On Sat, 14 Aug 1999, Russell Standish wrote:
[Jacques Mallah wrote:]
> > 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.
What I am trying to do is to look at the consequences of the
claims made by the quantum suicide camp. The claim is that consciousness
'flows into' possible continuations of oneself and is, in effect,
conserved as long as such continuations exist. I by no means accept this
claim. However I see no reason why you say it would deny the existence of
copying machines.
> The truth is, you lost me a long time ago, as this email is almost
> completely impenetrable.
If it's still not clear, please ask a specific question.
If the problem is that QSers may deny that measure is conserved,
that problem is not my fault. By their other words it is clear that they
believe it is. (You may be included in the group I mean by 'them'.) I am
the one using the term correctly.
> > 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/
> >
> >
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Received on Fri Aug 13 1999 - 20:32:58 PDT