Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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
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
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.441 / Virus Database: 268.17.36/681 - Release Date: 2/11/2007 6:50 PM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ -- 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ -- 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ -- 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 Live Search: Better results, fast Try it now! http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: 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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ _ Get the new Windows Live Messenger! http://get.live.com/messenger/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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
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 _ Live Search: Better results, fast http://get.live.com/search/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis, 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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
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
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 _ Get connected - Use your Hotmail address to sign into Windows Live Messenger now. http://get.live.com/messenger/overview
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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
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 _ Personalize your Live.com homepage with the news, weather, and photos you care about. http://www.live.com/getstarted.aspx?icid=T001MSN30A0701 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Get connected - Use your Hotmail address to sign into Windows Live Messenger now. http://get.live.com/messenger/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Live Search: New search found http://get.live.com/search/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 ? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Live Search: Better results, fast http://get.live.com/search/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
William 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 _ Live Search: Better results, fast http://get.live.com/search/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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
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 _ Live Search: Better results, fast http://get.live.com/search/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis, 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
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 _ Personalize your Live.com homepage with the news, weather, and photos you care about. http://www.live.com/getstarted.aspx?icid=T001MSN30A0701 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Get the new Windows Live Messenger! http://get.live.com/messenger/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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
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. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Live Search: Better results, fast http://get.live.com/search/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis: 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 _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.410 / Virus Database: 268.17.10/651 - Release Date: 1/24/2007 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email
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 _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 http://get.live.com/search/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Get connected - Use your Hotmail address to sign into Windows Live Messenger now. http://get.live.com/messenger/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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! _ Get the new Windows Live Messenger! http://get.live.com/messenger/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Get the new Windows Live Messenger! http://get.live.com/messenger/overview --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds (correction)
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. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds (correction)
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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 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 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 ? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
William 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 _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
I 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
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 _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
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 _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
I have been reading up on this subject a little bit and about the quantum immortality, I believe it is a common misconception that this means you will never die; if all future branches involve your death, then you will die ... Quantum immortality does not imply that you can dodge every bullet and that the you of today will still live tomorrow, although the you of yesterday could still live tomorrow whilst the you of today does not. Also I personally do not believe ASSA favours a MWI interpretation of quantum mechanics over a deterministic one because a single MWI universe will be less probable than a single deterministic universe. But it might favour MWI over Copenhagen interpretation. If the universe splits into 2 universes each second; I do not necissarily see an issue as explained by Stathis Papaioannou in his post. And it is even a fact that you are more probable to live in the year 2000 than in the year 1000 because the human population has grown; but once we go to infinities, the same approach might not work anymore (although I am still debating about this myself) ... Anyway, I do not believe that MWI favours later moments in time over earlier moments in time. Although the number of universes increases, their individual probability decreases, keeping the total probability equal (although relativity might complicate a more rigorous approach). A simple way of picturing this, would be that at the big bang; the universe is 1 piece of paper, and from then on, every second, the piece(s) of paper is cut in half; giving 1, 2, 4, 8, ... universes. The total area of paper remains the same and all the pieces get smaller all the time, this means that the chance of being in a particular universe as the universe splitting progresses, even decreases :). --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Hi, Le Vendredi 19 Janvier 2007 12:20, William a écrit : I have been reading up on this subject a little bit and about the quantum immortality, I believe it is a common misconception that this means you will never die; if all future branches involve your death, then you will die ... Quantum immortality does not imply that you can dodge every bullet and that the you of today will still live tomorrow, although the you of yesterday could still live tomorrow whilst the you of today does not. It would be the case if the multiverse contains cul-de-sac places... If you take the approach that every moments have a successor moment, then quantum immortality predict you'll never loose conscioussness. Also I personally do not believe ASSA favours a MWI interpretation of quantum mechanics over a deterministic one because a single MWI universe will be less probable than a single deterministic universe. But it might favour MWI over Copenhagen interpretation. I personnaly believe ASSA is broken... because for one thing it cannot explain stream of consciousness, arrow of time and so on... RSSA can. With RSSA you don't assume that you is sampled from all moments, but only sampled from moments consistent where the current you is in. If the universe splits into 2 universes each second; I do not necissarily see an issue as explained by Stathis Papaioannou in his post. And it is even a fact that you are more probable to live in the year 2000 than in the year 1000 because the human population has grown; but once we go to infinities, the same approach might not work anymore (although I am still debating about this myself) ... Anyway, I do not believe that MWI favours later moments in time over earlier moments in time. Although the number of universes increases, their individual probability decreases, keeping the total probability equal (although relativity might complicate a more rigorous approach). A simple way of picturing this, would be that at the big bang; the universe is 1 piece of paper, and from then on, every second, the piece(s) of paper is cut in half; giving 1, 2, 4, 8, ... universes. The total area of paper remains the same and all the pieces get smaller all the time, this means that the chance of being in a particular universe as the universe splitting progresses, even decreases :). All of this is to kept ASSA which I don't think is true (not even logically true). Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
