On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 hal.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> Do you think this variant would work. Suppose that there are multiple
> possible distinct universes, forming a set U of all possible universes,
> and a probability measure P() defined over elements of U, which tells
> how much contribution that universe makes. I think that is the direction
> many of us start from.
>
> Now suppose we need only answer the question, does anything in each
> universe from U give rise to my consciousness. Q(x) where x is selected
> from U is the probability that universe x instantiates my consciousness
> (I'm not sure whether we'd get probabilities other than 0 and 1 though).
>
> My motivation is to avoid the replay problem as it seems that so many
> of these paradoxes involve replays. I only have to decide whether my
> consciousness is ever instantiated in a universe, I don't have to decide
> whether each replay is separately conscious.
Excuse me, what do you mean by 'paradoxes'? I recall no
discussion of such.
> I can then apply your formula, letting x vary over all universes in U,
> computing sum over x of P(x)Q(x). I don't fully understand the meaning
> of the result, "the probability that I feel the way I do", but I wonder
> if this would be a valid alternative way of getting to it.
That makes NO sense. If you say all 'universes' exist, that's the
same as saying one big universe exists. And if two copies of the same
computation give you twice the measure when they are in different
'subuniverses', there's no reason that shouldn't be true in general.
- - - - - - -
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 Sun Jul 18 1999 - 11:36:53 PDT