Bruno, your explanations were closer to me than many lately and I found the
crucial point(s) in my not-understanding. Let me try to point to it as
incerted into your text by [JM: .....] lines
John
On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 4:59 AM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>
> On 30 Oct 2008, at 07:51, Kory Heath wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On Oct 28, 2008, at 12:33 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >> Measure theory is the branch of math which has been invented to
> >> tackle
> >> those infinities, and those similarity relations.
> >
> > I don't know much about measure theory. I understand a bit about how
> > it's supposed to tackle those infinities, but I don't understand how
> > it relates to similarity relations.
> *
> OK, measure theory theory does not relate directly to the similarity
> relations. This happens with the comp hyp through indiscernability
> relations.
But we cannot know our level, we can only make some empirical bets.
> Strictly speaking the equivalence relation is not constructive. We don't
> really can know who we are, and the probabilities cannot be defined
> with certainty.
[JM: similarity in my vocabulary is restricted to those select features we
compare - extracted from those we know about at all. Identity I restrict to
omniscient comparison only.]
> If some probability calculus works well, empirically, it
> would give evidences (not proof) for some level, and if QM can be
> extracted from comp, this would mean that empirical quantum mechanics
> would assess the idea that, roughly speaking, our level of
> substitution is given by the position of our particles up to the
> Heisenberg uncertainiy relations. The quantum indeterminacy would, in
> that case directly results directly from the 1-person comp
> indeterminacy, but we don't yet know this. That would be nice because
> the empirical many-world (the empirical reasons for not believing in a
> collapse of the wave packet) would comfort the fact that we share
> histories (given that we can share the quantum indeterminacy). Quantum
> Mechanics would really be a non-solipsistic first person *plural*
> indeterminacy calculus, and physical reality as we know it today,
> would really be the product of dream sharing. QM would comfort that we
> belong to the same "matrix".
>
>
>
>
> > What bearing does it have on the
> > case when you make exactly two copies of a person, one which is exact
> > and one which contains (say) roughly half of that person's memories,
> > personality, or whatever?
>
>
> To make a prediction on the future from the past you have to remember
> the past (or at least some relevant part of the past). If you allow
> (partial) amnesia, it could depend on many things including the type
> of computations allowing the amnesia: it makes almost no sense a
> priori. It would be like asking what is probability to get six
> (subjectively or as first person experience, like we have to do
> assuming comp) when throwing a dice knowing in advance that once you
> have thrown the dice you will forget that you have thrown the dice!
> So I am not sure the question can even make sense. I said to George
> Levy a long time ago (in this list) that all first person
> probabilities in self-multiplication experiments presuppose that the
> level of substitution (of brain material) has been chosen correctly,
> and thus serendipitously given that we cannot known for sure our own
> substitution level.
>
> Now, your question could still make sense if you accept the idea that
> there is only one person possible. We would all be the same person in
> different context. With this you can predict that amnesia would be
> lived as a remembering of your more correct identity. Unfortunately
> record of amnesia by wounded person does not confirm this, except,
> apparently for some drug induced amnesia, like the one provoked by the
> use of the plant salvia divinorum (there are many reports available on
> the net). So it looks like some type of amnesia (which belong to some
> type of computation) could confirm "we are the same person", and in
> that case, those amnesia would not change the probability rules. But
> all this is much more speculative so I conjure you to take this with a
> bit of a distance. Of course if you are lucky to belong to a country
> where the consumption of salvia divinorum is authorized, you could
> test it on yourself but read the manual before and be cautious. I have
> tested it and I do find the effect very interesting for learning
> things about identity and reality, but not to the point of having get
> any definite conclusion. It certainly opens me to be more interested
> in the amnesia phenomenon, and it makes me more open to the "only one
> person" proposition, but it is not a sort of knowledge easily
> sharable, except, well like consciousness, through sharing identical
> brain transformation, which of course is very hazardous when they are
> produce through the use of some chemicals (but still less hazardous
> than using an hammer on your skull or getting a car accident).
>
> The day will come (not tomorrow) where we will bet on some effective
> artificial brain, and this will lead to more systematic way to handle
> such questions in much less hazardous way. The hazardous part will be
> put entirely in the bet on our substitution level.
>
> To sum up my comment: probability of self-multiplication with loss of
> memory depends most probably on the way such memories are deleted.
> The fact that some drugs give a "remembering" feeling through amnesia
> could be an evidence that Darwinian evolution (by itself very long
> computations) has handled brain/identity recuperation mechanism, and
> that we share a personal identity. Some mystic describes similar
> experiences.
>
> Bruno
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Fri Oct 31 2008 - 17:36:54 PDT