William wrote: I have been reading up on this subject a little bit and about the quantum immortality, I believe it is a common misconception that this means you will never die; if all future branches involve your death, then you will die ... Quantum immortality does not imply that you can dodge every bullet and that the you of today will still live tomorrow, although the you of yesterday could still live tomorrow whilst the you of today does not. Also I personally do not believe ASSA favours a MWI interpretation of quantum mechanics over a deterministic one because a single MWI universe will be less probable than a single deterministic universe. But it might favour MWI over Copenhagen interpretation. If the universe splits into 2 universes each second; I do not necissarily see an issue as explained by Stathis Papaioannou in his post. And it is even a fact that you are more probable to live in the year 2000 than in the year 1000 because the human population has grown; but once we go to infinities, the same approach might not work anymore (although I am still debating about this myself) ... Anyway, I do not believe that MWI favours later moments in time over earlier moments in time. Although the number of universes increases, their individual probability decreases, keeping the total probability equal (although relativity might complicate a more rigorous approach). A simple way of picturing this, would be that at the big bang; the universe is 1 piece of paper, and from then on, every second, the piece(s) of paper is cut in half; giving 1, 2, 4, 8, ... universes. The total area of paper remains the same and all the pieces get smaller all the time, this means that the chance of being in a particular universe as the universe splitting progresses, even decreases :). That's a good way to look at it. Everett originally called his interpretation a 'relative state'; emphasizing that observed states were relative to the observer. 'Multiple universes' is a convenient way of talking, but the idea comes from holding onto the unitary evolution of the state vector in a Hilbert space describing states of the universe. So there is only one universe and it is the projection onto different semi-classical subspaces (the only kind we can experience) that correspond to different 'universes'. In QM you can have negative information (due to the correlations of entanglement) and so from the Hilbert space view the total information may be zero, even though the projection onto subspaces is very complex. I also think that the modeling of the inner product in Hilbert space as real number is probably and approximation. QM and general relativity together imply that there are smallest units of time and space, the Planck units. When a quantum theory of gravity is invented I think it may imply a smallest unit of probability - so that the arbitrarily small probabilities required for Tegmark to survive his machine gun will not exist. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: That is, once you are a conscious entity, you will follow a constrained branching path through the multiverse giving the illusion of a single linear history. Measure is redefined at every branching point: the subjective probability of your next moment. Since the branches of the multiverse will never come to an abrupt stop, there will always be a next moment and your stream of consciousness will never end. This the quantum immortality idea, underpinned by what this list has called the relative self-sampling assumption (RSSA). Stathis Papaioannou I think a lot of confusion comes from the use of pronounds such as you. In the realm of multiverses, block time, and many-worlds, the word you becomes much harder to define. Consider time: since your brain is in a different state from one moment to the next how can you be said to be the same person? As you examine your branched selves in more and more distantly branched universes, you will find a greater and greater discrepancy. You could even imagine at the moment of your conception a different sperm may have fertalized you, would a copy of you with only one gene's difference still be enough like you to be you? Where can the line be drawn as to who you are and who you are not? I believe that if one accepts that he or she will be conscious of their perspective five minutes from now, they must accept that they will perceive conscious perspectives of their selves in other branched universes. If one accepts they will be conscious of and perceive these other perspecties, they must also therefore be conscious of everyone else's perspective. And if you accept that, then you must be conscious of every conscious creatures perspective, in every point of time, in every branched history, in every universe. To illustrate problems with personal identity, consider these thought experiments: 1. Imagine a technologically advanced race that created simulations of their brains that run on computers. If two brains were being simulated on the same computer by sharing time on the CPU, both individuals would be conscious within the computer at the same time, but neither simulated individual remembers being the other because the programs are restricted from accessing each other's memory space. In the same way those brains were simulated on the same computer, our brains are computed by the physics of this universe. The universe experiences all conscious perspectives simultaneously, yet we as individuals do not remember being conscious of these other perspectives since our memory is not shared. 2. For a second example, consider that with each successive point in time, a new copy of you is created in a slightly modified state. However, if that state is constantly changing, you are essentially a different person from one point in time to the next. If time is indeed discrete, it should be even more apparent that we have no continuous identity. If we have no continuous identity, by what means could consciousness be tied to one creature's perspective? There could be no simple rule to define whose brain state you will perceive from one point in time to the next. All that could be said is that all conscious perspectives will be perceived, but no one could say who will perceive them. 3. Imagine that using advanced technology, the current state of your body was recorded and then an exact duplicate of you was constructed. Would you perceive the world from the viewpoint of your double? Common sense says no, but then consider this slightly different example: A recording of your state is recorded, and then you are completely destroyed. Every atom in your body is taken apart. Then the recording of your state is used to reconstruct you. Would you not have been brought back to life by this procedure? Would you not perceive the viewpoint of this recreation? In the first scenario we are less likely to claim we would perceive the duplicate's perspective, but it is no different from the second scenario where you are destroyed and recreated. Now consider this even more bizarre scenario: Your state is recorded, you are destroyed, and then 5 duplicates of yourself in the recorded state are created. Which one's perspective do you take? There can be only one answer: You take all of them. The above scenario seems unlikely and you probably have doubts as to whether or not is technically feasible. Nevertheless, duplicates of you are being created all the time as the universe branches. In each case you end up in a slightly different universe, in some you end up slightly changed yourself. To me this leaves two equally valid definitions for the term you. Either it refers to one conscious observer's perspective, at one point of time, in one universe, in one branched history line OR it could refer to reality's single first-person perspective of itself. For this reason I don't believe there can be a simple definition of observers, there are only observer
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
William wrote: A simple way of picturing this, would be that at the big bang; the universe is 1 piece of paper, and from then on, every second, the piece(s) of paper is cut in half; giving 1, 2, 4, 8, ... universes. The total area of paper remains the same and all the pieces get smaller all the time, this means that the chance of being in a particular universe as the universe splitting progresses, even decreases :). I consider this a very insightful way of looking at it. Starting with the universe's intitial conditions defined to have probability 1, every branched history that follows will occur with some fractional probability, and the sum of all the histories in any single point of time will all have equal probabilities. In effect every point of time would be equally weighted statistically. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---