathis's brain itself were
never effected directly by quantum events, the fact that he ends up in
branchings that produce different sensory input will no doubt produce
new distnguishable observer moments.


You might be interested in Greg Egan's excellent SF story Singleton which
 is available online:

 ttp://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/MISC/SINGLETON/Singleton.html

 Egan says People who professed belief in the MWI never seemed to want to
 take it seriously, let alone personally.  So he wrote a story in which it
 is taken personally.



Thanks, that was an interesting read.  I find it surprising how many people
find MWI so disturbing, perhaps it is the pessimists always assuming the
worst is happening.  Instead of focusing on the good or bad, I look at the
variety it produces.  Many worlds leaves no rock unturned and no path
untread, it realizes every possibility and to me this is an amazing and
beautiful result.

Jason

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Russell Standish

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 at 03:36:24PM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 
 Russell Standish writes: There is good reason to suppose that the absolute 
 measure of an observer moment is inversely proportional to the exponential 
 of the OM's complexity (this is discussed elsewhere in my book). In such a 
 case, newborn OM's have vastly greater likelihood of being experienced than 
 (say) 40 year old adult OMs.But was is the relevance of this from a first 
 person perspective? It's like saying you are vastly more likely to find 
 yourself a bacterium than a human. This is the case if you consider youself 
 standing ouside of the universe, trying to predict whether you will end up a 
 bacterium, human neonate or 40 year old - which I guess is what you mean when 
 you say the ASSA is a predictor of birth order - but obviously if you have 
 any stance at all, you are already embedded in the universe, not a 
 disembodied mind contemplating its possible futures.Stathis Papaiaonnou
 _


The SSA relates to sampling births. The SSSA extends this to observer
moments, and had some utility in reasoning about certain
paradoxes. But neither the SSA nor SSSA deals with time.

The ASSA and the RSSA refer to specifically subjective expectations,
given you are who you are. I know you are firmly in the RSSA camp,
so probably find the ASSA a little incomprehensible, but it really is
a consistent position (although the evidence that we're not
experiencing babyhood is little hard to explain in the ASSA picture).

Cheers

-- 


A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Russell Standish

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 at 04:42:48AM -, Jason wrote:
 I agree that regardless of the creation or destruction of other 
 copies, there is no reason for there ever to be any effect on first 
 person experience, that means no funny feelings, no loss of 
 consciousness, etc.
 
 RSSA Proponents:
 Many-worlds implies there are always branched histories where an 
 observer survives to experience another observer-moment.
 
 ASSA Proponents:
 Observer-moments that find themselves as extremely and abnormally long-
 lived observers should be exceedingly rare.
 
 I fail to see how the above descriptions are mutually exclusive.  I 

These are not characterisation of the ASSA and RSSA. The one you label
RSSA is known as the No cul-de-sac assumption. The one you label as ASSA
is a consequence of the ASSA, and some relatively minimal assumptions
on measure.

 The reason I started this thread was to discuss the possibility that 
 Many-Worlds is a property of this universe for purely ASSA reasons, I 
 see no reason for it to exist for any anthropic reasons, but due to 
 the exponential growth in observer moments defined by many-world 
 universes, it makes great sense.
 
 Jason
 

Occams razor would favour Multiverses for Anthropic Reasons.

I never really understood your point about the ASSA, as the relevant
*SSA for understanding what world we live in is the original SSA
(birth moment sampling) which both the ASSA and the RSSA satisfy.

Cheers

-- 


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Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au


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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent Meeker writes:
 
   Assuming that consciousness supervenes on the physics, this follows   
   just from the continuity of the physics. But it doesn't follow that   
   there is some experience corresponding to 1msec of brain processing - it 
 might be that seeing the flash spans some time interval.
   That's true, but it still allows that the process underpinning   
   consciousness can be arbitrarily divided up. I think others on the list  
have used observer moment to mean these arbitrarily small time 
   slices,   even though you can't actually observe anything during one of 
   them.Stathis Papaioannou  OK, but that means observer moments 
   are not fundamental and the illusion of their continuity may be 
   provided by the continuity of their underpinning. But I don't see how a 
   strictly stepwise discrete process as contemplated in the UD can provide 
   that continuity. It was my understanding that it assumed consciousness 
   could be provided by a series of disjoint states.  Brent Meeker
It's an assumption of computationalism that the discrete computational steps 
will lead to continuity of consciousness. Moreover, it's an assumption of 
computationalism that a discontinuity in substrate of implementation (i.e. from 
brain to digital computer) will preserve continuity of consciousness.
 
Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 
 Brent Meeker writes:
  
 Assuming that consciousness supervenes on the physics, this follows
just from the continuity of the physics. But it doesn't follow that
there is some experience corresponding to 1msec of brain processing 
 - it
might be that seeing the flash spans some time interval.
   
That's true, but it still allows that the process underpinning
consciousness can be arbitrarily divided up. I think others on the 
 list
have used observer moment to mean these arbitrarily small time 
 slices,
even though you can't actually observe anything during one of them.
   
Stathis Papaioannou
  
   OK, but that means observer moments are not fundamental and the 
 illusion of their continuity may be provided by the continuity of 
 their underpinning. But I don't see how a strictly stepwise discrete 
 process as contemplated in the UD can provide that continuity. It was my 
 understanding that it assumed consciousness could be provided by a 
 series of disjoint states.
  
   Brent Meeker
 
 It's an assumption of computationalism that the discrete computational 
 steps will lead to continuity of consciousness. Moreover, it's an 
 assumption of computationalism that a discontinuity in substrate of 
 implementation (i.e. from brain to digital computer) will preserve 
 continuity of consciousness.

Maybe that assumption is inconsistent.

Computational steps have an order in Platonia.  In implementing them in the 
material world, as in a computer, the sequentiallity (is that a word?) of the 
steps is provided by the underlying physics just as the 1s and 0s are provided 
by switches.  But without the continuity of the substrate it seems the states 
need some axiomatic, inherent order as in Platonia. So then it is not clear 
that states can be chopped arbitrarily finely and still function as 
computations - or a stream of conscious states.

Brent Meeker


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Brent Meeker writes (quoting Jason Resch):
  
If many-worlds is true, consider for a second how many histories
lines (and copies of you) must have been created by now. The
universe had been branching into untold numbers of copies, untold
numbers of times each second, for billions of years before you were
born. While not every branch contains you, once you appeared in one
history line, a new copy of you has been created for every possible
outcome of every quantum event that happens anywhere in this
universe.
  
   I don't think this is the way to look at it. It's true that QM 
 predicts an uncountably infinite number of branchings, even for an 
 universe containing only a single unstable particle. But these 
 branchings don't produce different copies of Stathis. As a big 
 macroscopic object he is described by a reduced density matrix that has 
 only extremely tiny off-diagonal terms. So he is a stable entity against 
 these microscopic quantum events unless they are amplified so as to 
 change his macroscopic state - as for example if he heard a geiger 
 counter click. The microscopic events just add a little fuzz to his 
 reduced density matrix - and the same for all of the classical world.
  
   You might be interested in Greg Egan's excellent SF story Singleton 
 which is available online:
  
   ttp://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/MISC/SINGLETON/Singleton.html
  
   Egan says People who professed belief in the MWI never seemed to 
 want to take it seriously, let alone personally. So he wrote a story in 
 which it is taken personally.
  
   Brent Meeker
 
 Doesn't a little fuzz in an infinite number of branchings result in 
 every possibility actually manifesting an infinite number of times?

I don't think so.  Part of the trouble is that QM is based on continuum 
mathematics: in time, space, and probability.  So when we imagine it being 
simulated on a digital computer we're led to think of all these being integer 
valued (in suitable units).  So we think we can just talk about discrete states 
at discrete times.  But in fact I think we are implicitly relying on the time 
continuity in the computer; it that actually causes the computational process 
to occur.

The standard form of QM being based on real numbers can accommodate an infinite 
number of branchings with none of them significantly diverging from the 
classical result.  If you did a QM analysis of the orbit of the Earth you would 
not find the Earth diffusing away into space outside the solar system.  You 
would find its position to become infinitesimally uncertain about it's orbit 
and macroscopically uncertain in its position along its orbit.  It would only 
branch off into a truly different path if it were hit by an asteroid or 
similar.  Then QM would show two almost orthogonal histories.  Something 
similar would apply to a human life: it would proceed mostly as a classical 
system with occasional branches.  But exactly how the classical world arises 
from the quantum foundation is an unsolved problem

Brent Meeker


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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Hal Ruhl


One thing that I do not agree with is what seems to me to be a common 
holding regarding observer moments [by this I mean discrete states of 
universes [which are a sub set of possible objects]] is that they 
are each so far assumed to have a set of properties that are to some 
extent the same as other observer moments and to some extent 
different from all other observer moments [to distinguish individual 
moments] but nevertheless the properties of an individual observer 
moment are fixed for that observer moment.

This to me is not logical since it is a selection and why that 
selection?  Why not have some blend of variable properties and fixed 
properties as a possibility?  This seems more in accord with a zero 
information ensemble.

Further, if it is also held that observer moments can not interact - 
that is also a selection.

I have proposed in other posts that there should be at least one 
variable property through which universe states can interact.  The 
idea is that all possible universe states have a uniform existence 
property, but also can have an addition property that is a variable 
that one could call hyper existence through which they can 
interact.  They interact by mutually altering each others hyper 
existence property.  This variable property should not have just a 
binary set of values as a possibility but should also have many 
discrete levels as a possibility - again to avoid selection.  In 
other words a universe state could experience a non square pulse of 
hyper existence which could span many of the this particular state 
to other state interactions.  This would be like a wave of hyper 
existence propagating through some succession of universe 
states.  Non binary, non square pulses of propagating hyper existence 
could be a basis for what is called consciousness - a flow of 
modulated awareness.

Given a random component to the underlying dynamic [which I have also 
discussed ] some such wave propagations with non binary, non square 
pulses of hyper existence would be through infinite strings of 
successive states that would all be life - and even beyond that - 
SAS friendly.

Hal Ruhl

  


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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent Meeker writes:
 
   OK, but that means observer moments are not fundamental and the   
   illusion of their continuity may be provided by the continuity of   
   their underpinning. But I don't see how a strictly stepwise discrete   
   process as contemplated in the UD can provide that continuity. It was my 
 understanding that it assumed consciousness could be provided by a  
series of disjoint states. Brent MeekerIt's an 
   assumption of computationalism that the discrete computational   steps 
   will lead to continuity of consciousness. Moreover, it's an   
   assumption of computationalism that a discontinuity in substrate of   
   implementation (i.e. from brain to digital computer) will preserve   
   continuity of consciousness.  Maybe that assumption is inconsistent.  
   Computational steps have an order in Platonia. In implementing them in 
   the material world, as in a computer, the sequentiallity (is that a 
   word?) of the steps is provided by the underlying physics just as the 1s 
   and 0s are provided by switches. But without the continuity of the 
   substrate it seems the states need some axiomatic, inherent order as in 
   Platonia. So then it is not clear that states can be chopped arbitrarily 
   finely and still function as computations - or a stream of conscious 
   states.  Brent Meeker
I don't see how it is possible to mix up something any more thoroughly in the 
real world than it is already mixed up in Platonia. It's not as if God has to 
explicitly put the integers in line one after the other: they just naturally 
form a sequence, and they would no less form a sequence if they were written on 
cards and thrown to the wind. Explicit ordering in the physical world is 
important from a third person perspective. If the putative sequence has a first 
person experience, and the substrate of its implementation is transparent to 
that first person experience (eg. an entity in a virtual reality environment 
with no external input) then the implicit ordering in Platonia is sufficient to 
create the first person impression of continuity.
 
Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-28 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Brent Meeker writes:
  
 OK, but that means observer moments are not fundamental and the
illusion of their continuity may be provided by the continuity of
their underpinning. But I don't see how a strictly stepwise discrete
process as contemplated in the UD can provide that continuity. It 
 was my
understanding that it assumed consciousness could be provided by a
series of disjoint states.

 Brent Meeker
   
It's an assumption of computationalism that the discrete computational
steps will lead to continuity of consciousness. Moreover, it's an
assumption of computationalism that a discontinuity in substrate of
implementation (i.e. from brain to digital computer) will preserve
continuity of consciousness.
  
   Maybe that assumption is inconsistent.
  
   Computational steps have an order in Platonia. In implementing them 
 in the material world, as in a computer, the sequentiallity (is that a 
 word?) of the steps is provided by the underlying physics just as the 1s 
 and 0s are provided by switches. But without the continuity of the 
 substrate it seems the states need some axiomatic, inherent order as in 
 Platonia. So then it is not clear that states can be chopped arbitrarily 
 finely and still function as computations - or a stream of conscious states.
  
   Brent Meeker
 
 I don't see how it is possible to mix up something any more thoroughly 
 in the real world than it is already mixed up in Platonia. 

Sure. In the real world I can write 1 2 4 7 6 3...  But in arithmtic Platonia 
(a small part of the kingdom) there's no spacial or temporal order that can 
conflict with the inherent order.

It's not as 
 if God has to explicitly put the integers in line one after the other: 
 they just naturally form a sequence, and they would no less form a 
 sequence if they were written on cards and thrown to the wind. Explicit 
 ordering in the physical world is important from a third person 
 perspective. If the putative sequence has a first person experience, and 
 the substrate of its implementation is transparent to that first person 
 experience (eg. an entity in a virtual reality environment with no 
 external input) then the implicit ordering in Platonia is sufficient to 
 create the first person impression of continuity.
  
 Stathis Papaioannou

I don't disagree with that.  But that means that a conscious, 1st person, pair 
of experiences, i.e. pair of numbers can have no order other than the inherent 
order of the numbers.  And if an experience corresponds to just a number, then 
experiences are discrete and can't be chopped finer than some limit.  

I guess I need a more explicit idea of how experiences occur in arithmetic 
Platonia.  Are we to imagine that some large number 3875835442... is a single, 
atomic experience and another number 3876976342... is another single, atomic 
experience and they have no other relation than their natural order?  In that 
case, they would be experiences in a certain bundle of streams of consciousness 
just in virtue of having some digits in common or having factors in common or 
what?  Or are we to imagine another Platonic object, a Turing machine, that 
generates both these numbers in a certain sequence (maybe the reverse of their 
natural order) - and that's what makes them parts of the same experience bundle?

