Re: Q Wars Episode 10^9: the Phantom Measure

From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon May 31 08:44:48 1999

Jacques Mallah wrote:

>On Sun, 23 May 1999 hal.domain.name.hidden wrote:
>> Jacques M Mallah, <jqm1584.domain.name.hidden>, writes:
>> > It is surely true that in the MWI, old copies of you-like beings
>> > will exist. It is also true that they will be of very small measure, and
>> > that the effective probability of being one of those copies is very tiny.
>>
>> We would agree that "someone" is going to be those people. One way to
>> ask the question at hand is, would that "someone" be "you". This then
>> depends on the definition of identity.
>>
>> If you define all beings who follow from your present state by the laws
>> of physics as "you", then that "someone" will be "you". In that case,
>> "you" will eventually find yourself to be very old.
>
> Things that are consequences of such a definition:
> "You" would have multiple futures. In some worlds "you" will
>become physically identical to a being such as "I" currently am. "You"
>(IIRC) will die and be reborn many times. "Your" measure would decrease
>with time. In some worlds there will be many of "you" that reproduce by
>dividing like ameobas.
> Things that are NOT consequences of such a definition:
> Immortality, since you can't manufacture measure with word games.


I have probably missed something (in the 10^9 episodes!), but I still
cannot figure out why should "my" measure decrease with "time".
At least with comp, it seems to me that the measure can only grow,
for I can have only a countable set of past histories, and (even "without
immortality") "I" have a uncountable set of futur "histories"
(continuations).

If you (or any one else) could elaborate on this, and/or refer me to the
discussion-list, or to an URL, it would help me to understand the point.

You also seem to know what precisely the "measure" is. In
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal I give a *proof*
that if comp is correct then we MUST isolate "physics" from such a
measure.
After that,
I use modal and provability logic to illustrate how to construct a path
TOWARD such a measure.
I aknowledge that I am at a billion miles from having isolate it ..., and
I'm still
open to the idea that such a measure doesn't exist (in wich case comp
would be false).
Where does your assurance come from ?

Bruno.
Received on Mon May 31 1999 - 08:44:48 PDT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Feb 16 2018 - 13:20:06 PST