Re: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
On 20/09/2007, Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The lifetime formulation also captures the intuition many people have that consciousness should not jump around as observer moments are created in the various simulations and scenarios we imagine in our thought experiments. That was the conclusion I reached in the posting referenced above, that teleportation might in some sense not work even though someone walks out of the machine thousands of miles away who remembers walking into it. The measure of such a lifetime would be substantially less than that of a similar person who never teleports. I have great conceptual difficulty with this idea. It seems to allow that I could have died five minutes ago even though I still feel that I am alive now. (This is OK with me because I think the best way to look at ordinary life is as a series of transiently existing OM's which create an illusion of a self persisting through time, but I don't think this is what you were referring to.) -- 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
[By the way, I notice that I do not receive my own postings back in email, which makes my archive incomplete. Does anyone know if there is a way to configure the mailing list reflector to give me back my own messages?] Russell Standish wrote: On Wed, Sep 19, 2007 at 12:10:33PM -0700, Hal Finney wrote: The lifetime formulation also captures the intuition many people have that consciousness should not jump around as observer moments are created in the various simulations and scenarios we imagine in our thought experiments. That was the conclusion I reached in the posting referenced above, that teleportation might in some sense not work even though someone walks out of the machine thousands of miles away who remembers walking into it. The measure of such a lifetime would be substantially less than that of a similar person who never teleports. Hal Finney I note that you have identified yourself with the the ASSA camp in the past (at least I say so in my book, so it must be true, right! :). What you are proposing above is an anti-functionalist position. The question is does functionalism necessarily imply RSSA, and antifunctionalism imply the ASSA? ie, does this whole RSSA/ASSA debate turn on the question of functionalism? The distinction I am drawing seems somewhat orthogonal to the RSSA/ASSA debate. Suppose someone is about to die in a terrible accident. From the 1st person perspective, RSSA would say that he expects to survive through miraculous good luck. ASSA would say that he expects to die and never experience anything again. Now suppose that in most universes an advanced, benevolent human/AI civilization later recreates his mental state and in effect resurrects him in a sort of heaven. Both ASSA and RSSA might now say that his expectation prior to the accident should be to wake up in this heaven, that that is his most likely next experience. My argument suggests otherwise, that the chance of this being his next experience would be rather low. However it basically leaves the RSSA/ASSA distinction intact. We would go back to the situation where RSSA predicts a miraculously lucky survival of the accident while ASSA predicts death. But actually my analysis is supportive of the ASSA in this form, in that the measure of a lifetime which ends in the accident is much higher than the measure of one which survives. As far as functionalism, I agree that this kind of analysis argues against it. Indeed the post from Wei Dai which introduced this concept, which I quote here, http://www.udassa.com/origins.html (apologies for the incompleteness of this web site), suggests that the size of a computer would affect measure, contradicting functionalism. Frankly I suspect that Bruno's analysis would or should lead to the same kind of conclusion. I wonder if he supports strict functionalism? Would he say yes doctor to any and all functional brain replacements? Or would some additional investigation be appropriate? I wonder where this leaves Mallah, who admits to computationalism, yet is died-in-the-wool ASSA? Indeed I have often wondered where in the world is Jacques Mallah, who was so influential on this list in the past but who seems to have vanished utterly from the net. Actually, I wrote that sentence based on previous Google searches, but just now I discovered that as of two weeks ago he has published his first communication in many years: http://arxiv.org/abs/0709.0544 . Here is his abstract, which seems similar in its goals to your own work: : The Many Computations Interpretation (MCI) of Quantum Mechanics : Authors: Jacques Mallah : (Submitted on 4 Sep 2007) : : Abstract: Computationalism provides a framework for understanding : how a mathematically describable physical world could give rise to : conscious observations without the need for dualism. A criterion : is proposed for the implementation of computations by physical : systems, which has been a problem for computationalism. Together : with an independence criterion for implementations this would allow, : in principle, prediction