Brent Meeker

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Jason

  Brent meeker writes:
 This raises the question again of what is the minimum duration of a 
 conscious state?  You mention 5sec as being a long time for a coincidental 
 match (would there still be two consciousnesses for that 5sec - I think not), 
 but what about 300msec, or 100msec.  There's not much consciousness in 
 100msec; so little that it may be occuring hundreds of times over in 
 different brains.

Human brains, and the consciousness they produce are both very complex.
 I've heard it said that human vision processes the quivalent of
hundreds of millions of  pixels and can distinguish millions of colors.
 The optic nerves transfer information at a rate of about 1 Gbps.  So
for thought experiments and examples I find it useful to reduce qualia
to more simple cases.  Imagine a creature with very primitive sight,
capable of only distinguishing between white and black, and with visual
acuity so poor it is only able to perceive one pixel.  Sight for such a
creature would be equivalent to perceiving one of two states:
brightness or darkness.

When this creature sees white, it would be equivalent to that
creature having an involuntary and vivid thought about white.  That
thought is objectively nothing more than the activation of a certain
group of neurons that react when having the thought about white.
Subjectively, the creature perceives an indescribable quale, and may
say that white is like warmth (in the same way humans rescribe red as
being hot).  This is likely due to links in the neural tissue between
the neurons that process seeing white and the ones that process the
sensation of warmth.

Using this simplified example, it becomes easier to attack the question
of what is the minimum duration for a conscious state?, or How long
is an obsever moment?  One could say that for every planck time, there
an observer moment.  While those neurons are active there will be
observer moment's experiencing the quale of white at each instant.
However, since brain chemistry is so slow (compared to the speed of
light and plank scales) there will be a massive number of observer
moments that are subjectively indistinguishable.  So in this regard one
could also say that new observer moments are only created when the
state of the neural tissue changes, since otherwise they were
indistingushable from the observer's perspective.

In this regard, there is no minimum amount of time an observer moment
must span, all that is required for the observer moment to exist is for
a brain in a certain state to exist.  Note however, that our brains do
not only contain information collected from a single instant, but
rather they contain and are in the middle of processing sensory
information collected over the course of perhaps a 10th - 20th of a
second.  This could explain why a flip book appears to have smooth
motion if you see more than 10 to 20 frames per second, and why a low
frequency sound below 10-20 Hz sounds like individal beats as opposed
to a tone.

Jason


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread William



On Jan 25, 3:50 am, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 03:54:32PM -0500, John M wrote:

PS I still would appreciate to be directed to a short text explaining the 
  essence of ASSA (RSSA?). JIt is in my book. Here is the relevant excerpt:

 \section[ASSA vs RSSA]{Absolute vs Relative Self Sampl\-ing Assumption}

 In the course of a lengthy, and at times heated debate between Jacques
 Mallah and myself, it became clear we were always arguing from
 disparate positions\cite{Mallah-Standish}. At the heart of our
 difference of opinion was how the strong self sampling
 assumption\index{self sampling assumption!strong|emph} should be
 applied. Jacques Mallah assumed that each observer moment had an
 absolute positive measure, and that our current observer moment is
 selected at random from that distribution.

 Since I accept the TIME postulate,\index{TIME postulate} only the
 birth moment is selected at random, according to the self sampling
 assumption. Thereafter, each observer moment's measure can be
 determined {\em relative} to its predecessor by means of Born's
 rule\index{Born rule}
 (\ref{proj-prob}). Arguing with this notion of observer measure, first
 person immortality follows provided the no cul-de-sac conjecture\index{no 
 cul-de-sac conjecture} is
 true.

 The Everything List adopted the term {\em Absolute Self Sampling
   Assumption}\index{self sampling assumption!absolute|emph} to
   refer to Mallah's use of strong self sampling, and the {\em Relative
   Self Sampling Assumption}\index{self sampling assumption!relative|emph} for 
 the version I use.  Since this
   debate took place, other debates have taken place between members of
   the ``absolute'' camp, which includes such names as Jacques
   Mallah,\index{Mallah, Jacques}
   Saibal Mitra,\index{Mitra, Saibal} Hal Finney\index{Finney, Hal} and the 
 ``relative'' camp which includes
   Bruno Marchal,\index{Marchal, Bruno} Stathis
   Papaioannou, and myself.

 \index{Papaioannou, Stathis}\index{Standish, Russell}

 Both of these ``camps'' appear to have internally consistent pictures.
 The fact that I'm not currently experiencing childhood, is for me
 strong evidence that the ASSA is an incorrect application of the
 strong self sampling assumption.

 ---­-
 A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
 Mathematics  
 UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au
 ---­-

I think you can add me to the ASSA camp :)

How does the fact that you're not experiencing childhood provide
evidence that ASSA is incorrect, as chances of experiencing childhood
or adulthood are both significant so I don't see why that would rule
out ASSA ... I kind of expected a different definition for RSSA as this
definition does not even solve any of the crazy paradoxes ASSA has ...
Well, anyway, time to look up the time postulate :)

Also, do you believe one can convince oneself of MWI (versus CI) by
performing a quantum suicide ?


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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent Meeker writes:  Perhaps even in a minimally conscious state your 
experiences are   specific enough to distinguish them from those of everyone 
else in a   superficially similar state. But what if, through amazing 
coincidence,   you had a 5 second period of consciousness which exactly 
matched that of   a stranger on the other side of the world? During that 
period it would   be impossible to say (from a 1st person perspective) where 
you were   being run or which person you were, in the same way as it would be 
  impossible to say where you were being run if your consciousness were   
implemented on two computers running in perfect lockstep.Stathis 
Papaioannou  Which is to say there is no you, or at least you are not your 
consciousness.  This raises the question again of what is the minimum 
duration of a conscious state?  You mention 5sec as being a long time for a 
coincidental match (would there still be two consciousnesses for that 5sec - I 
think not), but what about 300msec, or 100msec.  There's not much consciousness 
in 100msec; so little that it may be occuring hundreds of times over in 
different brains.  Brent MeekerI think the minimum duration of a conscious 
experience is of the order of 100 msec, so if you are shown a red flash it will 
take at least this long before you perceive a red flash. This implies a minimum 
duration for an observer moment, although the interval can be divided up 
arbitrarily (for example, in teleportation thought experiments) leaving the 
experience intact. However, this raises a difficulty. Suppose you are shown a 
red flash and 99 msec later you are teleported to a distant place. Once you 
materialise, your neurons will continue their processing of the red flash for 
another 1 msec and at that point (i.e. 100 msec after being shown the flash) 
you will perceive it. Next, suppose that you have no past but are created at 
the teleportation receiving station from information *as if* you had been shown 
a red flash 99 msec ago. Your newly-created brain will process information for 
another 1 msec and then you should perceive the red flash. However, in this 
case you have only been alive for 1 msec, and we can easily change the 
experiment to make this interval as short as we want. Does this mean that an 
observer moment can actually be instantaneous?Stathis Papaioannou
_
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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

William Vandenberghe writes: On Jan 25, 3:50 am, Russell Standish [EMAIL 
PROTECTED] wrote:  On Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 03:54:32PM -0500, John M wrote: 
 PS I still would appreciate to be directed to a short text explaining 
the essence of ASSA (RSSA?). JIt is in my book. Here is the relevant excerpt: 
  \section[ASSA vs RSSA]{Absolute vs Relative Self Sampl\-ing Assumption} 
  In the course of a lengthy, and at times heated debate between Jacques  
Mallah and myself, it became clear we were always arguing from  disparate 
positions\cite{Mallah-Standish}. At the heart of our  difference of opinion 
was how the strong self sampling  assumption\index{self sampling 
assumption!strong|emph} should be  applied. Jacques Mallah assumed that each 
observer moment had an  absolute positive measure, and that our current 
observer moment is  selected at random from that distribution.   Since I 
accept the TIME postulate,\index{TIME postulate} only the  birth moment is 
selected at random, according to the self sampling  assumption. Thereafter, 
each observer moment's measure can be  determined {\em relative} to its 
predecessor by means of Born's  rule\index{Born rule}  (\ref{proj-prob}). 
Arguing with this notion of observer measure, first  person immortality 
follows provided the no cul-de-sac conjecture\index{no cul-de-sac conjecture} 
is  true.   The Everything List adopted the term {\em Absolute Self 
SamplingAssumption}\index{self sampling assumption!absolute|emph} to
refer to Mallah's use of strong self sampling, and the {\em RelativeSelf 
Sampling Assumption}\index{self sampling assumption!relative|emph} for the 
version I use.  Since thisdebate took place, other debates have taken 
place between members ofthe ``absolute'' camp, which includes such names 
as JacquesMallah,\index{Mallah, Jacques}Saibal Mitra,\index{Mitra, 
Saibal} Hal Finney\index{Finney, Hal} and the ``relative'' camp which includes 
   Bruno Marchal,\index{Marchal, Bruno} StathisPapaioannou, and myself. 
  \index{Papaioannou, Stathis}\index{Standish, Russell}   Both of these 
``camps'' appear to have internally consistent pictures.  The fact that I'm 
not currently experiencing childhood, is for me  strong evidence that the 
ASSA is an incorrect application of the  strong self sampling assumption.  
 
---­- 
 A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)  
MathematicsUNSW SYDNEY 2052   
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  Australia
http://www.hpcoders.com.au  
---­- 
 I think you can add me to the ASSA camp :)  How does the fact that you're 
not experiencing childhood provide evidence that ASSA is incorrect, as chances 
of experiencing childhood or adulthood are both significant so I don't see why 
that would rule out ASSA ... I kind of expected a different definition for 
RSSA as this definition does not even solve any of the crazy paradoxes ASSA 
has ... Well, anyway, time to look up the time postulate :)Suppose for 
simplicity that there is only one world: you live your life from birth to death 
and that's it. God reveals to you that you will live to be 100, but on your 
50th birthday he will create a zillion copies of you which will all run in 
parallel for one minute and then all but one of the copies will be instantly 
destroyed. This means that almost all of your measure will be contained in that 
one minute on your 50th birthday. You can add variations to this thought 
experiment: God planned this before you were born; God will not decide to do 
this until you are 45; God will wait until the eve of your 50th birthday and 
toss a coin to decide whether he will make the copies or not; God does not tell 
you of his decision and you have to come up with a method to test whether he 
makes the copies or not. I claim that it will be impossible to notice anything 
unusual happening at any point in your life as a result of God's action or 
inaction. The first minute of your 50th birthday will last exactly one minute 
and will feel exactly the same as the preceding and the following minute. What 
do you think the ASSA predicts you will experience? Can you design a test to 
see what God is up to if he doesn't tell you? Stathis Papaioannou
_
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread William



On Jan 27, 12:24 pm, Stathis Papaioannou 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 William Vandenberghe writes: On Jan 25, 3:50 am, Russell Standish [EMAIL 
 PROTECTED] wrote:  On Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 03:54:32PM -0500, John M 
 wrote:  PS I still would appreciate to be directed to a short text 
 explaining the essence of ASSA (RSSA?). JIt is in my book. Here is the 
 relevant excerpt:   \section[ASSA vs RSSA]{Absolute vs Relative Self 
 Sampl\-ing Assumption}   In the course of a lengthy, and at times heated 
 debate between Jacques  Mallah and myself, it became clear we were always 
 arguing from  disparate positions\cite{Mallah-Standish}. At the heart of 
 our  difference of opinion was how the strong self sampling  
 assumption\index{self sampling assumption!strong|emph} should be  applied. 
 Jacques Mallah assumed that each observer moment had an  absolute positive 
 measure, and that our current observer moment is  selected at random from 
 that distribution.   Since I accept the TIME postulate,\index{TIME 
 postulate} only the  birth moment is selected at random, according to the 
 self sampling  assumption. Thereafter, each observer moment's measure can 
 be  determined {\em relative} to its predecessor by means of Born's  
 rule\index{Born rule}  (\ref{proj-prob}). Arguing with this notion of 
 observer measure, first  person immortality follows provided the no 
 cul-de-sac conjecture\index{no cul-de-sac conjecture} is  true.   The 
 Everything List adopted the term {\em Absolute Self Sampling
 Assumption}\index{self sampling assumption!absolute|emph} torefer to 
 Mallah's use of strong self sampling, and the {\em RelativeSelf 
 Sampling Assumption}\index{self sampling assumption!relative|emph} for the 
 version I use.  Since thisdebate took place, other debates have taken 
 place between members ofthe ``absolute'' camp, which includes such 
 names as JacquesMallah,\index{Mallah, Jacques}Saibal 
 Mitra,\index{Mitra, Saibal} Hal Finney\index{Finney, Hal} and the 
 ``relative'' camp which includesBruno Marchal,\index{Marchal, Bruno} 
 StathisPapaioannou, and myself.   \index{Papaioannou, 
 Stathis}\index{Standish, Russell}   Both of these ``camps'' appear to 
 have internally consistent pictures.  The fact that I'm not currently 
 experiencing childhood, is for me  strong evidence that the ASSA is an 
 incorrect application of the  strong self sampling assumption.   
 ---­­-
   A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)  
 MathematicsUNSW SYDNEY 2052 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]  Australia
 http://www.hpcoders.com.au  
 ---­­-
   I think you can add me to the ASSA camp :)  How does the fact that 
 you're not experiencing childhood provide evidence that ASSA is incorrect, 
 as chances of experiencing childhood or adulthood are both significant so I 
 don't see why that would rule out ASSA ... I kind of expected a different 
 definition for RSSA as this definition does not even solve any of the crazy 
 paradoxes ASSA has ... Well, anyway, time to look up the time postulate 
 :)Suppose for simplicity that there is only one world: you live your life 
 from birth to death and that's it. God reveals to you that you will live to 
 be 100, but on your 50th birthday he will create a zillion copies of you 
 which will all run in parallel for one minute and then all but one of the 
 copies will be instantly destroyed. This means that almost all of your 
 measure will be contained in that one minute on your 50th birthday. You can 
 add variations to this thought experiment: God planned this before you were 
 born; God will not decide to do this until you are 45; God will wait until 
 the eve of your 50th birthday and toss a coin to decide whether he will make 
 the copies or not; God does not tell you of his decision and you have to come 
 up with a method to test whether he makes the copies or not. I claim that it 
 will be impossible to notice anything unusual happening at any point in your 
 life as a result of God's action or inaction. The first minute of your 50th 
 birthday will last exactly one minute and will feel exactly the same as the 
 preceding and the following minute. What do you think the ASSA predicts you 
 will experience? Can you design a test to see what God is up to if he doesn't 
 tell you? Stathis 
 Papaioannou_
 Live Search: Better results, fasthttp://get.live.com/search/overview

Your replys are really difficult for me to read, something seems to go 
wrong in their formatting.

