Re: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:52:19 -0700

Jason wrote:
>
>
> On Apr 19, 10:34 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <stath....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> Even if there is in a sense just one mind perceiving all OM's simultaneously
>> (Platonia, the mind of God, the Universe), there is still the fact that the
>> OM in Washington does not directly share the experiences of its counterpart
>> in Moscow. If it did, then they would not be distinct OM's. From the third
>> person perspective, there is no mystery in duplication: where previously
>> there was one, now there are two. The paradoxes arise from the fact that we
>> have the sort of minds which consider that one OM has a particular
>> relationship to another OM, based partly, but not entirely, on memory. For
>> example, if I am to be copied tomorrow and one of the copies tortured, I am
>> worried, because I feel there is a 50% chance that I will be the one; but
>> come tomorrow, and I am not tortured, I am relieved, and feel pity for my
>> copy screaming in the next room. This doesn't really make sense: today I
>> anticipate being both copies, and neither copy has greater claim to being
>> "me" than the other, but tomorrow the situation is completely different. But
>> the subjective view doesn't have to make sense. It's just the way we think,
>> a contingent fact of evolution.
>>
>
> Do you agree that under ASSA, the fact that you find yourself as an
> observer who was spared from torture should give you no relief, as
> your next OM is equally likely to sample the tortured perspective as
> it is to experience the spared perspective? Shouldn't you be equally
> as worried if anyone in the world (your copy or not) was to be
> tortured, as the next sampled OM could be that person's.

This seems to rest on an implicit idea that the OMs are "out there" and that "you" are a person independent of them, a person to can sample them or experience them. This is contrary to the idea of OMs which is that OMs are atomic units of persons. You are a sequence of OMs. There is no extra-OM "you" who can sample them or experience them.

>
> RSSA has never appealed to me because I see no logical reason to link
> two observer moments from one time to another when those two observer
> moments are not the same.

I'm not sure about "logical reason" but the whole idea of OMs is that a person is constituted by a sequence of them. If there is nothing to link them then there is no sequence and no person; and the thing to be explained has vanished from the explanation.

Brent Meeker

>Intuitively it feels that each mind is on a
> set track to only experience those OM's that follow from the birth of
> an observer, but logically there are too many problems with this.
>
> Possible problems with RSSA:
>
> Quantum mechanics means each observer follows multiple paths, some of
> which intersect with what might have been considered a different
> observer previously, this forms a spectrum linking all observers
> together.
>
> Time by its nature implies change, an observer's brain state is in
> different from one time to another, if the brains are different the
> observers are different. By what rule set can two different observers
> be said to be the same?

The are never the same in the sense of identical. Two OMs may be part of the "same person" if there are in a sequence defined by some linkage, such as continuity of spatial viewpoint and memory reference. How or whether such a sequence can be said to exist was the subject of a long discussion between Stathis and me.

Brent Meeker

>
>
> Common intuition and experience play many tricks on us. It makes us
> think that the current time (present) is special, because it is the
> only thing point in time we are aware of. It makes us think that the
> current laws of physics and universe we see around us is special,
> because it is the only set of laws we are aware of. I propose the
> same is true of personal identity, it makes us think that the self is
> special, because it is the only observer's perspective we are aware
> of. For those who believe in block time, the present is no more
> special or real than any other time. To those on the Everything list,
> the universe we perceive now is no more real than any other. Our
> current OM remembering previous OM's experienced from the same
> observer's viewpoint creates the illusion that said observer is
> travelling into the future and bound to experience the next logical OM
> for this observer, but I hold this is only an illusion.
>
>
> ASSA is closer to a one mind/all perspectives experienced
> simultanesouly view because it removes the notion of observers that
> travel through time from one OM to the next and treats only observer
> moments. Consider the infinite set of all OMs, by definition, the
> existance of an OM necessitates its being experienced, but without a
> multiplicity of observers who can say "who" is experiencing them?
> There is no who, just the fact that each is being experienced. Since
> this set exists in the plentitude (which is timeless) then it follows
> that all perspectives are being experienced simultaneously.
>
> The existance of a spectrum of related OM's means there is a choice in
> interpretation of this infinite OM set. Either you can hold that each
> OM constitues its own mind, or if you believe there is any
> relationship between OM's (i.e. You experience now AND you will
> experience 10 seconds from now) then you must conclude there is only
> one mind. This is just my viewpoint on the issue and I invite others
> to give their opinions on it and poke holes in it.
>
> Jason
>
>
> >
>
>


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Received on Fri Apr 20 2007 - 13:52:28 PDT

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