of probabilities for various observations : based on counting implementations. Applied to quantum mechanics, : this results in a Many Computations Interpretation (MCI), which is : an explicit form of the Everett style Many Worlds Interpretation : (MWI). Derivation of the Born Rule emerges as the central problem for : most realist interpretations of quantum mechanics. If the Born Rule : is derived based on computationalism and the wavefunction it would : provide strong support for the MWI; but if the Born Rule is shown not : to follow from these to an experimentally falsified extent, it would : indicate the necessity for either new physics or (more radically) : new philosophy of mind. I am looking forward to reading this! Hal --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are
Re: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
Stathis Papaioannou writes: On 20/09/2007, Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The lifetime formulation also captures the intuition many people have that consciousness should not jump around as observer moments are created in the various simulations and scenarios we imagine in our thought experiments. That was the conclusion I reached in the posting referenced above, that teleportation might in some sense not work even though someone walks out of the machine thousands of miles away who remembers walking into it. The measure of such a lifetime would be substantially less than that of a similar person who never teleports. I have great conceptual difficulty with this idea. It seems to allow that I could have died five minutes ago even though I still feel that I am alive now. (This is OK with me because I think the best way to look at ordinary life is as a series of transiently existing OM's which create an illusion of a self persisting through time, but I don't think this is what you were referring to.) You will probably agree that there are some branches of the multiverse where you did indeed die five minutes ago, and perhaps people are standing around staring in shock at your dead body. And supposing that you had just had a narrow escape from a perilous situation, you might even consider that those branches where you died are of greater measure than those where you survived. That's basically all my analysis says, as far as normal life. The main novelty is what it has to say about exotic thought experiments like teleportation and resurrection. Hal Finney --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
On 21/09/2007, Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As far as functionalism, I agree that this kind of analysis argues against it. Indeed the post from Wei Dai which introduced this concept, which I quote here, http://www.udassa.com/origins.html (apologies for the incompleteness of this web site), suggests that the size of a computer would affect measure, contradicting functionalism. How does this contradict functionalism? Functionalism needs to be true in order for the computer program to be conscious in the first place. -- 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
On 21/09/2007, Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You will probably agree that there are some branches of the multiverse where you did indeed die five minutes ago, and perhaps people are standing around staring in shock at your dead body. And supposing that you had just had a narrow escape from a perilous situation, you might even consider that those branches where you died are of greater measure than those where you survived. That's basically all my analysis says, as far as normal life. The main novelty is what it has to say about exotic thought experiments like teleportation and resurrection. Those branches where I have died (as opposed to those where I am about to die) are of zero measure, while those where I have survived are of non-zero measure. If you give the branches where I have died a vote when calculating my measure, then why not give the branches where I never existed a vote as well? I am dead almost everywhere in the multiverse. -- 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
[I want to first note for the benefit of readers that I am Hal Finney and no relation to Hal Ruhl - it can be confusing having two Hal's on the list!] Rolf Nelson writes: UDASSA (if I'm interpreting it right, Hal?) says: 1. The measure of programs that produce OM (I am experiencing A, and I remember my previous experience as B) as its single output, compared to the measure of programs that produce OM (I am not experiencing A, and I remember my previous experience as B) as its single output, is what we perceive as the likelihood of A following B, rather than A not following B. I think you mean, the likelihood of A following B rather than not-A following B. That's probably reasonable, although I suggested a somewhat different approach in this (as usual) somewhat overly long posting: http://www.nabble.com/Teleportation-thought-experiment-and-UD%2BASSA-tf3057020.html#a8498222 Imagine that we could write down a description of a person's mental states for his whole lifetime, from birth to death. Every possible such