ASSA predicts you are most likely to be thinking that you are 50, and 
if any random consciousness thinks he is 50 years of age, he will be 
correct in zillion/(zillion+99) 

RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

William Vandenberghe writes:[SP]Suppose for simplicity that there is only one 
world: you live your life
from birth to death and that's it. God reveals to you that you will
live to be 100, but on your 50th birthday he will create a zillion
copies of you which will all run in parallel for one minute and then
all but one of the copies will be instantly destroyed. This means that
almost all of your measure will be contained in that one minute on your
50th birthday. You can add variations to this thought experiment: God
planned this before you were born; God will not decide to do this until
you are 45; God will wait until the eve of your 50th birthday and toss
a coin to decide whether he will make the copies or not; God does not
tell you of his decision and you have to come up with a method to test
whether he makes the copies or not. I claim that it will be impossible
to notice anything unusual happening at any point in your life as a
result of God's action or inaction. The first minute of your 50th
birthday will last exactly one minute and will feel exactly the same as
the preceding and the following minute. What do you think the ASSA
predicts you will experience? Can you design a test to see what God is
up to if he doesn't tell you? [WV] ASSA predicts you are most likely to be 
thinking that you are 50, and  if any random consciousness thinks he is 50 
years of age, he will be  correct in zillion/(zillion+99) cases, but there is 
no way to actually  know to know this no ... The real question is what happens 
if an  infinite number of copies are created, then ASSA states you will  
actually be thinking you are 50 for sure, and RSSA may avoid this  paradox in 
this case ... That is the paradox I was referring to and  there are similar 
paradoxes which are not avoided by the above  definition RSSA sampling your 
birth moment.You're 45 and God suddenly decides to make the copies when you 
turn 50. Will you suddenly find yourself turning 50 or will you live through 
the years 45-49 first? Once you get to 50 how fast will your clock run? What 
will you experience as the end of the minute approaches - will you loop back to 
the start of the minute or somehow stay suspended at the end? Will you get a 
funny feeling in your head as the minute of zillionfold copying starts and 
ends? If God decides to make 2 zillion copies at age 51 will you be twice as 
likely to find yourself aged 51 as 50, and if so what testable consequences 
might this have? If it has no testable consequences then in what sense is it 
meaningful? According to the RSSA, *nothing* happens from your POV when you 
turn 50. Given that you are already alive, you are going to experience the 
moments of your life in order and each one will last the same amount of time, 
however many copies of you are extant. The significance of measure is that if 
in the next moment there will be n copies of you who will have experience x and 
2n copies which will have experience y, then you will have twice as much chance 
of experiencing y as of experiencing x. The value of n cannot make any 
difference; if it did, then an empirical test would be possible demonstrating 
your absolute measure at each stage of life.Stathis Papaioannou 
_
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread John Mikes
Thanks, Russell.
I believe my slip is showing that I did not follow the Mallah related
posts.
If someone concentrates on just certain topics, may miss something.
You are very kind
John


On 1/24/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 On Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 03:54:32PM -0500, John M wrote:
 
PS I still would appreciate to be directed to a short text explaining
 the essence of ASSA (RSSA?). J
 

 It is in my book. Here is the relevant excerpt:

 \section[ASSA vs RSSA]{Absolute vs Relative Self Sampl\-ing Assumption}

 In the course of a lengthy, and at times heated debate between Jacques
 Mallah and myself, it became clear we were always arguing from
 disparate positions\cite{Mallah-Standish}. At the heart of our
 difference of opinion was how the strong self sampling
 assumption\index{self sampling assumption!strong|emph} should be
 applied. Jacques Mallah assumed that each observer moment had an
 absolute positive measure, and that our current observer moment is
 selected at random from that distribution.

 Since I accept the TIME postulate,\index{TIME postulate} only the
 birth moment is selected at random, according to the self sampling
 assumption. Thereafter, each observer moment's measure can be
 determined {\em relative} to its predecessor by means of Born's
 rule\index{Born rule}
 (\ref{proj-prob}). Arguing with this notion of observer measure, first
 person immortality follows provided the no cul-de-sac conjecture\index{no
 cul-de-sac conjecture} is
 true.

 The Everything List adopted the term {\em Absolute Self Sampling
   Assumption}\index{self sampling assumption!absolute|emph} to
   refer to Mallah's use of strong self sampling, and the {\em Relative
   Self Sampling Assumption}\index{self sampling assumption!relative|emph}
 for the version I use.  Since this
   debate took place, other debates have taken place between members of
   the ``absolute'' camp, which includes such names as Jacques
   Mallah,\index{Mallah, Jacques}
   Saibal Mitra,\index{Mitra, Saibal} Hal Finney\index{Finney, Hal} and the
 ``relative'' camp which includes
   Bruno Marchal,\index{Marchal, Bruno} Stathis
   Papaioannou, and myself.

 \index{Papaioannou, Stathis}\index{Standish, Russell}

 Both of these ``camps'' appear to have internally consistent pictures.
 The fact that I'm not currently experiencing childhood, is for me
 strong evidence that the ASSA is an incorrect application of the
 strong self sampling assumption.



 
 A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
 Mathematics
 UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au

 

 


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Brent Meeker writes:
 
Perhaps even in a minimally conscious state your experiences are
specific enough to distinguish them from those of everyone else in a
superficially similar state. But what if, through amazing coincidence,
you had a 5 second period of consciousness which exactly matched 
 that of
a stranger on the other side of the world? During that period it would
be impossible to say (from a 1st person perspective) where you were
being run or which person you were, in the same way as it would be
impossible to say where you were being run if your consciousness were
implemented on two computers running in perfect lockstep.
   
Stathis Papaioannou
  
   Which is to say there is no you, or at least you are not your 
 consciousness.
  
   This raises the question again of what is the minimum duration of a 
 conscious state? You mention 5sec as being a long time for a 
 coincidental match (would there still be two consciousnesses for that 
 5sec - I think not), but what about 300msec, or 100msec. There's not 
 much consciousness in 100msec; so little that it may be occuring 
 hundreds of times over in different brains.
  
   Brent Meeker
 
 I think the minimum duration of a conscious experience is of the order 
 of 100 msec, so if you are shown a red flash it will take at least this 
 long before you perceive a red flash. This implies a minimum duration 
 for an observer moment, although the interval can be divided up 
 arbitrarily (for example, in teleportation thought experiments) leaving 
 the experience intact. However, this raises a difficulty. Suppose you 
 are shown a red flash and 99 msec later you are teleported to a distant 
 place. Once you materialise, your neurons will continue their processing 
 of the red flash for another 1 msec and at that point (i.e. 100 msec 
 after being shown the flash) you will perceive it. Next, suppose that 
 you have no past but are created at the teleportation receiving station 
 from information *as if* you had been shown a red flash 99 msec ago. 
 Your newly-created brain will process information for another 1 msec and 
 then you should perceive the red flash. However, in this case you have 
 only been alive for 1 msec, and we can easily change the experiment to 
 make this interval as short as we want. Does this mean that an observer 
 moment can actually be instantaneous?
 
 Stathis Papaioannou

This example implicitly assumes a kind of dualism or cartesian theatre in which 
the brain does some processing *and then* you (the really real you) perceives 
it.  This is the idea Dennett criticizes in Consciousness Explained.  The 
perception must be the processing and even if the flash is very short and it's 
perceived duration is very short, the brain processes producing that perception 
can be much longer.

Brent Meeker

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Jason Resch
On 1/27/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 According to the RSSA, *nothing* happens from your POV when you turn 50.
 Given that you are already alive, you are going to experience the moments
 of
 your life in order and each one will last the same amount of time, however

 many copies of you are extant. The significance of measure is that if in
 the next
 moment there will be n copies of you who will have experience x and 2n
 copies
 which will have experience y, then you will have twice as much chance of
 experiencing y as of experiencing x. The value of n cannot make any
 difference;
 if it did, then an empirical test would be possible demonstrating your
 absolute
 measure at each stage of life.



I don't think ASSA (At least my understanding of it) predicts there would be
any
noticeable difference to the observer on their 50th birthday.  It does
not predict for example, that none of the prior or
later years are experienced, in fact they certainly are experienced because
they exist with a postive measure.  What ASSA implies is that simply a
statistical argument, which is this: The observer moment you currently
experience is more likely a common one than an uncommon one.  For example,
at 33 this observer could think according to ASSA, I am experiencing this
observer moment, therefore I am likely to be a common observer moment.  At
33 this would be false, but then statistics are never 100% accurate.  Now
consider the observer holds on to ASSA and so when he is 50 he still assumes
that his currently perceived observer moment is probable.  At this time
there are zillions of him, and zillions of him are correct.  This
large number of observer moments that are correct vastly outweigh the
number of
observer moments that were incorrect, and hence ASSA is a reasonable belief,
as it leads to a true conclusion more often than not.

Jason

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread John M
Stathis,

maybe it is a postulate that (in my mind) what you write does not make sense? 

A Cc generated/operated by tissue - partially transferred to parts unknown  
without (the?) tissue and still functions? I am a simpleminded primitive 
peasant, cannot condone that you, a 'thinking' person (no insult meant) accept 
the drawing of final conclusions upon our present insufficient knowledge base. 
50 years ago everything was explained as a telephone switchboard, 150 years ago 
as a steam-engine.
Always by metaphors we did not (yet) quite know and science was happy. Even 
things like phlogiston or vitality survived for some time. Today it is comp on 
equipment and process exceeding the present technique and things borrowed from 
sci-fi. And people take it SSOOO seriously! 
E.g. your calculation of the speed of thought upon the physical registrations 
of visual measurements. It is the inertia of the tool we use. Thought,  by all 
metaphors, is timeless/spaceless, you can experimentally proove it to yourself 
by 'thinking' of Dzhingis Kahn, Cleopatra and Hitler around a table in South 
america. Or: on the  Moon. 

You wrote:(I added the asterisks)
... *if I found myself* continuing to have similar experiences despite 
teleportation, ... -- what I would read as  corrected into::
... *if I think about myself as*  making a difference for me in drawing 
conclusions. And you emphasized this in your subsequent sentence in
IF... THEN -  by the capitalization. So: if not, not.  A typical 'sowhat'. 

I was hoping that you refer a bit to my ideas, not just repeat yours. 
But, alas, so are the lists

Have a good weekend

John
  - Original Message - 
  From: Stathis Papaioannou 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 10:55 PM
  Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds


  John, 

  I guess my brain is generating my consciousness, but I regard this as a 
contingent fact. My conciousness is that which I experience, and if I found 
myself continuing to have similar experiences despite teleportation, brain 
transplant, resurrection in Heaven or whatever, then I would have survived as 
me. Note that I am not saying these things are possible (perhaps this is where 
you are scornful of the fantastic scenarios), just that IF in these situations 
I continued to think I was me, THEN ipso facto, I would still be me, despite 
losing the original body and brain.

  Stathis Papaioannou




From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:54:32 -0500


Stathis:
interesting.  See my additional question after your reply
John
  - Original Message - 
  From: Stathis Papaioannou 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 9:03 AM
  Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds




  John Mikes writes:
   
   Stathis:
   your concluding sentence is
But my brain just won't let me think this way.
   *
   Have you been carried away?
   Who is your brain to make decisions upon you? (maybe you mean only 
that the mechanism of your brain, the main tool YOU  use in mental activity, 
is not predesigned for such action?) So: is there a pre-design (ha ha)?
   More importantly: who is that me in conflict with 'your'  brain?
   How do you 'want' to 'think' something (which involves your brain) when 
'your brain' won't let it happen?
   OK, let's introduce you, the homunculus, who wants to think some way 
and your 'brain' did not reach the sophistication of the design (yet?) to 
comply - as a reason for won't let me.
   With what 'tool' did you WANT to think this way? How many people 
are you indeed?
   *
   I am asking these stupid qiestions in the line of my search for SELF 
(I), vs. the total interconnectedness of our personal existence with 'the 
rest of the world'. I expect that you may provide useful hooks for me in such 
respect.
   John

  I am the product of a consciousness-generating mechanism, my brain, in 
the same way as walking is the product of a locomotion-generating mechanism, 
my legs. I am not identical to my brain just as walking is not identical to 
my legs. Now, of course I can only think what my brain will let me think, and 
of course I can only walk where my legs will let me walk, but these 
statements are not tautologies in the way that saying I can only think what I 
can think or I can only walk where I can walk are. 

