>
> On Fri, 13 Aug 1999, Russell Standish wrote:
> > > referring to
> > > > t0 |
> > > > |
> > > > t1 T / \ H
> > > > / \
> > > > t2 / / \
> > > > | | \
> > > > t3 Y R B
> > >
> > > Assume that all three branches occur (two copying events).
> > >
> > > Gilles Henri wrote:
> > > >With the color cards, each Jane will measure subjectively a probability 1/2
> > > >of yellow, 1/4 of red (1/2 H *1/2 "being chosen as Jane 1") and 1/4 blue,
> > > >so again p(H) = p(T)=1/2 with the conditional probability formula.
> > > >The probability 2/3 is indeed the chance of finding someone who saw H after
> > > >the first experiment from a bird perspective, because duplicating
> > > >introduces a bias.
> > >
> > > I agree that according to the approach taken by the q-su's, namely
> > > that one's measure is somehow distributed among the so called
> > > computational continuations of one's brain activity, the probabilities
> > > would be (1/2,1/4,1/4). It is a history dependent claim:
> > > > t0 |
> > > > |
> > > > t1 W / \ H
> > > > / \
> > > > t2 T/ \H \
> > > > | \ \
> > > > t3 Y R B
> > >
> > > where W=wait to show the coin to her until the second copying
> > > event. Since she doesn't know when copying occurs this looks identical
> > > from her perspective, but the measure distribution is (1/4,1/4,1/2)
> > > according to the QS claim. Presumably this measure distribution would
> > > remain the same years later.
> > > I think this is already both ill-defined and anti-intuitive.
> > > To extend the example suppose that to counter the unfortunate
> > > demographic imbalance in China, someone figures out how to instantly make
> > > a million copies of Gong Li. According to the flow of measure claim, each
> > > of these copies would have just one millionth of a normal human measure.
> > > So these women would practically be zombies. It would not be
> > > justified to give them equal rights since they have so much less
> > > consciousness. This would remain true even as life experiences give them
> > > different perspectives and evolved personalities, some of them come to
> > > America, etc. I think this shows how ridiculous the claim is.
> >
> > No - it is a mistake to equivalence measure with degree of
> > concsiousness. Conciousness is either there or it isn't. Measure, does
> > however, indicate what history is likely to be observed (SSA). So an
> > interesting question to ask is what is the relative proportion of
> > heads and tails observed by Jane in a sequence. The probability of
> > being in a branch with 2^i Janes in the world, given n repetitions of
> > the above experiment is given by the binomial distribution
>
> You misunderstand. First, the experiment I talked about is
> different than the one with a coin flip determining whether to copy. As I
> said,
> > > Assume that all three branches occur (two copying events).
> in this one there are always two copying events and three Janes at the
> end.
> Second, no one said anything about degree of consciousness.
> Measure describes the *amount* of consciousness. I should have said that
> I was talking about absolute measure (not effective probability, which is
> normalized by definition to obtain an effective probability distribution).
> In the QS claim measure behaves in such a way. It's just the time reverse
> of the QS process.
> A room with 20 people in it has 20 times the measure of a room
> with 1 person. But a room with 20 of these women would supposedly have
> very small measure. For example, just as it is better to kill 1 person
> than to kill 20, it would be better to kill 20 of these than 1 regular
> person (all else being equal). In the limit as measure goes to zero we
> have a true zombie.
Somewhere along the way, you have made a questionable assumption. It
sounds like the measure that you're describing has some kind of
conservation law (which I would question). That conservation law (if
it is what you're assuming) would deny the existence of such copying
machines.
The truth is, you lost me a long time ago, as this email is almost
completely impenetrable.
> Another example is that when a person comes into being, he
> supposedly has a standard allotment of measure (1 unit). But suppose that
> there already exists a being with very small measure such that the 'new'
> person is a 'computational continuation' of the old being. (e.g.
> one of the above women with particular life experiences.) Suddenly the
> new person (supposedly) has very small measure! But if a parameter in a
> model is adjusted until the old being (in this model) vanishes completely,
> suddenly the measure of this new person (supposedly) springs back up to 1.
> I don't think a QSer could get away with denying the reverse
> process. There could be a cyclical process in which the number of copies
> is varied periodically with time (with instant copying and killing
> machines).
>
> - - - - - - -
> 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/
>
>
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Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit,
University of NSW Phone 9385 6967
Sydney 2052 Fax 9385 6965
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
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Received on Fri Aug 13 1999 - 15:49:58 PDT