sequence would be a possible lifetime and would exist in the universe of all information patterns. Some would have higher measure than others. As usual, it is plausible that the highest-measure such lifetimes would be those which exist as parts of universes that have reasonably simple descriptions. Then we can get at your question of what is the likelihood of A following B by asking, what is the measure of all lifetimes which experience event B followed by event A, compared to the measure of all lifetimes which experience event B not followed by event A. The difference from what you expressed would be, for example, if some future civilization creates simulated OMs which remember B followed by A, while in the real world B did not get followed by A. Your OM based formulation might have those future OMs add quite a bit of measure to B-then-A, while the lifetime based formulation would consider those as less important, because of the discontinuity between the original lifetime and the future simulation of B-then-A. The lifetime formulation also captures the intuition many people have that consciousness should not jump around as observer moments are created in the various simulations and scenarios we imagine in our thought experiments. That was the conclusion I reached in the posting referenced above, that teleportation might in some sense not work even though someone walks out of the machine thousands of miles away who remembers walking into it. The measure of such a lifetime would be substantially less than that of a similar person who never teleports. Hal Finney --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
On Wed, Sep 19, 2007 at 12:10:33PM -0700, Hal Finney wrote: The lifetime formulation also captures the intuition many people have that consciousness should not jump around as observer moments are created in the various simulations and scenarios we imagine in our thought experiments. That was the conclusion I reached in the posting referenced above, that teleportation might in some sense not work even though someone walks out of the machine thousands of miles away who remembers walking into it. The measure of such a lifetime would be substantially less than that of a similar person who never teleports. Hal Finney I note that you have identified yourself with the the ASSA camp in the past (at least I say so in my book, so it must be true, right! :). What you are proposing above is an anti-functionalist position. The question is does functionalism necessarily imply RSSA, and antifunctionalism imply the ASSA? ie, does this whole RSSA/ASSA debate turn on the question of functionalism? I wonder where this leaves Mallah, who admits to computationalism, yet is died-in-the-wool ASSA? 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
Hal wrote: Yes, as you note later this is very similar to the concept I called UD+ASSA or just UDASSA and described in a series of postings to this list back in 2005. It was not original with me but actually was based on an idea of Wei Dai, who founded this last way back in 1998. I was working at one point on the udassa.com site to bring the ideas together but never finished it. I'm surprised that guy found it, I don't recall mentioning that URL. Must have let it slip sometime! It appears that the post where I originally proposed this idea is missing from the Google Groups archive. Something must have gone wrong when I imported the group archive into Google Groups, or data rot got to it. The Mail-Archive.com archive is in even worse shape, missing everything from before Sept 2006. Fortunately a third archive at Nabble.com seems still complete, and the post can be found here: http://www.nabble.com/consciousness-based-on-information-or-computation--tf3053801.html#a8489008 As Hal notes on his website, I've since moved away from this position. I've explain my reasons on the mailing list as they occurred to me (for example http://www.nabble.com/relevance-of-the-real-measure-tf3055627.html#a8492185 and http://www.nabble.com/forum/ViewPost.jtp?post=8496294framed=y) but perhaps I should write down a summary for the new members. PS, if anyone wants to download the complete raw mailing list archive in zipped Unix mailbox format, please email me privately. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 01:25:04PM -, Rolf Nelson wrote: If I understand the Measure Problem correctly, we wonder why we find ourselves in a Goldilocks Universe of stars and galaxies rather than a simpler universe consisting solely of blackbody radiation, or a more complex, unpredictable Harry Potter universe. I call this the Occam catastrophe in my book. The solution I give there is a requirement that observers have to be embedded in the universe they observe, ie are self-aware. 1. An attempt at the solution was that more complex universes are less probable; they are less likely to be produced by a random UTM. This explains why induction works, why we don't live in a Harry Potter universe. But this also means a simple blackbody radiation universe is more probable than a Goldilocks Universe. 