  Stathis Papaioannou
  ---
  JM:

  so you consider the biologic tissue-grown (stem-cell initiated) BRAIN the 
origin of a thinking person? Life growing out from 'matter' - which is the 
figment of our explanatory effort to poorly and incompletely observed impact 
received from parts unknown? Funny: you invested so many posts

RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent Meeker writes:This raises the question again of what is the 
minimum duration of a   conscious state? You mention 5sec as being a long 
time for a   coincidental match (would there still be two consciousnesses for 
that   5sec - I think not), but what about 300msec, or 100msec. There's not  
 much consciousness in 100msec; so little that it may be occuring   hundreds 
of times over in different brains.   Brent MeekerI think the 
minimum duration of a conscious experience is of the order   of 100 msec, so 
if you are shown a red flash it will take at least this   long before you 
perceive a red flash. This implies a minimum duration   for an observer 
moment, although the interval can be divided up   arbitrarily (for example, 
in teleportation thought experiments) leaving   the experience intact. 
However, this raises a difficulty. Suppose you   are shown a red flash and 99 
msec later you are teleported to a distant   place. Once you materialise, 
your neurons will continue their processing   of the red flash for another 1 
msec and at that point (i.e. 100 msec   after being shown the flash) you will 
perceive it. Next, suppose that   you have no past but are created at the 
teleportation receiving station   from information *as if* you had been shown 
a red flash 99 msec ago.   Your newly-created brain will process information 
for another 1 msec and   then you should perceive the red flash. However, in 
this case you have   only been alive for 1 msec, and we can easily change the 
experiment to   make this interval as short as we want. Does this mean that 
an observer   moment can actually be instantaneous?Stathis 
Papaioannou  This example implicitly assumes a kind of dualism or cartesian 
theatre in which the brain does some processing *and then* you (the really real 
you) perceives it.  This is the idea Dennett criticizes in Consciousness 
Explained.  The perception must be the processing and even if the flash is 
very short and it's perceived duration is very short, the brain processes 
producing that perception can be much longer.  Brent MeekerDo you doubt that 
you would perceive the red flash in the case where you have not had 100 msec to 
process it? At the least you would remember seeing the flash, implying that the 
stream of consciousness will survive division into arbitrarily small 
intervals.Stathis Papaioannou
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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

It's true that if every entity assumes it is common, more entities overall are 
going to be correct. However, what is the relevance of this to first person 
experience? The ASSA has been used on this list as an argument against quantum 
immortality, on the grounds that since the measure of versions of you under 100 
in the multiverse will be much greater than the measure of versions over 1000, 
you are unlikely to make it to 1000. But this is simply looking at the 
situation from the third person perspective, and QTI explicitly aknowledges 
that you are unlikely to live forever from someone else's point of view. The 
point is, the ASSA has no effect on your first person experience. You can 
expect to experience your 33rd, 50th and 1000th year with absolute certainty as 
long as there is a single copy of you extant, and they will subjectively last 
exactly one year regardless of the number of copies. Stathis PapaioannouJason 
Resch writes:On 1/27/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
According to the RSSA, *nothing* happens from your POV when you turn 50. Given 
that you are already alive, you are going to experience the moments of your 
life in order and each one will last the same amount of time, however 
many copies of you are extant. The significance of measure is that if in the 
next moment there will be n copies of you who will have experience x and 2n 
copies which will have experience y, then you will have twice as much chance of 
experiencing y as of experiencing x. The value of n cannot make any difference; 
if it did, then an empirical test would be possible demonstrating your absolute 
measure at each stage of life.
I don't think ASSA (At least my understanding of it) predicts there would be 
any noticeable difference to the observer on their 50th birthday.  It does not 
predict for example, that none of the prior or later years are experienced, in 
fact they certainly are experienced because they exist with a postive measure.  
What ASSA implies is that simply a statistical argument, which is this: The 
observer moment you currently experience is more likely a common one than an 
uncommon one.  For example, at 33 this observer could think according to ASSA, 
I am experiencing this observer moment, therefore I am likely to be a common 
observer moment.  At 33 this would be false, but then statistics are never 100% 
accurate.  Now consider the observer holds on to ASSA and so when he is 50 he 
still assumes that his currently perceived observer moment is probable.  At 
this time there are zillions of him, and zillions of him are correct.  This 
large number of observer moments that are correct vastly outweigh the number of 
observer moments that were incorrect, and hence ASSA is a reasonable belief, as 
it leads to a true conclusion more often than not.
Jason

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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

John, It's not a scientific question, it's a philosophical question. Early 
Christian thinkers such as Augustine considered preservation of personal 
identity when you died and went to heaven. The fact that there is no heaven 
does not invalidate the *philosophical* point any more than the scientific 
impossibility of teleportation would invalidate conclusions drawn from such 
thought experiments. So, suppose God destroyed your body at A and then created 
a perfect copy at B: would you survive the procedure? If not, then in what 
sense have you survived the last few years given that all the atoms in your 
body have been replaced by natural processes?Stathis PapaioannouFrom: [EMAIL 
PROTECTED]: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Re: ASSA and Many-WorldsDate: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 
17:00:11 -0500








Stathis,
 
maybe it is a postulate that (in my mind) what you write 
does not make sense? 
 
A Cc generated/operated by tissue - partially transferred 
to parts unknown  without (the?) tissue and still 
functions? I am a simpleminded primitive peasant, cannot condone that you, a 
'thinking' person (no insult meant) accept the drawing of final conclusions 
upon 
our present insufficient knowledge base. 50 years ago everything was explained 
as a telephone switchboard, 150 years ago as a steam-engine.
Always by metaphors we did not (yet) quite know and 
science was happy. Even things like phlogiston or vitality survived for some 
time. Today it is comp on equipment and process exceeding the present technique 
and things borrowed from sci-fi. And people take it SSOOO seriously! 

E.g. your calculation of the speed of thought upon the 
physical registrations of visual measurements. It is the inertia of the tool we 
use. Thought,  by all metaphors, is timeless/spaceless, you can 
experimentally proove it to yourself by 'thinking' of Dzhingis Kahn, Cleopatra 
and Hitler around a table in South america. Or: on the  Moon. 
 
You wrote:(I added the asterisks)
... *if I found myself* 
continuing to have similar experiences despite teleportation, ... -- what 
I would read as  corrected into::
... *if I think about myself as*  making a 
difference for me in drawing conclusions. And you emphasized this in your 
subsequent sentence in
IF... THEN -  by the capitalization. So: if 
not, not.  A typical 'sowhat'. 
 
I was hoping that you refer a bit to my ideas, not just repeat yours. 

But, alas, so are the lists
 
Have a good weekend
 
John

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Stathis Papaioannou 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  
  Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 10:55 
  PM
  Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
  John, I guess my brain is generating my consciousness, 
  but I regard this as a contingent fact. My conciousness is that which I 
  experience, and if I found myself continuing to have similar experiences 
  despite teleportation, brain transplant, resurrection in Heaven or whatever, 
  then I would have survived as me. Note that I am not saying these things are 
  possible (perhaps this is where you are scornful of the fantastic scenarios), 
  just that IF in these situations I continued to think I was me, THEN ipso 
  facto, I would still be me, despite losing the original body and 
  brain.Stathis Papaioannou
  

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Re: ASSA and 
Many-WorldsDate: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:54:32 -0500
Stathis:
interesting.  See my additional question after your 
reply
John

  - 
  Original Message - 
  From: 
  Stathis Papaioannou 

  To: 
  everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  
  Sent: 
  Friday, January 26, 2007 9:03 AM
  Subject: 
  RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
  
  John Mikes writes:  Stathis: your 
  concluding sentence is  But my brain just won't let me think this 
  way. * Have you been carried away? Who is your 
  brain to make decisions upon you? (maybe you mean only that the 
mechanism 
  of your brain, the main tool YOU  use in mental activity, is not 
  predesigned for such action?) So: is there a pre-design (ha ha)? 
  More importantly: who is that me in conflict with 'your'  
  brain? How do you 'want' to 'think' something (which involves your 
  brain) when 'your brain' won't let it happen? OK, let's introduce 
  you, the homunculus, who wants to think some way and your 'brain' did 
  not reach the sophistication of the design (yet?) to comply - as a reason 
  for won't let me. With what 'tool' did you WANT to think this 
  way? How many people are you indeed? * I am asking these 
  stupid qiestions in the line of my search for SELF (I), vs. the total 
  interconnectedness of our personal existence with 'the rest of the 
world'. 
  I expect that you may provide useful hooks for me in such respect. 
  JohnI am the product of a consciousness-generating mechanism, my 
  brain, in the same way as walking is the product

Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Russell Standish

On Sat, Jan 27, 2007 at 04:11:00AM -0800, William wrote:
 
 Your replys are really difficult for me to read, something seems to go 
 wrong in their formatting.

Me too!

 
 ASSA predicts you are most likely to be thinking that you are 50, and 
 if any random consciousness thinks he is 50 years of age, he will be 
 correct in zillion/(zillion+99) cases, but there is no way to actually 
 know to know this no ... The real question is what happens if an 
 infinite number of copies are created, then ASSA states you will 
 actually be thinking you are 50 for sure, and RSSA may avoid this 
 paradox in this case ... That is the paradox I was referring to and 

There is good reason to suppose that the absolute measure of an
observer moment is inversely proportional to the exponential of the
OM's complexity (this is discussed elsewhere in my book). In such a
case, newborn OM's have vastly greater liklihood of being experienced
than (say) 40 year old adult OMs.

Now of course if you throw in a mischievous deity and you can make up whatever
scenario you like. This is a favourite pastime of the God moves in
mysterious ways folk. However, there is no reason for me take any such
proposal seriously until such time as there is some evidence
supporting such mechanisms.

 there are similar paradoxes which are not avoided by the above 
 definition RSSA sampling your birth moment.
 

Which paradoxes? The Adam and Eve paradox has been dealt with in a
Multiverse context in other everything-list postings, and the original
Doomsday Argument is not a paradox AFAICT.

 
 
-- 


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Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Russell Standish writes: There is good reason to suppose that the absolute 
measure of an observer moment is inversely proportional to the exponential of 
the OM's complexity (this is discussed elsewhere in my book). In such a case, 
newborn OM's have vastly greater likelihood of being experienced than (say) 40 
year old adult OMs.But was is the relevance of this from a first person 
perspective? It's like saying you are vastly more likely to find yourself a 
bacterium than a human. This is the case if you consider youself standing 
ouside of the universe, trying to predict whether you will end up a bacterium, 
human neonate or 40 year old - which I guess is what you mean when you say the 
ASSA is a predictor of birth order - but obviously if you have any stance at 
all, you are already embedded in the universe, not a disembodied mind 
contemplating its possible futures.Stathis Papaiaonnou
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Jason

On Jan 27, 9:02 pm, Stathis Papaioannou 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 It's true that if every entity assumes it is common, more entities overall 
 are going to be correct. However, what is the relevance of this to first 
 person experience? The ASSA has been used on this list as an argument against 
 quantum immortality, on the grounds that since the measure of versions of you 
 under 100 in the multiverse will be much greater than the measure of versions 
 over 1000, you are unlikely to make it to 1000. But this is simply looking at 
 the situation from the third person perspective, and QTI explicitly 
 aknowledges that you are unlikely to live forever from someone else's point 
 of view.  The point is, the ASSA has no effect on your first person 
 experience. You can expect to experience your 33rd, 50th and 1000th year with 
 absolute certainty as long as there is a single copy of you extant, and they 
 will subjectively last exactly one year regardless of the number of copies. 
 Stathis Papaioannou

I agree that regardless of the creation or destruction of other 
copies, there is no reason for there ever to be any effect on first 
person experience, that means no funny feelings, no loss of 
consciousness, etc.

RSSA Proponents:
Many-worlds implies there are always branched histories where an 
observer survives to experience another observer-moment.

ASSA Proponents:
Observer-moments that find themselves as extremely and abnormally long-
lived observers should be exceedingly rare.

I fail to see how the above descriptions are mutually exclusive.  I 
would say if one finds themself experiencing an observer moment of a 
1,000 year old human they should consider such an experience to be 
extremely rare.  I believe he point of dispute is centered on the 
nature of consciousness, I think some RSSA proponents are tied to the 
idea that consciousness is continuous, or otherwise tied to each 
observer.  However, if consciousness can be simulated by a digital 
machine, then there must be discrete time intervals representing each 
state, and if time is discrete, how can consciousness be continuous?  
Some ASSA proponents seem to believe that consciousness is like taking 
random samples among all observer moments, with the exceedingly rare 
observer moments never experiencing consciousness.  This too is an 
error in my opinion.

I see reality's first person as the set of all observer moments.  
Every experience that can exist does, and by definition is 
experienced.  The fact that some of these experiences exist in greater 
numbers than others has no consequence on any of the individual 
subjective experiences, but it does mean that most observer-moments 
can use their existance to make reasonable estimates regarding what 
types of observer moments are likely to be most probable.  ASSA might 
be applicable in determing properties of universes that observers are 
likely to find themselves in.  The difficulty in this regard is 
separating what properties of this universe are here due to necessary 
anthropic reasons, and what properties of this universe are here only 
because they increase the measure of its inhabitant observer moments.

The reason I started this thread was to discuss the possibility that 
Many-Worlds is a property of this universe for purely ASSA reasons, I 
see no reason for it to exist for any anthropic reasons, but due to 
the exponential growth in observer moments defined by many-world 
universes, it makes great sense.

Jason


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-27 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Brent Meeker writes:
 
 This raises the question again of what is the minimum duration of a
conscious state? You mention 5sec as being a long time for a
coincidental match (would there still be two consciousnesses for that
5sec - I think not), but what about 300msec, or 100msec. There's not
much consciousness in 100msec; so little that it may be occuring
hundreds of times over in different brains.

 Brent Meeker
   
I think the minimum duration of a conscious experience is of the order
of 100 msec, so if you are shown a red flash it will take at least 
 this
long before you perceive a red flash. This implies a minimum duration
for an observer moment, although the interval can be divided up
arbitrarily (for example, in teleportation thought experiments) 
 leaving
the experience intact. However, this raises a difficulty. Suppose you
are shown a red flash and 99 msec later you are teleported to a 
 distant
place. Once you materialise, your neurons will continue their 
 processing
of the red flash for another 1 msec and at that point (i.e. 100 msec
after being shown the flash) you will perceive it. Next, suppose that
you have no past but are created at the teleportation receiving 
 station
from information *as if* you had been shown a red flash 99 msec ago.
Your newly-created brain will process information for another 1 
 msec and
then you should perceive the red flash. However, in this case you have
only been alive for 1 msec, and we can easily change the experiment to
make this interval as short as we want. Does this mean that an 
 observer
moment can actually be instantaneous?
   
Stathis Papaioannou
  
   This example implicitly assumes a kind of dualism or cartesian 
 theatre in which the brain does some processing *and then* you (the 
 really real you) perceives it. This is the idea Dennett criticizes in 
 Consciousness Explained. The perception must be the processing and 
 even if the flash is very short and it's perceived duration is very 
 short, the brain processes producing that perception can be much longer.
  
