Re: Summary

From: <GSLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 16:31:05 EDT

In a message dated 99-09-30 08:52:59 EDT, Bruno Marchal write:

>> Nevertheless it could help me (us) if you could be a little more explicit
>> when you say that Jacques Mallah and most of us have a differerent use of
>> the Leibnitzian identity principle.
 
Forgive me Jacques for trying to interpret your point of view (I may be
wrong), but I think that Jacques insistance on the absolutism of measure, the
certain loss of measure in case of QS, the absolute compartementalization of
consciousness within worlds and the unquestionable linkage of a particular
consciousness to a particular world led me to think that he does not accept
the Leibnitzian identity principle (LIP?), (He does not pay LIP service :-)
) whereas others in our group do.

I will not at this point pass a value judgment on whether this principle is
valid or not. I think this is a basic postulate, somewhat akin Euclid's
parallel postulate, and depending if it is accepted or not, leads to wildly
different worlds.

I think that a lot of previous discussion, appeared to be a dialogue of the
deaf, possibly because the participants have operated from different set of
underlying assumptions and therefore did not understand, and/or communicate
with each other. In any case, I brought it in the open so it can become a
target of discussion to help us identify exactly where we stand. This
principle, as far as I know, was never mentionned before in this group.
However, I believe that is plays a crucial role in defining where we stand.

>> I guess you remember that in my ``pure comp" approach it is important to
>> distinguish 1-person and 3-person points of view (POV). In particular
>> there are a lot of situations where the 1-person POVs are
indistinguishable and
>> are identified, although they are 3-person-distinguishable. This change
the
>> probability of the 1-person experience, but not the nature itself of the
>> experience.
 
Sorry Bruno, I do not remember. There are many discussions I have not been
able to follow because of my lack of familiarity with some of the concepts,
lingo and acronyms that this group had already developped before I joined.
But I partially agree with what you say. You appear to start defending a
relativistic model (with which I agree) based on perception of the observer,
but then you say,
>> This change the probability of the 1-person experience, but not the nature
itself of >> the experience.
which implies an objective world independent of observation (with which I
disagree).

You continue:
>>I think I agree with Jacques Mallah on these points, although
>> I still believe that from his own premisses imortality cannot be avoided
(so
>> clearly there is a need to make things clearer).

If Jacques truly refuses LIP then each consciousness is truly separate from
its "neighbors" and the loss of any consciousness is irreplaceable. I think
that there is a failure to communicate, possibly because we have different
underlying assumptions which so far, have not been spelled out.


George Levy
Received on Thu Sep 30 1999 - 14:02:38 PDT