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

From: Jacques M Mallah <jqm1584.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 12:50:03 -0400

On 31 xxx -1, Marchal wrote:
> 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, unlike some q-immorters, you admit that you do not think
measure decreases 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.

        Before that, I want to establish a key point. Do you admit that
if, in fact, your measure were to decrease (for example) exponentially
with time, you would not be immortal in any meaningful sense?
        If you admit that, then we could have a discussion about whether
measure does decrease or not. If you do not admit it, then we can't have
much of a discussion since we apparently wouldn't be speaking the same
language.

> 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 ?

        If implementations of computations are well defined, I take the
measure to be proportional to the number of such (there may be possible
generalizations); more generally one could have a new law of physics to
assign some other measure. If computationalism is false, one would need
some new law to assign a measure on observations. Either way I don't see
a problem with the idea of measure.

                         - - - - - - -
              Jacques Mallah (jqm1584.domain.name.hidden)
       Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
            My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Received on Tue Jun 01 1999 - 09:54:31 PDT

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