1) looks better because there is no unambiguous definition of "next".
However, I don't understand the "shared by everyone" part. Different
persons are different programs who cannot exactly represent the
"observer moment" of me.
As I see it, an observer moment is a snapshot of the universe taken by
my brain. The brain simulates a virtual world based on information from
the real world. We don't really experience the real world, we just
experience this simulated world. Observer moments for observers should
refer to the physical states of the virtual world they live in. Since
different observers live in different universes which have different
laws of physics, these physical states (= qualia) cannot be compared to
each other.
We can only talk about an absolute measure for programs (simulated by
other programs or not)...
Citeren Wei Dai <weidai.domain.name.hidden>:
>
> 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.
>
>
>
>
> >
>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Fri Oct 05 2007 - 09:33:18 PDT