2. So we say, There are more observers in a Goldilocks Universe, where observers evolve through natural selection, than in a blackbody radiation universe, where observers can only occasionally emerge through extremely infrequent statistical anomalies. But if both the Goldilocks Universe and the blackbody radiation universe are infinite in size, then both have an infinite number of observers. Unnormalisable measures are not an insurmountable problem. I give some examples where this can be done in appendix C of my book. Of course there are problems in the general case. ... Here is one possible solution: the UTM instead directly produces a qualia (or, if you prefer, substitute observer moment or whatever terminology you deem appropriate). We'll use a broad definition of qualia that can encompass complex observations like Rolf sits at his keyboard, reflecting on past observations and wondering why he seems to live in a Goldilocks Universe, since that's exactly the type of observation that we're trying to explain when we ponder the Measure Problem. Each qualia, in the proposed model, is a long, finite-length string that is output by a UTM running every possible random program. (This is the same type of UTM that some of you have been proposing, but it outputs an attempt at a single qualia, rather than outputting an entire universe.) Very few strings are qualia; most UTM programs fail to produce qualia. The proposed model additionally postulates that many qualia are compressible in a certain interesting way, such that the World-Index-Compression Postulate (below) is true. World-Index-Compression Postulate: The most probable way for the output of a random UTM program to be a single qualia, is through having a part of the program calculate a Universe, U, that is similar to the universe we currently are observing; and then having another part of the program search through the universe and pick out a substring by using an search algorithm SA(U) that tries to find a random sentient being in U and emit his qualia as the final output. This sounds kind of complex. Just how do you recognise sentience? As an example, take two qualia, that we will call Q(Goldilocks) and Q(Potter): Q(Goldilocks): All my life I have read that all swans are white. And indeed, today I just saw a white swan. Q(Potter): All my life I have read that all swans are white. But, today I just saw a black swan. Funny you should say this - all my life I read that swans were white*, but all the swans around here are actually black. It was only at the age of 28 that I saw my first white swan - when living in Europe. * in fairy stories of course - I knew full well that the first European exporers to our land were amazed at the black swans, and that they feature on the state flag where I grew up. -- 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
Le 15-sept.-07, à 15:25, Rolf Nelson a écrit : If I understand the Measure Problem correctly, we wonder why we find ourselves in a Goldilocks Universe of stars and galaxies rather than a simpler universe consisting solely of blackbody radiation, or a more complex, unpredictable Harry Potter universe. This is the ASSA (Absolute Self Sample Assumption) version of the measure problem. In this case, physicalism *does* provide a solution under the form of QM, which explains well the rarity of *THIRD person white rabbits*, through the idea of Everett + decoherence. Alas, Everett has to postulate a computationalist theory of mind, which makes unavoidable the first and third person distinction, and which, by that way, introduces the *FIRST person white rabbits*, and those 1-rabbits are not a priori eliminated through the quantum interferences; unless you derive the quantum interference from the winning general computations in the deployement of the UD work (UD = Universal dovetailer, not Hal Finney's UD which is typical ASSA use of an *Universal Distribution* (closer two the second paper of Schmidhuber based on computable probability distribution than to anything related to the 1-3 distinction). What QM do very well is to explain notion of 1-person plural from 1-person through the division of subject (à-la Washington/Moscow) into division of population of subjects (by contagion of superpositions), by entangling the quantum histories. QM can do that thanks to its double linearity (linearity of the tensor product, and linearity of evolution). A priori comp should completely failed on that, but then what I have done is showing that the nuance brought by the incompleteness phenomenon, gives much room to doubt that comp is already refuted. But then again, we have to extract the double linearity from comp without postulating QM, if we want keep comp, or even just QM (without collapse). 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
