Russell Standish wrote:
> This is actually the SSSA, as originally defined by Bostrom. The ASSA
> is the SSSA applied to "next observer moments".
I guess there is a bit of confusing on these terms. I did some searching in
the mailing list archives to find out how they were originally defined.
First of all SSSA was clearly coined by Hal Finney, not Bostrom. Here's Hal
Finney on May 18, 1999:
> Perhaps we need to distinguish a "Strong Self-Sampling Assumption",
> which is like the SSA but instead of discussing "observers", it refers to
> "observer-instants".
Followed by Bruno Marchal's reply defining RSSA/ASSA:
> >Perhaps we need to distinguish a "Strong Self-Sampling Assumption",
> >which is like the SSA but instead of discussing "observers", it refers to
> >"observer-instants".
>
> Useful distinction, indeed.
>
> Nevertheless I do think we should also distinguish between
> a relative strong SSA and a absolute strong SSA.
> The idea is that we can only quantify the first-person
> indeterminism on the set of consistent observer-instants
> extensions. I mean : consistent with the observers memory of its own
> (first person) past.
Actually now I'm not sure what Bruno really meant. I had assumed that ASSA
was the same thing as SSSA, only with the clarification that it's not
relative. But if Bruno had really meant to define ASSA as "SSSA applied to
the next observer moment" then I have been using the term "ASSA"
incorrectly.
So to sum up, there are two possible meanings for ASSA currently. Does
anyone else have an opinion on the matter? Here are the competing
definitions:
1. You should reason as if your current observer-moment was randomly
selected from a distribution that is shared by everyone and independent of
your current observations (hence "absolute").
2. You should expect your next observer-moment to be randomly selected from
a distribution that is shared by everyone and independent of your current
observations.
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Received on Fri Oct 05 2007 - 03:16:43 PDT