Re: minimal theory of consciousness

From: <hal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 14:28:38 -0700

Wei Dai, <weidai.domain.name.hidden>, writes:
> On Sun, Jul 18, 1999 at 02:35:03PM -0400, Jacques M Mallah wrote:
> > On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 hal.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> > > 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.

Suppose I exist in universe A and I exist in universe B. Then the
contribution these two universes make to the overall "probability I feel
the way I do" is p(A) + p(B). If universe C is another universe that
happens to be identical to A joined to B somehow, then I exist in C.
The measure of C may or may not be related in a simple way to the
measures of A and B. (I am not making any assumptions here about how
measures are assigned to universes, in particular I am not assuming the
universal distribution.) So p(C) gets added to the mix.

I don't see anything contradictory in this.

> I agree with Jacques Mallah here. Even if you could somehow distinguish
> between subuniverses (between which measures add up) and regions of
> subuniverse, there would be a subuniverse with high measure (e.g. the
> counting universe) that contains a copy of every other subuniverse as a
> region and it would dominate in your computation, leaving you with
> senseless results.

I agree that I exist in the counting universe. The counting universe
would have to have low measure for this model to be true. (Unless I
am actually living in the counting universe.)

I think you agree that you exist in the counting universe. However I
think you give low measure to the places in the counting universe where
you exist because they are so small compared to the universe as a whole.
Is that right?

I think Jacques does not agree that he exists in the counting universe.
He wants to see a "process", not a "pattern". It is not clear whether
a process can be fully represented as a pattern.

Hal
Received on Mon Jul 19 1999 - 14:35:26 PDT