Re: Observer-Moment Measure from Universe Measure

2005-06-05 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 05-juin-05, à 05:53, Hal Finney a écrit : Lee Corbin writes: But in general, what do observer-moments explain? Or what does the hypothesis concerning them explain? I just don't get a good feel that there are any higher level phenomena which might be reduced to observer-moments (I am still

Re: Functionalism and People as Programs

2005-06-05 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 03-juin-05, à 06:20, Lee Corbin a écrit : [Stephen:] What if I, or any one else's 1st person aspect, can not be copied? If the operation of copying is impossible, what is the status of all of these thought experiments? I notice that many people seek refuge in the no-copying theorem of

Re: Existence of Copies (was RE: Functionalism and People as Programs)

2005-06-05 Thread Bruno Marchal
Le 05-juin-05, à 01:04, Lee Corbin a écrit : This is the central problem from those who are deeply concerned as to *why* 1st person experiences exist. Too bad that to me, it's just obvious that they must. I literally cannot conceive of how it could be different! (Poor me, I suppose---in

Re: Observer-Moment Measure from Universe Measure

2005-06-05 Thread Saibal Mitra
- Original Message - From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 08:10 PM Subject: Observer-Moment Measure from Universe Measure To apply Wei's method, first we need to get serious about what is an OM. We need a formal model and

Re: Observer-Moment Measure from Universe Measure

2005-06-05 Thread Stephen Paul King
Dear Hal and Bruno, - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 3:02 AM Subject: Re: Observer-Moment Measure from Universe Measure Le 05-juin-05, à 05:53, Hal Finney a écrit

Against Fundamentalism!

2005-06-05 Thread Lee Corbin
Hal Finney writes Lee Corbin writes: But in general, what do observer-moments explain? Or what does the hypothesis concerning them explain? I just don't get a good feel that there are any higher level phenomena which might be reduced to observer-moments (I am still very skeptical that

RE: Observer-Moment Measure from Universe Measure

2005-06-05 Thread Lee Corbin
Bruno writes All right. So you both (Hal Finney and Lee Corbin) with the first axiom Arghh! My new revelation says that axioms are fine if you are doing math. But some of us are doing something here that is entirely separate: philosophy. I love math; it is my hobby. But axioms and all that

Another Tedious Hypothetical

2005-06-05 Thread rmiller
All, Another hypothetical. In 1939, let's say, a writer comes up with a sci-fi story, which is published the next year. It involves (let's say) a uranium bomb and a beryllium target in the Arizona desert that might blow up and cause problems for everyone. His main character is a fellow he

Another tedious hypothetical

2005-06-05 Thread rmiller
All, Another hypothetical. In 1939, let's say, a writer comes up with a sci-fi story, which is published the next year. It involves (let's say) a uranium bomb and a beryllium target in the Arizona desert that might blow up and cause problems for everyone. His main character is a fellow he

Re: Another Tedious Hypothetical

2005-06-05 Thread rmiller
At 12:31 PM 6/5/2005, rmiller wrote: A correction---the first nuclear test, was named, of course, Trinity, not The Manhattan Project. And the core of the device, which Oppenheimer called the gadget was about the size of a grapefruit. RM

RE: Functionalism and People as Programs

2005-06-05 Thread Lee Corbin
Bruno provides the exercise I notice that many people seek refuge in the no-copying theorem of QM. Exercise: 1) Show by a qualitative informal reasoning that if we are Turing emulable then a no-cloning theorem is a necessity. My best guess right now? Your challenge would be a futile

RE: Many Pasts? Not according to QM...