   Brent Meeker
 
 Do you doubt that you would perceive the red flash in the case where you 
 have not had 100 msec to process it? At the least you would remember 
 seeing the flash, implying that the stream of consciousness will survive 
 division into arbitrarily small intervals.
 
 Stathis Papaioannou

Assuming that consciousness supervenes on the physics, this follows just from 
the continuity of the physics.  But it doesn't follow that there is some 
experience corresponding to 1msec of brain processing - it might be that 
seeing the flash spans some time interval.

Brent Meeker

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread John M
Stathis: 
your concluding sentence is
 But my brain just won't let me think this way.
*
Have you been carried away?
Who is your brain to make decisions upon you? (maybe you mean only that the 
mechanism of your brain, the main tool YOU  use in mental activity, is not 
predesigned for such action?) So: is there a pre-design (ha ha)? 
More importantly: who is that me in conflict with 'your'  brain? 
How do you 'want' to 'think' something (which involves your brain) when 'your 
brain' won't let it happen?
OK, let's introduce you, the homunculus, who wants to think some way and your 
'brain' did not reach the sophistication of the design (yet?) to comply - as a 
reason for won't let me. 
With what 'tool' did you WANT to think this way? How many people are you 
indeed? 
*
I am asking these stupid qiestions in the line of my search for SELF (I), vs. 
the total interconnectedness of our personal existence with 'the rest of the 
world'. I expect that you may provide useful hooks for me in such respect. 

John
 

  - Original Message - 
  From: Stathis Papaioannou 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 7:08 AM
  Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds




  Jason Resch writes:

Jason Resch writes:
   
   My appologies to those on this list, this is how I should have worded
   my conclusion:
   Positive spared lives = Take replication
   Neutral spared lives = Take coin flip
   Negative spared lives = Take coin flip

  [SP]
   This is an analysis from an altruistic viewpoint, i.e. which choice will 
increase
   the net happiness in the world. What I am asking is the selfish question, 
what
   should I do to avoid being tortured? If I choose the replication it won't 
worry
   me from a selfish point of view if one person will definitely be tortured 
because
   I am unlikely to be that person. Indeed, after the replication it won't 
affect me
   if *all* the other copies are tortured, because despite sharing the same 
psychology
   up to the point of replication, I am not going to experience their pain.

  [JR]
   I think our disagreement stems from our different conceptions of 
consciousness.  You seem to believe that once you experience an observer 
moment, that you are destined to experience all future observer moments of that 
observer.  While this is the way most people see the world, I consider that to 
be an illusion caused by memory.  i.e. We remember past observer moments so we 
must be moving into the future.
   I believe that its is just as beneficial to do something that will improve 
someone else's observer moments as it is to improve one's future observer 
moments. Just think: your current observer moment never gets to experience the 
fruits of its current labors, it remains in that observer moment for all time.  
Yet we still go to work.  That is why altruism is indistinguishable from 
selfish behavior in my philosophy.  There is no consciousness outside of brain 
states, brain states are consciousness, since they exist they are experienced, 
no one can say by who or by what, their existance is experience.  Therefore it 
is in everyone's interest to improve reality's first person, of which every 
observer moment is a part.
   It's easy to see how evolution taught us to work for one individual's 
future observer moments, we defer gratification all time in order to increase 
the average quality of all future observer moments.  I'm not advocating we all 
become like Mother Teresa, but I think we should understand that we are no more 
(or less) our future observer moments than we are other individual's observer 
moments.

  I completely agree with your view of observer moments: the person who wakes 
up 
  in my bed tomorrow won't be me-now, he'll just be someone who shares most of 
my 
  memories and believes he is me. In fact, if I were killed with an axe during 
the night 
  and replaced with an exact copy, it wouldn't make any difference to me or 
anyone 
  else, because I die every moment anyway. But the problem is, I am very 
attached to 
  the illusion of continuity of conscious and personal identity even though I 
know how it 
  is generated. If I give in to it, I might decide to treat everyone the same 
as I do myself, 
  but just as likely I might decide to be completely reckless with my life, or 
even with 
  everyone else's life. But my brain just won't let me think this way. 

  Stathis Papaioannou
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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread Stathis Papaioannou


John Mikes writes:
 
 Stathis:
 your concluding sentence is
  But my brain just won't let me think this way.
 *
 Have you been carried away?
 Who is your brain to make decisions upon you? (maybe you mean only that the 
 mechanism of your brain, the main tool YOU  use in mental activity, is not 
 predesigned for such action?) So: is there a pre-design (ha ha)?
 More importantly: who is that me in conflict with 'your'  brain?
 How do you 'want' to 'think' something (which involves your brain) when 'your 
 brain' won't let it happen?
 OK, let's introduce you, the homunculus, who wants to think some way and 
 your 'brain' did not reach the sophistication of the design (yet?) to comply 
 - as a reason for won't let me.
 With what 'tool' did you WANT to think this way? How many people are you 
 indeed?
 *
 I am asking these stupid qiestions in the line of my search for SELF (I), 
 vs. the total interconnectedness of our personal existence with 'the rest of 
 the world'. I expect that you may provide useful hooks for me in such respect.
 John

I am the product of a consciousness-generating mechanism, my brain, in the 
same way as walking is the product of a locomotion-generating mechanism, my 
legs. I am not identical to my brain just as walking is not identical to my 
legs. Now, of course I can only think what my brain will let me think, and of 
course I can only walk where my legs will let me walk, but these statements 
are not tautologies in the way that saying I can only think what I can think 
or I can only walk where I can walk are. 

Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Brent Meeker writes:
 
   Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 17:00:11 -0800
   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
   Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
  
  
   Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
   
Johnathan Corgan writes:
   
Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
   
If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of 
 argument we
should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every 
 moment terrible things
are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we 
 should be constantly
be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we 
 *will* be struck by lightning.
If MWI is true, *and* there isn't a lowest quantum of
probability/measure as Brent Meeker speculates, there is an 
 interesting
corollary to the quantum theory of immortality.
   
While one branch always exists which continues our consciousness
forward, indeed we are constantly shedding branches where the most
brutal and horrific things happen to us and result in our death. Their
measure is extremely small, so from a subjectively probability
perspective, we don't worry about them.
   
I'd speculate that there are far more logically possible ways to
experience an agonizing, lingering death than to live. Some have a
relatively high measure, like getting hit by a car, or getting lung
cancer (if you're a smoker), so we take steps to avoid these (though
they still happen in some branch.) Others, like having all our
particles spontaneously quantum tunnel into the heart of a burning
furnace, are so low in measure, we can blissfully ignore the
possibility. Yet if MWI is true, there is some branch where this has
just happened to us. (modulo Brent's probability quantum.)
   
If there are many more ways to die than to live, even of low 
 individual
measure, I wonder how the integral of the measure across all of them
comes out.
   
It's not death that is the problem (you always get out of that), 
 it's suffering. Final death
would be better than a living hell, but QTI denies you final death. 
 I take comfort in the
speculation that if I'm still alive in a few hundred years, most 
 likely this will be as a result
of some advanced medical or cybernetic intervention, and if science 
 understands the brain
well enough to do that, it would be a relatively simple matter by 
 comparison to ensure that I
am content. I think the hellish routes to immortality would occur 
 mostly by chance and would
be of much lower total measure than the deliberate, happy routes.
  
   I think Bruno already remarked that it may well be more probable that 
 a continuation of your consciousness arises in some other branch of the 
 multiverse by chance, rather than as a state of your erstwhile body. 
 This would seem particularly more probable as your consciousness 
 simplifies due to deterioration of your brain - how hard can it be to 
 find a continuation of a near coma. Perhaps this continuation is the 
 consciousness of a fish - and it's the Hindus rather than the Bhuddists 
 who are right.
 
 Then we come up against the question of what we can expect to experience 
 in the case of duplication with partial memory loss. For example, if you 
 are duplicated 101 times such that one copy has 100% of your memories 
 while the other 100 copies each have 1% of your memories, does this mean 
 that you have an even chance of ending up as either the 100% or the 1% 
 version of yourself? We need not invoke duplication experiments or the 
 MWI to ask this question either. Suppose there are a billion people in 
 the world each with 1/billion of my memories: does this mean I will find 
 myself becoming one of these people either now or after I have died?

As I understand it, Bruno's theory is that you are all the consistent 
continuations of your consciousness.  I'm not exactly sure what constitutes a 
consistent continuation, but it must be something other than just sharing 
memories.  At any given time my consciousness is accessing only a tiny fraction 
of my memories.  Further I'm continually  forming and forgetting short-term 
memories as well as forgetting some long-term memories.  

Basing identity on memory seems inconsistent with supposing that identity is 
some property of consciousness alone.  A digital computation doesn't depend on 
memory/data that isn't accessed.

Brent Meeker 

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread John M
Stathis:
interesting.  See my additional question after your reply
John
  - Original Message - 
  From: Stathis Papaioannou 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 9:03 AM
  Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds




  John Mikes writes:
   
   Stathis:
   your concluding sentence is
But my brain just won't let me think this way.
   *
   Have you been carried away?
   Who is your brain to make decisions upon you? (maybe you mean only that 
the mechanism of your brain, the main tool YOU  use in mental activity, is 
not predesigned for such action?) So: is there a pre-design (ha ha)?
   More importantly: who is that me in conflict with 'your'  brain?
   How do you 'want' to 'think' something (which involves your brain) when 
'your brain' won't let it happen?
   OK, let's introduce you, the homunculus, who wants to think some way and 
your 'brain' did not reach the sophistication of the design (yet?) to comply - 
as a reason for won't let me.
   With what 'tool' did you WANT to think this way? How many people are 
you indeed?
   *
   I am asking these stupid qiestions in the line of my search for SELF (I), 
vs. the total interconnectedness of our personal existence with 'the rest of 
the world'. I expect that you may provide useful hooks for me in such respect.
   John

  I am the product of a consciousness-generating mechanism, my brain, in the 
same way as walking is the product of a locomotion-generating mechanism, my 
legs. I am not identical to my brain just as walking is not identical to my 
legs. Now, of course I can only think what my brain will let me think, and of 
course I can only walk where my legs will let me walk, but these statements 
are not tautologies in the way that saying I can only think what I can think 
or I can only walk where I can walk are. 

  Stathis Papaioannou
  ---
  JM:

  so you consider the biologic tissue-grown (stem-cell initiated) BRAIN the 
origin of a thinking person? Life growing out from 'matter' - which is the 
figment of our explanatory effort to poorly and incompletely observed impact 
received from parts unknown? Funny: you invested so many posts into the 
(partial) teleportation and copying into other universes - did you really MEAN
  the transfer of tissues (like in StarTrek?) How 'bout the multiple  'copying' 
of matter?  How can you duplicate the atoms for copying? StarTrek had only 1 
copy and that, too, by 'physical' transfer.
  Save the wrong conclusion: I am not defending this line, I find it unreal and 
just mention the position of yours and others on this list for argument's sake. 
  I find it 'interesting, but amazing' that different brains (see: the 
multiplicity of humans and other animals among themselves) behave like mental 
clones in accepting very similar 3rd person views into their 1st person 
ideas, to form images of the 'material world' etc. Mental images, that is, 
which, however you would make into their own origination? Are we all (and the 
world, the existnce etc.) only fiction of ourselves? 

  Then again I feel that the 'consciousness' you generate by the brain may be 
very close to personality, self, the I we are talking about. Which would 
close the loop:  there must be the 'primitive matter' forming the brain and 
out of that comes the 'not-so-primitive' matter, the mental complexity and 
all??? 

  I agree withBruno to disagree in the absolute primitive matter concept. IMO 
  It is only an explanatory imaging in this universe's consciousness activity 
to order the part of the system we so far detected. Together with space-time 
and OUR pet-causality - the 'within model' ordering.

  John

  PS I still would appreciate to be directed to a short text explaining the 
essence of ASSA (RSSA?). J




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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread Russell Standish

On Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 03:54:32PM -0500, John M wrote:
 
   PS I still would appreciate to be directed to a short text explaining the 
 essence of ASSA (RSSA?). J
 

It is in my book. Here is the relevant excerpt:

\section[ASSA vs RSSA]{Absolute vs Relative Self Sampl\-ing Assumption}

In the course of a lengthy, and at times heated debate between Jacques
Mallah and myself, it became clear we were always arguing from
disparate positions\cite{Mallah-Standish}. At the heart of our
difference of opinion was how the strong self sampling
assumption\index{self sampling assumption!strong|emph} should be
applied. Jacques Mallah assumed that each observer moment had an
absolute positive measure, and that our current observer moment is
selected at random from that distribution.

Since I accept the TIME postulate,\index{TIME postulate} only the
birth moment is selected at random, according to the self sampling
assumption. Thereafter, each observer moment's measure can be
determined {\em relative} to its predecessor by means of Born's
rule\index{Born rule}
(\ref{proj-prob}). Arguing with this notion of observer measure, first
person immortality follows provided the no cul-de-sac conjecture\index{no 
cul-de-sac conjecture} is
true.

The Everything List adopted the term {\em Absolute Self Sampling
  Assumption}\index{self sampling assumption!absolute|emph} to
  refer to Mallah's use of strong self sampling, and the {\em Relative
  Self Sampling Assumption}\index{self sampling assumption!relative|emph} for 
the version I use.  Since this
  debate took place, other debates have taken place between members of
  the ``absolute'' camp, which includes such names as Jacques
  Mallah,\index{Mallah, Jacques}
  Saibal Mitra,\index{Mitra, Saibal} Hal Finney\index{Finney, Hal} and the 
``relative'' camp which includes
  Bruno Marchal,\index{Marchal, Bruno} Stathis
  Papaioannou, and myself.

\index{Papaioannou, Stathis}\index{Standish, Russell}
  
Both of these ``camps'' appear to have internally consistent pictures.
The fact that I'm not currently experiencing childhood, is for me
strong evidence that the ASSA is an incorrect application of the
strong self sampling assumption.



