On Fri, 5 Nov 1999, Russell Standish wrote:
> > Perhaps I should have been a little more clear. I am discussing
> > the ASSA, not trying to prove it but to show that it is self consistent.
> > You are right in the sense that I left something out. I am
> > assuming a reasonable measure distribution based on the physical
> > situation. For example, the measure could be proprtional to the number of
> > implementations of a computation, as I like to assume.
> > It is also possible to assume an unreasonable measure
> > distribution, like the RSSA. This of course would require new, strange
> > and complicated laws of psycho-physics.
> > So what I am really doing is showing that (ASSA + reasonable
> > measure (RM)) is self consistent. However, the way we have been using the
> > term ASSA, RM has almost always been assumed.
> > In any case it is always true that some way of calculating the
> > measure distribution is needed. Your claim was that the RSSA is needed.
> > My example shows that RM does the job.
>
> My understanding is that ASSA cannot assign a probability to p(Y1|X)
> or p(Y2|Z). Your reasonable measure presumably gives values for p(Y1|X'),
> p(Y2|Z'), p(X) and p(Z). Now p(Y1)=p(Y1|X)p(X)+p(Y1|X')(1-p(X)) - it
> seems to me likely that p(Y1|X)p(X) is negligible (although clearly
> there are circumstances where it is not (eg when there is only an
> "Adam" and an "Eve")) compared with the other term, so that p(Y1)
> \approx p(Y1|X').
Your 'understanding' is wrong. Of course, the ASSA must be
supplemented by 1) a description of reality and 2) a way such as RM to
derive the measure distribution from that. That usually goes without
saying.
If Y1 and X are characteristics that an observation can have, and
given the measure distribution as a function of all such possible
characteristics via RM, it's easy to find:
p(Y1|X) = p(Y1 and X)/p(X)
That wasn't so hard was it?
The rest of your above paragraph, I don't see the point of at all.
> The real problem, and I have long pointed this out, is that absolute
> measure is completely irrelevant to what one observes about
> oneself. QTI is the assumption that p(Y1|X)=p(Y2|Z)=1, under
> appropriate definitions of what X and Z mean.
Huh? Why should p(not Y1, and X) = 0?
> I don't think your measure argument is wrong, or that ASSA is wrong,
> its just that it doesn't disprove QTI. I don't adhere to QTI as an
> article of faith, however, it seems more likely to be the truth than
> not. If someone can come up with a good counter-argument to QTI, then
> of course I'll modify my beliefs. I have tried to falsify QTI, but not
> succeeded so far.
That's BS. You do seem to hold to it as an article of faith; all
you QTIers do. I have presented several arguments that demolish it
completely, such as the argument from our observed small ages and such as
Occam's razor.
- - - - - - -
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 Fri Nov 05 1999 - 11:26:53 PST