I use the terms SSA, ASSA, RSSA only because others on the list
insist on using them. In my opinion the 'ASSA' is a tautology and not
an assumption, while the 'RSSA' is an error.
On Mon, 23 Aug 1999, Russell Standish wrote:
> Now this implies that an individual's measure decreases the older that
> individual gets. This is the basis of Jacques' argument against
> QTI. In absolute SSA, an individual concious being is a sample from
> the set of all observer moments. There is no time, one just is. Under
> this picture, one could never expect to be all that old.
Ok so far.
> Under relative SSA, there is time. Each observer moment is connected
> to a range (presumably infinite) of future observer moments. The
Here's where the position of the QS camp appears to diverge from
other positions of QSers, notably Higgo James, who of course endorses both
seemingly contradictory positions.
> relative SSA predicts that the observer will see at the next instant
> of time an observer moment with the greatest measure, subject to its
> lying in the future of the current observer moment. That measure may
> be fantastically small (eg just prior to a fatal crash) - it just has
> to be the largest from that set.
No. If every observer sees all future moments, then the amount of
consciousness does not decrease with time, and thus the measure stays
constant over time. This has the consequence that, for a given observer,
over most of his lifetime he will find himself to be very old. It may
seem that I am mixing in the ASSA when I say that, therefore, the fact
that we do not find ourselves old is evidence against the RSSA. The truth
is I can not avoid this way of thinking any more than I could believe that
1+1=3.
- - - - - - -
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 Thu Aug 26 1999 - 13:29:16 PDT