With the ASSA, the well defined set is that of being a concious
entity, or of being a human. That part is fine. However, it explicitly
ignores the fact that I have a particular identity. For example, I can
ask the question "Why do I wake up every morning to find that I am
Russell Standish" The ASSA must either say that this is a nonsensical
question, or that time and identity are merely illusions. I am Russell
Standish now, but only have an illusionary memory that I was Russell
Standish in the past - illusionary because there is no such thing as a
past. It is this solipsitic argument that I find most unsatisfactory,
and hardest to deal with. David Deutsh gives an admirable refutation
of solipsism in his FOR book, but it is not 100% convincing.
Incidently, it is unfair to ask a question like whether I'm Chinese or
not Chinese of a SSA.
Cheers
>
> In a message dated 99-09-13 16:05:02 EDT, Jacques Mallah writes:
>
> > No, if you did that you would miss the boat. The boat that allows
> >predictions of stuff like the observed laws of physics.
>
> >> One way out for Jacques is to assume that humans are the only sentient
> >> creatures in the whole universe... actually the whole plenitude.
>
> > Why did you even write such bullshit and try to tar me with it?
>
> Jacques, what you call bullshit is just the logical extension of ASSA, and I
> am tarring your crackpot ideas, not you. If ASSA predicts that the
> probability of being Chinese is high because there are more Chinese, then it
> is also true that the probability of being non-chinese is higher because
> there are more non-Chinese. ASSA also predicts that the probability of being
> a sentient Centaurian is higher because there are more Centaurian, or maybe
> the reverse is true: there are more non-Centaurian, therefore we should be
> non-Centaurian. The predictive ability of ASSA is zero, zilch, nada.
>
> If you deal with well defined sets then there is no problem. For example, If
> you try to compute the probability that a sentient being is chinese given the
> fact that this being is human you may come up with a number like 1/3.
> However, (for most of us in this group) this is not a Self Sampling process.
>
> However, if you apply the Self Sampling condition, for example, of being
> caucasian, then the probability of being chinese is zero, and the probability
> of being caucasian is one.
>
> The Self Sampling process is one in which a frame of reference is being
> defined. This frame of reference is simply the condition of being the self.
> It also leads to the RSSA
>
> For this reason, I assert that the Absolute Self Sampling (ASS) Assumption is
> a contradiction in terms. It cannot be both Absolute and Self Sampling.
>
> That leaves us with the Relative Self Sampling Assumption.
>
> Jacques, you yourself admit to an element of relativity:
>
> >A piece of evidence is surprising if it would cause a big shift in
> > our Bayesian probability distribution. This is relative, of course.
>
>
> George Levy
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 Thu Sep 16 1999 - 01:54:09 PDT