A/Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au


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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent Meeker writes:I think Bruno already remarked that it may well be 
more probable that   a continuation of your consciousness arises in some 
other branch of the   multiverse by chance, rather than as a state of 
your erstwhile body.   This would seem particularly more probable as your 
consciousness   simplifies due to deterioration of your brain - how hard can 
it be to   find a continuation of a near coma. Perhaps this continuation is 
the   consciousness of a fish - and it's the Hindus rather than the Bhuddists 
  who are right.Then we come up against the question of what we can 
expect to experience   in the case of duplication with partial memory loss. 
For example, if you   are duplicated 101 times such that one copy has 100% of 
your memories   while the other 100 copies each have 1% of your memories, 
does this mean   that you have an even chance of ending up as either the 100% 
or the 1%   version of yourself? We need not invoke duplication experiments 
or the   MWI to ask this question either. Suppose there are a billion people 
in   the world each with 1/billion of my memories: does this mean I will find 
  myself becoming one of these people either now or after I have died?  As 
I understand it, Bruno's theory is that you are all the consistent 
continuations of your consciousness.  I'm not exactly sure what constitutes a 
consistent continuation, but it must be something other than just sharing 
memories.  At any given time my consciousness is accessing only a tiny fraction 
of my memories.  Further I'm continually  forming and forgetting short-term 
memories as well as forgetting some long-term memories.Basing identity on 
memory seems inconsistent with supposing that identity is some property of 
consciousness alone.  A digital computation doesn't depend on memory/data that 
isn't accessed.Identity from moment to moment is not just memory, it is the 
entire content of conscious experience, perhaps accessing at any one time only 
a small portion of memory. It may be just a sense that I am the same person 
continuing the same thought as I was a moment ago, or even less than this when 
I am waking up from sleep, for example. At such sufficiently vague moments, my 
consciousness may even be indistinguishable with that of many other people in 
the world, such that if I ceased to exist momentarily I would still experience 
continuity of consciousness as if nothing had happened, piggy-backing on 
someone else's thoughts: all equivalent observer moments are internally 
indistinguishable, by definition. However, such a thing could only happen 
momentarily, because very quickly I might reflect on my situation, and it is 
here that having a store of memories, motivations, personality style etc. 
instantly accessible (even if not continuously accessed) makes me, me.Stathis 
Papaioannou 
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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

John, I guess my brain is generating my consciousness, but I regard this as a 
contingent fact. My conciousness is that which I experience, and if I found 
myself continuing to have similar experiences despite teleportation, brain 
transplant, resurrection in Heaven or whatever, then I would have survived as 
me. Note that I am not saying these things are possible (perhaps this is where 
you are scornful of the fantastic scenarios), just that IF in these situations 
I continued to think I was me, THEN ipso facto, I would still be me, despite 
losing the original body and brain.Stathis PapaioannouFrom: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Re: ASSA and Many-WorldsDate: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:54:32 -0500








Stathis:
interesting.  See my additional question after your 
reply
John

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Stathis Papaioannou 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  
  Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 9:03 
  AM
  Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
  
  John Mikes writes:  Stathis: your 
  concluding sentence is  But my brain just won't let me think this 
  way. * Have you been carried away? Who is your 
  brain to make decisions upon you? (maybe you mean only that the mechanism of 
  your brain, the main tool YOU  use in mental activity, is not 
  predesigned for such action?) So: is there a pre-design (ha ha)? More 
  importantly: who is that me in conflict with 'your'  brain? How 
  do you 'want' to 'think' something (which involves your brain) when 'your 
  brain' won't let it happen? OK, let's introduce you, the homunculus, 
  who wants to think some way and your 'brain' did not reach the sophistication 
  of the design (yet?) to comply - as a reason for won't let me. With 
  what 'tool' did you WANT to think this way? How many people are you 
  indeed? * I am asking these stupid qiestions in the line of my 
  search for SELF (I), vs. the total interconnectedness of our personal 
  existence with 'the rest of the world'. I expect that you may provide useful 
  hooks for me in such respect. JohnI am the product of a 
  consciousness-generating mechanism, my brain, in the same way as walking is 
  the product of a locomotion-generating mechanism, my legs. I am not 
  identical to my brain just as walking is not identical to my legs. Now, of 
  course I can only think what my brain will let me think, and of course I 
  can only walk where my legs will let me walk, but these statements are not 
  tautologies in the way that saying I can only think what I can think or I 
  can only walk where I can walk are. Stathis 
Papaioannou---
  JM:
   
  so you consider the biologic tissue-grown (stem-cell 
  initiated) BRAIN the origin of a thinking person? Life growing out from 
  'matter' - which is the figment of our explanatory effort to poorly and 
  incompletely observed impact received from parts unknown? Funny: you invested 
  so many posts into the (partial) teleportation and copying into other 
  universes - did you really MEAN
  the transfer of tissues (like in StarTrek?) How 'bout the 
  multiple  'copying' of matter?  How can you duplicate the atoms for 
  copying? StarTrek had only 1 copy and that, too, by 'physical' 
  transfer.
  Save the wrong conclusion: I am not defending this line, I 
  find it unreal and just mention the position of yours and others on this list 
  for argument's sake. 
  I find it 'interesting, but amazing' that different brains 
  (see: the multiplicity of humans and other animals among themselves) behave 
  like mental clones in accepting very similar 3rd person views into their 
1st 
  person ideas, to form images of the 'material world' etc. Mental images, that 
  is, which, however you would make into their own origination? Are we 
  all (and the world, the existnce etc.) only fiction of ourselves? 

   
  Then again I feel that the 'consciousness' you generate by 
  the brain may be very close to personality, self, the I we are talking 
  about. Which would close the loop:  there must be the 'primitive matter' 
  forming the brain and out of that comes the 'not-so-primitive' matter, the 
  mental complexity and all??? 
   
  I agree withBruno to disagree in the absolute primitive 
  matter concept. IMO 
  It is only an explanatory imaging in this universe's 
  consciousness activity to order the part of the system we so far detected. 
  Together with space-time and OUR pet-causality - the 'within model' 
  ordering.
   
  John
   
  PS I still would appreciate to be directed to a short text 
  explaining the essence of ASSA (RSSA?). J
   
   
   
   



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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Brent Meeker writes:
 
 I think Bruno already remarked that it may well be more probable 
 that
a continuation of your consciousness arises in some other branch of 
 the
multiverse by chance, rather than as a state of your erstwhile 
 body.
This would seem particularly more probable as your consciousness
simplifies due to deterioration of your brain - how hard can it be to
find a continuation of a near coma. Perhaps this continuation is the
consciousness of a fish - and it's the Hindus rather than the 
 Bhuddists
who are right.
   
Then we come up against the question of what we can expect to 
 experience
in the case of duplication with partial memory loss. For example, 
 if you
are duplicated 101 times such that one copy has 100% of your memories
while the other 100 copies each have 1% of your memories, does this 
 mean
that you have an even chance of ending up as either the 100% or the 1%
version of yourself? We need not invoke duplication experiments or the
MWI to ask this question either. Suppose there are a billion people in
the world each with 1/billion of my memories: does this mean I will 
 find
myself becoming one of these people either now or after I have died?
  
   As I understand it, Bruno's theory is that you are all the 
 consistent continuations of your consciousness. I'm not exactly sure 
 what constitutes a consistent continuation, but it must be something 
 other than just sharing memories. At any given time my consciousness is 
 accessing only a tiny fraction of my memories. Further I'm continually 
 forming and forgetting short-term memories as well as forgetting some 
 long-term memories.
  
   Basing identity on memory seems inconsistent with supposing that 
 identity is some property of consciousness alone. A digital computation 
 doesn't depend on memory/data that isn't accessed.
 
 Identity from moment to moment is not just memory, it is the entire 
 content of conscious experience, perhaps accessing at any one time only 
 a small portion of memory. It may be just a sense that I am the same 
 person continuing the same thought as I was a moment ago, or even less 
 than this when I am waking up from sleep, for example. At such 
 sufficiently vague moments, my consciousness may even be 
 indistinguishable with that of many other people in the world, such that 
 if I ceased to exist momentarily I would still experience continuity of 
 consciousness as if nothing had happened, piggy-backing on someone 
 else's thoughts: all equivalent observer moments are internally 
 indistinguishable, by definition. However, such a thing could only 
 happen momentarily, because very quickly I might reflect on my 
 situation, and it is here that having a store of memories, motivations, 
 personality style etc. instantly accessible (even if not continuously 
 accessed) makes me, me.

Yes I understand that you would eventually, say when waking from anesthesia, 
have some memories unique to Stathis Papaioannou.  But in the meantime I think 
you are still you - and not all those other people who shared those vague 
thoughts in the recovery room.  And it can't be because your memories are 
instantly accessible; that's a mere potentiality not a state.  If we start to 
reify potentialities in a multi-verse where we already have a white rabbit 
problem, we'll really be in trouble.

Brent Meeker

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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Moreover, even if we constrain the definition of computer to include only the 
operations of factory-made devices plugged in and appropriately programmed, the 
fact that a digital computation at any instant does not access all of memory 
and data allows for the computation to be distributed over multiple machines in 
a network which accidentally have the appropriate configuration for that part 
of the computation. The only requirement is that the network be large enough in 
space and time to provide these configurations: from its point of view, the 
computation cannot be aware that the various steps of its implementation are 
disjointed and not causally connnected.Stathis PapaioannouFrom: [EMAIL 
PROTECTED]: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: RE: ASSA and Many-WorldsDate: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 
14:41:07 +1100






Brent Meeker writes:I think Bruno already remarked that it may well be 
more probable that   a continuation of your consciousness arises in some 
other branch of the   multiverse by chance, rather than as a state of 
your erstwhile body.   This would seem particularly more probable as your 
consciousness   simplifies due to deterioration of your brain - how hard can 
it be to   find a continuation of a near coma. Perhaps this continuation is 
the   consciousness of a fish - and it's the Hindus rather than the Bhuddists 
  who are right.Then we come up against the question of what we can 
expect to experience   in the case of duplication with partial memory loss. 
For example, if you   are duplicated 101 times such that one copy has 100% of 
your memories   while the other 100 copies each have 1% of your memories, 
does this mean   that you have an even chance of ending up as either the 100% 
or the 1%   version of yourself? We need not invoke duplication experiments 
or the   MWI to ask this question either. Suppose there are a billion people 
in   the world each with 1/billion of my memories: does this mean I will find 
  myself becoming one of these people either now or after I have died?  As 
I understand it, Bruno's theory is that you are all the consistent 
continuations of your consciousness.  I'm not exactly sure what constitutes a 
consistent continuation, but it must be something other than just sharing 
memories.  At any given time my consciousness is accessing only a tiny fraction 
of my memories.  Further I'm continually  forming and forgetting short-term 
memories as well as forgetting some long-term memories.Basing identity on 
memory seems inconsistent with supposing that identity is some property of 
consciousness alone.  A digital computation doesn't depend on memory/data that 
isn't accessed.Identity from moment to moment is not just memory, it is the 
entire content of conscious experience, perhaps accessing at any one time only 
a small portion of memory. It may be just a sense that I am the same person 
continuing the same thought as I was a moment ago, or even less than this when 
I am waking up from sleep, for example. At such sufficiently vague moments, my 
consciousness may even be indistinguishable with that of many other people in 
the world, such that if I ceased to exist momentarily I would still experience 
continuity of consciousness as if nothing had happened, piggy-backing on 
someone else's thoughts: all equivalent observer moments are internally 
indistinguishable, by definition. However, such a thing could only happen 
momentarily, because very quickly I might reflect on my situation, and it is 
here that having a store of memories, motivations, personality style etc. 
instantly accessible (even if not continuously accessed) makes me, me.Stathis 
Papaioannou Live Search: Better results, fast Try it now!



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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent meeker writes:As I understand it, Bruno's theory is that you are 
all the   consistent continuations of your consciousness. I'm not exactly 
sure   what constitutes a consistent continuation, but it must be something  
 other than just sharing memories. At any given time my consciousness is   
accessing only a tiny fraction of my memories. Further I'm continually   
forming and forgetting short-term memories as well as forgetting some   
long-term memories.   Basing identity on memory seems inconsistent 
with supposing that   identity is some property of consciousness alone. A 
digital computation   doesn't depend on memory/data that isn't accessed.   
 Identity from moment to moment is not just memory, it is the entire   
content of conscious experience, perhaps accessing at any one time only   a 
small portion of memory. It may be just a sense that I am the same   person 
continuing the same thought as I was a moment ago, or even less   than this 
when I am waking up from sleep, for example. At such   sufficiently vague 
moments, my consciousness may even be   indistinguishable with that of many 
other people in the world, such that   if I ceased to exist momentarily I 
would still experience continuity of   consciousness as if nothing had 
happened, piggy-backing on someone   else's thoughts: all equivalent observer 
moments are internally   indistinguishable, by definition. However, such a 
thing could only   happen momentarily, because very quickly I might reflect 
on my   situation, and it is here that having a store of memories, 
motivations,   personality style etc. instantly accessible (even if not 
continuously   accessed) makes me, me.  Yes I understand that you would 
eventually, say when waking from anesthesia, have some memories unique to 
Stathis Papaioannou.  But in the meantime I think you are still you - and not 
all those other people who shared those vague thoughts in the recovery room.  
And it can't be because your memories are instantly accessible; that's a mere 
potentiality not a state.  If we start to reify potentialities in a multi-verse 
where we already have a white rabbit problem, we'll really be in 
trouble.Perhaps even in a minimally conscious state your experiences are 
specific enough to distinguish them from those of everyone else in a 
superficially similar state. But what if, through amazing coincidence, you had 
a 5 second period of consciousness which exactly matched that of a stranger on 
the other side of the world? During that period it would be impossible to say 
(from a 1st person perspective) where you were being run or which person you 
were, in the same way as it would be impossible to say where you were being run 
if your consciousness were implemented on two computers running in perfect 
lockstep. Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-26 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Brent meeker writes:
 
 As I understand it, Bruno's theory is that you are all the
consistent continuations of your consciousness. I'm not exactly sure
what constitutes a consistent continuation, but it must be something
other than just sharing memories. At any given time my 
 consciousness is
accessing only a tiny fraction of my memories. Further I'm continually
forming and forgetting short-term memories as well as forgetting some
long-term memories.

 Basing identity on memory seems inconsistent with supposing that
identity is some property of consciousness alone. A digital 
 computation
doesn't depend on memory/data that isn't accessed.
   