World-Index-Compression Postulate: The most probable way for the output of a random UTM program to be a single qualia, is through having a part of the program calculate a Universe, U, that is similar to the universe we currently are observing; and then having another part of the program search through the universe and pick out a substring by using an search algorithm SA(U) that tries to find a random sentient being in U and emit his qualia as the final output. This sounds kind of complex. Just how do you recognise sentience? You can't recognize it directly, at least not with a 500-bit subroutine. (Otherwise you could write a 510-bit program that iterates through random substrings and picks the first sentient one, violating the given World-Index-Compression postulate.) But in an ordered world, you might track down a human (or other sentient being) within 500 bits with instructions like keep searching in a straight line, through an unbounded number of light-years, until you bump into something that stands upright, uses grammar, and would get angry if I punched it. (I'm making up these numbers, if I'm close to Realistic Numbers it's just luck and not insight here.) -Rolf --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
and would get angry if I punched it I meant to say, would punch me back if I punched it. It's begging the question for the search algorithm to know whether the internal mental state is angry. -Rolf --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
The considerations trying to solve the measure problem have not been that primitive, but much better. The concept of a cubic meter won't make sense in most of the universes, and to compare infinities in a rigorous manner is nothing new to mathematicians. Both, Standish and Schmidhuber (and surely others, too) have given well-advised attempts to solve the problem. Maybe you're right; I've tried to wade through the archives, searching on measure problem, but may have missed some key things. If we look at other (concrete, complete) proposals, I'm interested in what answers they give for: 1. How do you calculate the probability of your next observation, based on your current mental state? 2. What is the measure/probability of observers, or of OM's? This is necessary for moral calculations, you need to be able to say what other observers are experiencing in the state of the universe that will result from your actions! Related: how do we calculate the answer to self-indication puzzles, like SIA vs. SSA? 3. Why do we live in a Goldilocks universe rather than a Harry Potter universe or a blackbody universe? UDASSA (if I'm interpreting it right, Hal?) says: 1. The measure of programs that produce OM (I am experiencing A, and I remember my previous experience as B) as its single output, compared to the measure of programs that produce OM (I am not experiencing A, and I remember my previous experience as B) as its single output, is what we perceive as the likelihood of A following B, rather than A not following B. 2. The measure of an OM is the measure of the programs that produce OM. 3. (...) the biggest contribution to the measure of observers (and observer-moments) like our own will arise from programs which conceptually have two parts. The first part creates a universe similar to the one we see where the observers evolve, and the second part selects the observer for output. -Rolf --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
Steven Smithee is not just a Black Belt Bayesian, but a Black Belt at Keeping Track of Who Has Said What About Cool Topics in Web Pages that are Linked To from Nowhere Else on the Internet. He pointed out http://udassa.com/summary1.html, where someone (Hal Finney, if we go by 'whois') said: A final point: I strongly suspect that the biggest contribution to the measure of observers (and observer-moments) like our own will arise from programs which conceptually have two parts. The first part creates a universe similar to the one we see where the observers evolve, and the second part selects the observer for output. I have argued elsewhere that each part can be relatively small compared to a program which was hard-wired to produce a specific observer and had all the information necessary to do so. Small programs have greater measure (occupy a greater fraction of possible input strings) hence this would be the main source of measure for observers like us. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
Rolf writes: World-Index-Compression Postulate: The most probable way for the output of a random UTM program to be a single qualia, is through having a part of the program calculate a Universe, U, that is similar to the universe we currently are observing; and then having another part of the program search through the universe and pick out a substring by using an search algorithm SA(U) that tries to find a random sentient being in U and emit his qualia as the final output. Yes, as you note later this is very similar to the concept I called UD+ASSA or just UDASSA and described in a series of postings to this list back in 2005. It was not original with me but actually was based on an idea of Wei Dai, who founded this last way back in 1998. I was working at one point on the udassa.com site to bring the ideas together but never finished it. I'm surprised that guy found it, I don't recall mentioning that URL. Must have let it slip sometime! You might enjoy this old post where I tried to work out in some plausible detail the size of a program to output a mental state, or as you say a quale, and came up with an answer in the 10s of kilobits, not far from your estimate. http://www.nabble.com/UDist-and-measure-of-observers-tf3056759.html Hal --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