2005-06-05 Thread Lee Corbin
Stathis writes I believe that tomorrow I will become one of the people in the multiverse who believe they are me and share my memories. What if you have just taken Midazolam, and so won't remember any of this tomorrow? (I contend that you'll be them anyway.) When I think about this, I

RE: (offlist) RE: Observer-Moment Measure from Universe Measure

2005-06-05 Thread Brent Meeker
OOPS! I meant to post it to the list. I'll now just post this. Brent -Original Message- From: Lee Corbin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 4:52 PM To: Brent Meeker Subject: (offlist) RE: Observer-Moment Measure from Universe Measure Hi Brent, Of course science

RE: Another tedious hypothetical

2005-06-05 Thread Lee Corbin
Rich writes Another hypothetical. In 1939, let's say, a writer comes up with a sci-fi story, which is published the next year. It involves (let's say) a uranium bomb and a beryllium target in the Arizona desert that might blow up and cause problems for everyone. His main character is a

Re: Questions on Russell's Why Occam paper

2005-06-05 Thread Russell Standish
On Fri, Jun 03, 2005 at 04:22:07PM -0700, Hal Finney wrote: Russell Standish recently mentioned his paper Why Occam's Razor which can be found at http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks/docs/occam/ . Among other things he aims to derive quantum mechanics from a Schmidhuber type ensemble. I have

RE: Another Tedious Hypothetical

2005-06-05 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
In order: 2,1,5,3,4. --Stathis Papaioannou All, Another hypothetical. In 1939, let's say, a writer comes up with a sci-fi story, which is published the next year. It involves (let's say) a uranium bomb and a beryllium target in the Arizona desert that might blow up and cause problems for

Wei Dai's theory

2005-06-05 Thread Russell Standish
I remembered Wei Dai posting on this topic in the early days of this list, and indeed some of his postings influenced my Why Occam's Razor paper. However, I do not recall his suggestions as being as detailed as what you describe here. Do you have a reference to where this might be written up? I'm

RE: Another Tedious Hypothetical

2005-06-05 Thread rmiller
At 09:01 PM 6/5/2005, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: In order: 2,1,5,3,4. --Stathis Papaioannou Thanks to Lee and Stathis-- Anyone else? R.

RE: Many Pasts? Not according to QM...

2005-06-05 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Lee Corbin writes (quoting Stathis): I believe that tomorrow I will become one of the people in the multiverse who believe they are me and share my memories. What if you have just taken Midazolam, and so won't remember any of this tomorrow? (I contend that you'll be them anyway.) [Good

Re: Wei Dai's theory

2005-06-05 Thread Hal Finney
Russell Standish writes: I remembered Wei Dai posting on this topic in the early days of this list, and indeed some of his postings influenced my Why Occam's Razor paper. However, I do not recall his suggestions as being as detailed as what you describe here. Do you have a reference to where

Hypotheses

2005-06-05 Thread rmiller
Re the hypotheses---Social scientists, astronomers and CSI agents are the only ones I'm aware of who routinely evaluate events after the fact. The best, IMHO, such as the historian Toynbee, fit facts to a model. At it's worst, the model becomes the event and before long we're deep in

RE: Down with Scientism

2005-06-05 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
I sometimes get into arguments with anti-science associates, who are into wholism, mysticism, spiritualism and so forth. They think that scientists are an elite with their own brand of 'ism (scientism, perhaps), which is no more valid than these other 'isms. I point out to these people that if

RE: Observer-Moment Measure from Universe Measure

2005-06-05 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
Hal Finney writes: There are a few unintuitive consequences, though, such as that large instantiations of OMs will have more measure than small ones, and likewise slow ones will have more measure than fast ones. This is because in each case the interpretation program can be smaller if it is

RE: Down with Scientism

2005-06-05 Thread rmiller
At 12:16 AM 6/6/2005, you wrote: I sometimes get into arguments with anti-science associates, who are into wholism, mysticism, spiritualism and so forth. They think that scientists are an elite with their own brand of 'ism (scientism, perhaps), which is no more valid than these other 'isms. I

RE: Another tedious hypothetical

2005-06-05 Thread rmiller
At 03:40 PM 6/5/2005, you wrote: RM writes (snip) Now, pick one: 1. All a Big Coincidence Proving Nothing (ABCPN) 2. The writer obviously was privy to state secrets and should have been arrested. 3. Suggests precognition of a very strange and weird sort. 4. Might fit a QM many worlds

RE: Hypotheses

2005-06-05 Thread Stathis Papaioannou
A couple of hours ago, I was speaking to a young man who informed me that he can predict the future: he has visions or dreams, and they turn out to be true. I asked him for an example of this ability. He thought for a moment, explaining that there were really far too many examples to choose