Identity from moment to moment is not just memory, it is the entire
content of conscious experience, perhaps accessing at any one time 
 only
a small portion of memory. It may be just a sense that I am the same
person continuing the same thought as I was a moment ago, or even less
than this when I am waking up from sleep, for example. At such
sufficiently vague moments, my consciousness may even be
indistinguishable with that of many other people in the world, such 
 that
if I ceased to exist momentarily I would still experience 
 continuity of
consciousness as if nothing had happened, piggy-backing on someone
else's thoughts: all equivalent observer moments are internally
indistinguishable, by definition. However, such a thing could only
happen momentarily, because very quickly I might reflect on my
situation, and it is here that having a store of memories, 
 motivations,
personality style etc. instantly accessible (even if not continuously
accessed) makes me, me.
  
   Yes I understand that you would eventually, say when waking from 
 anesthesia, have some memories unique to Stathis Papaioannou. But in the 
 meantime I think you are still you - and not all those other people who 
 shared those vague thoughts in the recovery room. And it can't be 
 because your memories are instantly accessible; that's a mere 
 potentiality not a state. If we start to reify potentialities in a 
 multi-verse where we already have a white rabbit problem, we'll really 
 be in trouble.
 
 Perhaps even in a minimally conscious state your experiences are 
 specific enough to distinguish them from those of everyone else in a 
 superficially similar state. But what if, through amazing coincidence, 
 you had a 5 second period of consciousness which exactly matched that of 
 a stranger on the other side of the world? During that period it would 
 be impossible to say (from a 1st person perspective) where you were 
 being run or which person you were, in the same way as it would be 
 impossible to say where you were being run if your consciousness were 
 implemented on two computers running in perfect lockstep.
 
 Stathis Papaioannou

Which is to say there is no you, or at least you are not your consciousness.

This raises the question again of what is the minimum duration of a conscious 
state?  You mention 5sec as being a long time for a coincidental match (would 
there still be two consciousnesses for that 5sec - I think not), but what about 
300msec, or 100msec.  There's not much consciousness in 100msec; so little that 
it may be occuring hundreds of times over in different brains.

Brent Meeker

Brent Meeker

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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-25 Thread Stathis Papaioannou


Johnathan Corgan writes:

 Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 
  If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of argument 
  we 
  should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every moment terrible 
  things 
  are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we should be 
  constantly 
  be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we *will* be 
  struck by lightning. 
 
 If MWI is true, *and* there isn't a lowest quantum of
 probability/measure as Brent Meeker speculates, there is an interesting
 corollary to the quantum theory of immortality.
 
 While one branch always exists which continues our consciousness
 forward, indeed we are constantly shedding branches where the most
 brutal and horrific things happen to us and result in our death.  Their
 measure is extremely small, so from a subjectively probability
 perspective, we don't worry about them.
 
 I'd speculate that there are far more logically possible ways to
 experience an agonizing, lingering death than to live.  Some have a
 relatively high measure, like getting hit by a car, or getting lung
 cancer (if you're a smoker), so we take steps to avoid these (though
 they still happen in some branch.)  Others, like having all our
 particles spontaneously quantum tunnel into the heart of a burning
 furnace, are so low in measure, we can blissfully ignore the
 possibility.  Yet if MWI is true, there is some branch where this has
 just happened to us. (modulo Brent's probability quantum.)
 
 If there are many more ways to die than to live, even of low individual
 measure, I wonder how the integral of the measure across all of them
 comes out.

It's not death that is the problem (you always get out of that), it's 
suffering. Final death 
would be better than a living hell, but QTI denies you final death. I take 
comfort in the 
speculation that if I'm still alive in a few hundred years, most likely this 
will be as a result 
of some advanced medical or cybernetic intervention, and if science understands 
the brain 
well enough to do that, it would be a relatively simple matter by comparison to 
ensure that I 
am content. I think the hellish routes to immortality would occur mostly by 
chance and would 
be of much lower total measure than the deliberate, happy routes. 

Stathis Papaioannou 
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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-25 Thread Stathis Papaioannou


Jason Resch writes:

  Jason Resch writes:
 
 My appologies to those on this list, this is how I should have worded
 my conclusion:
 Positive spared lives = Take replication
 Neutral spared lives = Take coin flip
 Negative spared lives = Take coin flip

[SP]
 This is an analysis from an altruistic viewpoint, i.e. which choice will 
 increase
 the net happiness in the world. What I am asking is the selfish question, what
 should I do to avoid being tortured? If I choose the replication it won't 
 worry
 me from a selfish point of view if one person will definitely be tortured 
 because
 I am unlikely to be that person. Indeed, after the replication it won't 
 affect me
 if *all* the other copies are tortured, because despite sharing the same 
 psychology
 up to the point of replication, I am not going to experience their pain.

[JR]
 I think our disagreement stems from our different conceptions of 
 consciousness.  You seem to believe that once you experience an observer 
 moment, that you are destined to experience all future observer moments of 
 that observer.  While this is the way most people see the world, I consider 
 that to be an illusion caused by memory.  i.e. We remember past observer 
 moments so we must be moving into the future.
 I believe that its is just as beneficial to do something that will improve 
 someone else's observer moments as it is to improve one's future observer 
 moments. Just think: your current observer moment never gets to experience 
 the fruits of its current labors, it remains in that observer moment for all 
 time.  Yet we still go to work.  That is why altruism is indistinguishable 
 from selfish behavior in my philosophy.  There is no consciousness outside of 
 brain states, brain states are consciousness, since they exist they are 
 experienced, no one can say by who or by what, their existance is experience. 
  Therefore it is in everyone's interest to improve reality's first person, of 
 which every observer moment is a part.
 It's easy to see how evolution taught us to work for one individual's future 
 observer moments, we defer gratification all time in order to increase the 
 average quality of all future observer moments.  I'm not advocating we all 
 become like Mother Teresa, but I think we should understand that we are no 
 more (or less) our future observer moments than we are other individual's 
 observer moments.

I completely agree with your view of observer moments: the person who wakes up 
in my bed tomorrow won't be me-now, he'll just be someone who shares most of my 
memories and believes he is me. In fact, if I were killed with an axe during 
the night 
and replaced with an exact copy, it wouldn't make any difference to me or 
anyone 
else, because I die every moment anyway. But the problem is, I am very 
attached to 
the illusion of continuity of conscious and personal identity even though I 
know how it 
is generated. If I give in to it, I might decide to treat everyone the same as 
I do myself, 
but just as likely I might decide to be completely reckless with my life, or 
even with 
everyone else's life. But my brain just won't let me think this way. 

Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-25 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 
 Johnathan Corgan writes:
 
 Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

 If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of argument 
 we 
 should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every moment terrible 
 things 
 are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we should be 
 constantly 
 be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we *will* be 
 struck by lightning. 
 If MWI is true, *and* there isn't a lowest quantum of
 probability/measure as Brent Meeker speculates, there is an interesting
 corollary to the quantum theory of immortality.

 While one branch always exists which continues our consciousness
 forward, indeed we are constantly shedding branches where the most
 brutal and horrific things happen to us and result in our death.  Their
 measure is extremely small, so from a subjectively probability
 perspective, we don't worry about them.

 I'd speculate that there are far more logically possible ways to
 experience an agonizing, lingering death than to live.  Some have a
 relatively high measure, like getting hit by a car, or getting lung
 cancer (if you're a smoker), so we take steps to avoid these (though
 they still happen in some branch.)  Others, like having all our
 particles spontaneously quantum tunnel into the heart of a burning
 furnace, are so low in measure, we can blissfully ignore the
 possibility.  Yet if MWI is true, there is some branch where this has
 just happened to us. (modulo Brent's probability quantum.)

 If there are many more ways to die than to live, even of low individual
 measure, I wonder how the integral of the measure across all of them
 comes out.
 
 It's not death that is the problem (you always get out of that), it's 
 suffering. Final death 
 would be better than a living hell, but QTI denies you final death. I take 
 comfort in the 
 speculation that if I'm still alive in a few hundred years, most likely this 
 will be as a result 
 of some advanced medical or cybernetic intervention, and if science 
 understands the brain 
 well enough to do that, it would be a relatively simple matter by comparison 
 to ensure that I 
 am content. I think the hellish routes to immortality would occur mostly by 
 chance and would 
 be of much lower total measure than the deliberate, happy routes. 

I think Bruno already remarked that it may well be more probable that a 
continuation of your consciousness arises in some other branch of the 
multiverse by chance, rather than as a state of your erstwhile body.  This 
would seem particularly more probable as your consciousness simplifies due to 
deterioration of your brain - how hard can it be to find a continuation of a 
near coma.  Perhaps this continuation is the consciousness of a fish - and it's 
the Hindus rather than the Bhuddists who are right.

Brent Meeker

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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-24 Thread Stathis Papaioannou


 Jason Resch writes:

 Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
  Jason Resch writes:
 
  Let's say being spared is neutral while being tortured is obviously bad, 
  even
  if you are tortured for only a few minutes. Also, assume the intensity of 
  the
  torture and the quality of life on being spared is the same in duplication/ 
  coin toss
  situations.
 
  What if I change the example and say you will be duplicated a million 
  times, and
  only one of the copies will be tortured? From a selfish point of view, you 
  can
  almost certainly expect to find yourself one of the copies that will be 
  spared,
  and I think you would be crazy to choose the coin flip. The equivalence of 
  the
  coin flip/ duplication example (when the probabilities are equal) is why we 
  cannot
  distinguish between MWI and CI of QM. It makes no difference to me whether
  the world splits into two and one copy of me is tortured if I toss the coin 
  or whether
  there is only one version of me with a 50% chance of being tortured.
 
 
 In the case you laid out you give two choices:
 
 A) The replicator
 B) The coin flip
 
 Case A results in 999,999 neutral lifetimes worth of observer moments
 and 1 lifetime of excruciating torture filled observer moments.  Net
 outcome among all branched universes: -1
 
 Case B results if half of one's future observer moments remebering
 torture and half remembering being spared.  Net outcome among all
 branched universes: -0.5
 
 Therefore it's still best to take case B, the coin flip.
 
 What makes the result seem so unintuitive is the concept of a lifetime
 of observer moments that has a net result being neutral.  That means
 that trough all the ups and downs in that life, if one could see it all
 laid out before them, they would realize that person had so many
 negative events in their life that they might as well never have been
 born.  With this consideration, it becomes more apparent that the
 999,999 extra neutral lives offer no real advantage in living out,
 nor does the spared life in the coin flip need to be figured in.  All
 that should be considered in this case is that with replication all
 universes will have someone who is tortured, while in the coin flip
 only half will.
 
 Most people consider their life to be a positive thing, and few would
 say they wouldn't mind if they had never been born.  For most people,
 if it came down to a million life times for one person's torture, it
 would be a better choice over than the coin flip.
 
 Here the replication is only the optimal choice for neutral life times.
  If a lifetime is very positive, the 999,999 good lives outweigh the
 one tortured.  If the spared lifetimes were very negative, the 999,999
 lifetimes would only add to the negative observer moments created
 through the torture, and again the coin flip is best.

and correction:

My appologies to those on this list, this is how I should have worded
my conclusion:
 
Positive spared lives = Take replication
Neutral spared lives = Take coin flip
Negative spared lives = Take coin flip
 
This is an analysis from an altruistic viewpoint, i.e. which choice will 
increase 
the net happiness in the world. What I am asking is the selfish question, what 
should I do to avoid being tortured? If I choose the replication it won't worry 
me from a selfish point of view if one person will definitely be tortured 
because 
I am unlikely to be that person. Indeed, after the replication it won't affect 
me 
if *all* the other copies are tortured, because despite sharing the same 
psychology 
up to the point of replication, I am not going to experience their pain. 

If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of argument we 
should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every moment terrible 
things 
are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we should be 
constantly 
be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we *will* be struck by 
lightning. 
But normally we don't worry about this because being struck by lightning in 
1/million 
actual worlds is subjectively equivalent to being struck by lightning in a 
single world 
with probability 1/million.

Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-24 Thread Johnathan Corgan

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

 If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of argument we 
 should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every moment terrible 
 things 
 are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we should be 
 constantly 
 be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we *will* be struck 
 by lightning. 

If MWI is true, *and* there isn't a lowest quantum of
probability/measure as Brent Meeker speculates, there is an interesting
corollary to the quantum theory of immortality.

While one branch always exists which continues our consciousness
forward, indeed we are constantly shedding branches where the most
brutal and horrific things happen to us and result in our death.  Their
measure is extremely small, so from a subjectively probability
perspective, we don't worry about them.

I'd speculate that there are far more logically possible ways to
experience an agonizing, lingering death than to live.  Some have a
relatively high measure, like getting hit by a car, or getting lung
cancer (if you're a smoker), so we take steps to avoid these (though
they still happen in some branch.)  Others, like having all our
particles spontaneously quantum tunnel into the heart of a burning
furnace, are so low in measure, we can blissfully ignore the
possibility.  Yet if MWI is true, there is some branch where this has
just happened to us. (modulo Brent's probability quantum.)

If there are many more ways to die than to live, even of low individual
measure, I wonder how the integral of the measure across all of them
comes out.

-Johnathan

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-23 Thread Jason


Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Jason Resch writes:

 Let's say being spared is neutral while being tortured is obviously bad, 
 even
 if you are tortured for only a few minutes. Also, assume the intensity of the
 torture and the quality of life on being spared is the same in duplication/ 
 coin toss
 situations.

 What if I change the example and say you will be duplicated a million times, 
 and
 only one of the copies will be tortured? From a selfish point of view, you can
 almost certainly expect to find yourself one of the copies that will be 
 spared,
 and I think you would be crazy to choose the coin flip. The equivalence of the
 coin flip/ duplication example (when the probabilities are equal) is why we 
 cannot
 distinguish between MWI and CI of QM. It makes no difference to me whether
 the world splits into two and one copy of me is tortured if I toss the coin 
 or whether
 there is only one version of me with a 50% chance of being tortured.