If I understand the Measure Problem correctly, we wonder why we find ourselves in a Goldilocks Universe of stars and galaxies rather than a simpler universe consisting solely of blackbody radiation, or a more complex, unpredictable Harry Potter universe. 1. An attempt at the solution was that more complex universes are less probable; they are less likely to be produced by a random UTM. This explains why induction works, why we don't live in a Harry Potter universe. But this also means a simple blackbody radiation universe is more probable than a Goldilocks Universe. 2. So we say, There are more observers in a Goldilocks Universe, where observers evolve through natural selection, than in a blackbody radiation universe, where observers can only occasionally emerge through extremely infrequent statistical anomalies. But if both the Goldilocks Universe and the blackbody radiation universe are infinite in size, then both have an infinite number of observers. 3. Maybe we say, The Goldilocks Universe produces more observers per cubic meter. But then someone can propose the Tiny Blackbody Universe, which looks like an infinite region of blackbody radiation in our universe, but where everything is smaller by a factor of 10 to power of 1000. Why don't we live in the Tiny Universe? And at the very least, why does the universe waste all this empty space around us? Here is one possible solution: the UTM instead directly produces a qualia (or, if you prefer, substitute observer moment or whatever terminology you deem appropriate). We'll use a broad definition of qualia that can encompass complex observations like Rolf sits at his keyboard, reflecting on past observations and wondering why he seems to live in a Goldilocks Universe, since that's exactly the type of observation that we're trying to explain when we ponder the Measure Problem. Each qualia, in the proposed model, is a long, finite-length string that is output by a UTM running every possible random program. (This is the same type of UTM that some of you have been proposing, but it outputs an attempt at a single qualia, rather than outputting an entire universe.) Very few strings are qualia; most UTM programs fail to produce qualia. The proposed model additionally postulates that many qualia are compressible in a certain interesting way, such that the World-Index-Compression Postulate (below) is true. World-Index-Compression Postulate: The most probable way for the output of a random UTM program to be a single qualia, is through having a part of the program calculate a Universe, U, that is similar to the universe we currently are observing; and then having another part of the program search through the universe and pick out a substring by using an search algorithm SA(U) that tries to find a random sentient being in U and emit his qualia as the final output. As an example, take two qualia, that we will call Q(Goldilocks) and Q(Potter): Q(Goldilocks): All my life I have read that all swans are white. And indeed, today I just saw a white swan. Q(Potter): All my life I have read that all swans are white. But, today I just saw a black swan. The measure (or probability, if you prefer) of Q(Goldilocks) is greater than the measure of Q(Potter). Why? Perhaps Q(Goldilocks) and Q(Potter) are both 5000 bits long; it's almost impossible that any random UTM program would output either qualia directly by using a 5000 bit program. But postulate that there are shorter programs to emit these types of qualia: Smallest Goldilocks Program's code: (outputs Q(Goldilocks)) 1. Execute subroutine to internally generate the Goldilocks Universe. (This subroutine is 1000 bits long) 2. Search through the infinite universe you generated, until you find something that has a head and seems to react to swans. Look inside its head, and output the contents of whatever is inside its head. (This subroutine is 500 bits long) Total program size: 1500 bits. Smallest Potter Program's code: (outputs Q(Potter)) 1. Execute subroutine to internally generate the Potter Universe. (This subroutine is 1020 bits long, since Potter is more complex than Goldilocks) 2. Search through the infinite universe you generated, until you find something that has a head and seems to react to swans. Look inside its head, and output the contents of whatever is inside its head. (This subroutine is 500 bits long) Total program size: 1520 bits. The Potter qualia is 20 bits longer, and therefore is literally a million times less likely than the Goldilocks qualia in this scenario. What about the blackbody radiation universe? Because the universe is totally random, you can't efficiently use the same trick as in the more orderly universes. Your Search Algorithm will eventually find a thermal fluctuation that looks like something reacting to a swan and will output the contents of its head; however, the head is just going to contain an uncorrelated sea of thermal radiation, rather than a qualia. Q(Goldilocks)
