George,
I believe you are correct in saying that the difference in
opinion comes down to difference in fundamental assumptions and
terminologies. This LIP I am not familiar with, but it has the right
smell about it. Once I understand it, I will know better whether I
find myself on the opposite camp to Jacques. There appear to be a
number of other assumptions and viewpoints, that could be
philosophically characterised as relativism vs absolutism. The points
where Jacques and I disagree have always had this flavour. I don't
believe that each viewpoint leads to incompatible conclusions, rather,
I believe that Jacques' viewpoint is completely incapable of even discussing
the QTI issue. (as opposed to the more traditional view of immortality
about which it is perfectly capable of discussing).
I wanted to respond to both yours and Jacques' last posts, but have
had little time this week to do that.
More later.
>
> 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
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 Thu Sep 30 1999 - 20:05:31 PDT