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

From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed Jun 2 03:52:52 1999

Hi Jacques MM, Russell, and other Everythingers/ManyWorlders

Jacques M Mallah wrote:

> At least, unlike some q-immorters, you admit that you do not think
>measure decreases with time.

Indeed. Although such a question deserves more attention, I would say
that my current *feeling* is that "relative self-measure" cannot decrease
with "time". But we must be carefull with the notion of "time" involved
here. By "time" I mean something like the number of steps in the execution
(real, virtual or just arithmetical) of a universal dovetailing algorithm.
It is not physical time. Physical space-time is a higher order
first-personal subjective construction. Relations between "DU-Time" and
"Physical-(space)-time" exists. There are order preserving map between
the branches of Physical-(local)-time and DU-time, but it is difficult to
say more than that. And even that is more complex if we take into account
the fusing phenomenon (cf George Levy's remark in preceeding posts of
this thread).

Jacques M Mallah wrote also:

> [...] 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.

Unfortunately, I do not agree. A measure is needed for explaining the
*normality* of experiences, and eventually deriving physics from comp,
and showing the consistency of comp with empirical facts.
I would not be immortal only if all branches in which some of "my"
computationnal state has belong are finite. If just only one such branch
remains, I will be there (for the best or the worst).

Concerning the same Mallah's key point, Russell Standish wrote:

>I, for one, disagree with this. Immortality depends on continuity of
> concious experience, not on measure. This depends (at least) on there
> being at least one future history for each and every event.
>Now the
>measure being discussed here is the proportion of events containing
>your conciousness relative to the total number of events at the point
>in time. Since the total number of events increases exponentially, if
>not combinatorically with time, the fact that the measure is
>diminishing in no way precludes the continuity of concious
>histories. You argument would only work if the total number of
>possible events remains constant, or diminishes with time.

Exactly, would I say. To sum up: the immortality question is not linked
to the measure problem.
Both with MWI and comp, we must solve the measure problem only to prove
the consistency of either MWI or Comp with the normal and deterministic
empirical evidence.

Bruno




















Bruno
Received on Wed Jun 02 1999 - 03:52:52 PDT