In the case you laid out you give two choices:

A) The replicator
B) The coin flip

Case A results in 999,999 neutral lifetimes worth of observer moments
and 1 lifetime of excruciating torture filled observer moments.  Net
outcome among all branched universes: -1

Case B results if half of one's future observer moments remebering
torture and half remembering being spared.  Net outcome among all
branched universes: -0.5

Therefore it's still best to take case B, the coin flip.

What makes the result seem so unintuitive is the concept of a lifetime
of observer moments that has a net result being neutral.  That means
that trough all the ups and downs in that life, if one could see it all
laid out before them, they would realize that person had so many
negative events in their life that they might as well never have been
born.  With this consideration, it becomes more apparent that the
999,999 extra neutral lives offer no real advantage in living out,
nor does the spared life in the coin flip need to be figured in.  All
that should be considered in this case is that with replication all
universes will have someone who is tortured, while in the coin flip
only half will.

Most people consider their life to be a positive thing, and few would
say they wouldn't mind if they had never been born.  For most people,
if it came down to a million life times for one person's torture, it
would be a better choice over than the coin flip.

Here the replication is only the optimal choice for neutral life times.
 If a lifetime is very positive, the 999,999 good lives outweigh the
one tortured.  If the spared lifetimes were very negative, the 999,999
lifetimes would only add to the negative observer moments created
through the torture, and again the coin flip is best.

Jason


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds (correction)

2007-01-23 Thread Jason


Jason wrote:
 Here the replication is only the optimal choice for neutral life times.
  If a lifetime is very positive, the 999,999 good lives outweigh the
 one tortured.  If the spared lifetimes were very negative, the 999,999
 lifetimes would only add to the negative observer moments created
 through the torture, and again the coin flip is best.


I meant to say the coin flip is only optimal for neutral life times
and that in cases with positive or negative lifetimes, replication is
best.


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds (correction)

2007-01-23 Thread Jason


Jason wrote:
 Jason wrote:
  Here the replication is only the optimal choice for neutral life times.
   If a lifetime is very positive, the 999,999 good lives outweigh the
  one tortured.  If the spared lifetimes were very negative, the 999,999
  lifetimes would only add to the negative observer moments created
  through the torture, and again the coin flip is best.
 

 I meant to say the coin flip is only optimal for neutral life times
 and that in cases with positive or negative lifetimes, replication is
 best.

My appologies to those on this list, this is how I should have worded
my conclusion:

Positive spared lives = Take replication
Neutral spared lives = Take coin flip
Negative spared lives = Take coin flip

Jason


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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-22 Thread Stathis Papaioannou



Jason Resch writes:

 Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
  What about when multiple equally valid OM's exist? I don't agree that they 
  are all perceived.
  If I am to be duplicated and one of the copies tortured, I am worried, 
  because this is subjectively
  equivalent to expecting torture with 1/2 probability. Post-duplication, I 
  can only experience
  being one of the copies, and if I am not the one who is tortured, I am 
  relieved, although I feel
  sorry for the other copy in the same way I might feel sory about anyone 
  else who is suffering
  (maybe a bit more, given our shared past). This is no more than a 
  description of how our
  psychology as beings who feel themselves to be embedded in linear time 
  works. Arguments that
  this does not reflect the reality of the situation, that it does not make 
  sense to consider I might
  become either copy prior to the duplication but only one copy after the 
  duplication, do not change
  the way my brain forces me to feel about it. Lee Corbin on this list has 
  argued that I should consider
  both copies as selves at all times, and perhaps we would evolve to think 
  this way in a world where
  duplication was commonplace, but our brains aren't wired that way at 
  present.
 
 
 In saying you disagree that duplicate OM's perspectives are perceived,
 I take it that you mean their collective divergent experiences are not
 integrated in a consistent memory, not that they would be non-conscious
 zombies.  If this was your point, I agree.

That's what I meant.

 However, I see a difference of opinion in how we understand the
 probabilities.  Whereas you say prior to the duplication and torture,
 one has a 1/2 probability of being tortured and 1/2 probability of
 being spared, I see it as one having a 100% probability of being
 tortured AND a 100% probability of being spared, as both experiences
 occur with 100% certainty.  The probability that an observer-moment
 sampled from both perspectives post-duplication will remember being
 tortured would be 1/2.

OK, but I am looking at it from the perspective of going into the replicator. 
Suppose you were offered either the above choice - you are duplicated and 
one of the copies will be tortured - or a biased coin will be tosed and you 
will have a 51% chance of being tortured and a 49% chance of being spared. 
From a selfish perspective, it would be best to go for the duplication, because 
since you can only experience being one person at a time, you can expect to 
come out of the duplicator with a 50% chance of being tortured as opposed 
to the 51% chance in the case of the coin toss.

 Our brains may not be wired for experiencing total empathy for others
 who are suffering, but this is a result of evolutionary psychology.
 Perhaps a species whose brains were wired this way would be maximally
 moral, as they would be intolerant to any suffering and would operate
 at great risk to themselves to aid other individuals.

Sure, we are only contigently wired to consider our own future selfish 
interests. 
It is possible to conceive of other evolutionary paths where, for example, we 
regard our kin as selves in the way social insects seem to do, or we regard 
future and past selves as other and live selfishly for the moment. There is 
nothing 
irrational about either of these positions, because the relationship betwen the 
observer moments is a contingent fact of evolution.

Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-21 Thread Jason


Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 What about when multiple equally valid OM's exist? I don't agree that they 
 are all perceived.
 If I am to be duplicated and one of the copies tortured, I am worried, 
 because this is subjectively
 equivalent to expecting torture with 1/2 probability. Post-duplication, I can 
 only experience
 being one of the copies, and if I am not the one who is tortured, I am 
 relieved, although I feel
 sorry for the other copy in the same way I might feel sory about anyone else 
 who is suffering
 (maybe a bit more, given our shared past). This is no more than a description 
 of how our
 psychology as beings who feel themselves to be embedded in linear time works. 
 Arguments that
 this does not reflect the reality of the situation, that it does not make 
 sense to consider I might
 become either copy prior to the duplication but only one copy after the 
 duplication, do not change
 the way my brain forces me to feel about it. Lee Corbin on this list has 
 argued that I should consider
 both copies as selves at all times, and perhaps we would evolve to think this 
 way in a world where
 duplication was commonplace, but our brains aren't wired that way at present.


In saying you disagree that duplicate OM's perspectives are perceived,
I take it that you mean their collective divergent experiences are not
integrated in a consistent memory, not that they would be non-conscious
zombies.  If this was your point, I agree.

However, I see a difference of opinion in how we understand the
probabilities.  Whereas you say prior to the duplication and torture,
one has a 1/2 probability of being tortured and 1/2 probability of
being spared, I see it as one having a 100% probability of being
tortured AND a 100% probability of being spared, as both experiences
occur with 100% certainty.  The probability that an observer-moment
sampled from both perspectives post-duplication will remember being
tortured would be 1/2.

Our brains may not be wired for experiencing total empathy for others
who are suffering, but this is a result of evolutionary psychology.
Perhaps a species whose brains were wired this way would be maximally
moral, as they would be intolerant to any suffering and would operate
at great risk to themselves to aid other individuals.

Jason


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-20 Thread William


Quentin Anciaux wrote:
 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.

Could you explain it a bit more to me because I am still in
disagreement with this, even when assuming RSSA ... Once every future
branch involves your death; you will loose conscioussness, IMO. If you
do not eat for 100 or 1000 years, you can still continue living
according to you ?


  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.

Do you believe that one can convince oneself that MWI is true, by doing
a quantum suicide ?


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-20 Thread Bruno Marchal


Le 19-janv.-07, à 17:44, Brent Meeker a écrit :


 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.


OK.



 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.


Perhaps.



 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.


Such a quantum theory of gravity would make wrong both QM, and comp. I 
think. But what could be a smallest unit of probability? If they apply 
to a smallest primitive event, they would make that event non 
repeatable, but then what would mean probability in this case?
Does not the UDA illustrate that all betting lobian machines are 
confronted to a continuum of partially computable and partially 
uncomputable  first person histories?

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-20 Thread John M
Dear Jason,

what William wrote is the best we, humans in 2007AD can find out for the 
subject matter. Before 1922 (Hubble's redshift) of course the best was 
different. Before...and so on. Considering the best of 2325AD...???
Your applause is similarly dated. 
Is Mother Nature (or call her as you wish) really restricted to our today's 
speculations? 
*
BTW I wanted to know more about ASSA-RSSA and Googled it, when from the 
American Steam Ship Association everything came up in 3,700,000+ entries, 
Wikipedia finally advised me to the old archive 'eskimo' of this list with Wei 
Dai, H. Finley, et al. posts. Since I browse the list for more than a decade, 
it must have been in posts too technical for me. Do you know about a 'simple' 
yet  informative source? I find the idea (maybe) useful now for my speculations 
about the 'self' ('I'?), separable in the total interefficient world as 
grouping for more relevantly interrelated networks to be considered as 
self-referential? 
*
I am not for a linear multiplication of our one-type universe as 'all possible' 
variations (as beyond even what we can think about today).  I enjoy your input 
and the replies even if I do not agree with the model-position of the reigning 
physical sciences in spite of the fantastic results it produced as compared to 
the tools and housing of birds and beaver. 

JohnMikes

The caveman said: the best ever technical advancement in our weaponry is the 
hand-ax. ATOMIC BOMB IS A HOAX.  - j



  - Original Message - 
  From: Jason 
  To: Everything List 
  Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 12:58 AM
  Subject: 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.




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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-20 Thread Stathis Papaioannou


William Vandenberghe writes:

 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.

The key is if all future branches involve your death. The idea of multiverse 
theories (MWI of QM and others of which this is a subset) is that there will 
always be a branch in which you survive.

Also, what do you mean by you of today/yesterday/tomorow? Of course 
the you of today will die, in a single world cosmology as wel as in a 
multiverse. 
You-today are a collection of matter in a specific spacetime configuration. 
All that survival as commonly understood entails is that tomorow there be a 
collection of matter in a similar enough configuration to give its owner the 
impression of continuity of identity. It doesn't have to be the same matter 
any more than your reading of this email has to be the same electrons that 
are leaving my computer as I write this. In fact, almost all the matter in your 
body (including your brain) today will be replaced within a few months.

 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.

What do you mean? The MWI is perfectly deterministic from a 3rd person 
perspective, although it is probabilistic the same as CI for anyone embedded 
in a single world.

 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 is actually a more common criticism of the QTI: although there may be 
more copies of you in future due to the splitting, these copies have lower 
measurewithin their time period. However, even if your next conscious moment 
is contained in a single copy in the continuum, I see no reason why you should 
not experience that copy, because I see no reason why I should suddenly lose 
consciousness should God suddenly decide to amplify the not-me universe 
aleph-whatever times reducing my measure to zero. I can't be certain about 
this, 
but no-one has ben able to convince me that I would experience anything strange 
if my measure were to increase or decrease.

Stathis Papaioanou
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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-20 Thread Stathis Papaioannou


I agree with what you say about the fragmentation of the first person. This is 
where the 
idea of the observer moment comes to the rescue as the smallest posible unit of 
conscious 
experience (are you aware that there have ben long discussions on this list in 
the past 
about OM's?). While there may be ambiguity as to whether this particular moment 
of 
consciousness is me, you, half me and half you, or whatever, we can at least 
describe its 
objective content; rather like falling back on a latitude and longtitude 
description when there is 
a dispute about which side of the border a piece of land belongs. 

Having said that, there is a sense in which I remain me from moment to moment 
even though 
it cannot be made objective in the light of thought experiments such as you 
describe: I'm me 
insofar as I believe I am me, have my memories, and so on. Surviving to the 
next moment 
entails that there be at least one OM extant then (by whatever means this may 
come about) 
which thinks it is me in the same way that I think I am the same person of a 
moment ago. 

What about when multiple equally valid OM's exist? I don't agree that they are 
all perceived. 
If I am to be duplicated and one of the copies tortured, I am worried, because 
this is subjectively 
equivalent to expecting torture with 1/2 probability. Post-duplication, I can 
only experience 
being one of the copies, and if I am not the one who is tortured, I am 
relieved, although I feel 
sorry for the other copy in the same way I might feel sory about anyone else 
who is suffering 
(maybe a bit more, given our shared past). This is no more than a description 
of how our 
psychology as beings who feel themselves to be embedded in linear time works. 
Arguments that 
this does not reflect the reality of the situation, that it does not make sense 
to consider I might 
become either copy prior to the duplication but only one copy after the 
duplication, do not change 
the way my brain forces me to feel about it. Lee Corbin on this list has argued 
that I should consider 
both copies as selves at all times, and perhaps we would evolve to think this 
way in a world where 
duplication was commonplace, but our brains aren't wired that way at present.

Stathis Papaioanou



 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
 Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
 Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 05:52:52 +
 
 
 
 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

RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-20 Thread Stathis Papaioannou


Jason writes:

 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.

But your measure in the forward time direction will still be decreasing as 
versions of you die off.

Stathis Papaioannou
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RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-20 Thread Stathis Papaioannou


Wiliam writes:

 Quentin Anciaux wrote:
  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.
 
 Could you explain it a bit more to me because I am still in
 disagreement with this, even when assuming RSSA ... Once every future
 branch involves your death; you will loose conscioussness, IMO. If you
 do not eat for 100 or 1000 years, you can still continue living
 according to you ?

No problem, unless as Brent Meeker suggests there is a minimum quantum of 
probability. 
In some branch of the multiverse, aliens have secretly altered you so that 
although you 
think you need to eat, your physiology is actually powered through radiated 
energy that 
they beam at you from high orbit... or something like that.

   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.
 
 Do you believe that one can convince oneself that MWI is true, by doing
 a quantum suicide ?

Tegmark's paper suggests that you could prove MWI to yourself in this way, but 
not to 
anyone else, who is likely to see you die. If you survived and published the 
results, the 
next person who tried it would die from your point of view and everyone else's, 
so the 
conclusion would be that your survival was due to fantastic luck. However, 
shouldn't 
*you* also conclude that your survival was due to fantastic luck on the same 
basis?

Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-19 Thread William


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 :).


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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-19 Thread Quentin Anciaux


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

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-19 Thread Brent Meeker


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

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-19 Thread Jason


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, there are only observer 

Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-19 Thread Jason

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.


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