On 05 Dec 2008, at 03:50, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 5:19 AM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
> wrote:
>
>
> Hmmm... It means you have still a little problem with step seven. I
> wish we share a computable environment, but we cannot decide this at
> will. I agree we have empirical evidence that here is such
> (partially)
> computable environment, and I am willing to say I trust nature for
> this. Yet, the fact is that to predict my next first person experience
> I have to take into account ALL computations which exist in the
> arithmetical "platonia" or in the universal dovetailing.
>
>
> Bruno, I am with you that none of us can decide which of the
> infinite number of histories contain/compute us; when I talk about a
> universe I refer to just a single such history.
This is ambiguous. Even the unique "history-computation" of, let us
say, the Everett Universal Wave, contains many (perhaps an infinity)
of cosmic histories. There are there as many "Jason" than there are
possible position of your electrons, even for equal energy level, and
thus same molecular behavior, so that you cannot discern them, except
in term or relative probabilities of (self) measurement outcomes. But
then you have many others that we cannot eliminate, because even if
you are right in assigning a bigger importance to little programs and
their computations, the big programs occurring in the deployment have
a role too, mainly due to the impossibility to be aware of delays made
by the UD. Without the comp equivalent of "random phase annihilating
the aberrantly long path", we have to take them into account, a priori.
> Perhaps you use history to refer only to the computational history
> that implements the observer's mind where I use it to mean an object
> which computes the mind of one or more observers in a consistent and
> fully definable way.
It seems to me that we have to take them all into account, or justify
why we can throw away the pure aberrant histories. If not, it looks
like putting infinities and white rabbits under the rug, by decision.
But then we are cheating with respect of taking the digital
hypopthesis completely seriously. We could miss a refutation of comp,
or important consequences. It seems to me.
>
> What I am not clear on with regards to your position is whether or
> not you believe most observers (if we could locate them in platonia
> from a 3rd person view) exist in environments larger than their
> brains, and likely containing numerous other observers or if you
> believe the mind is the only thing reified by computation and it is
> meaningless to discuss the environments they perceive because they
> don't exist.
Empirically I am rather sure environments plays a key role, yet, this
remains to be proved. Strictly speaking I would say it is an open comp
problem.
>
> The way I see it, using the example of this physical universe only,
> it is far more probable for a mind to come about from the self-
> ordering properties of a universe such as this than for there to be
> a computation where the mind is an initial condition. The program
> that implements the physics of this universe is likely to be far
> smaller than the program that implements our minds, or so my
> intuition leads me to believe.
Perhaps, but the whole point is that remains to be justify. It is
*the* problem. If we assume comp, then we have to justify this. No
doubt little programs play a key role, but the bigger one too, unless
some destructive probability phenomenon occur. Now, interviewing the
universal machine gives indeed a shadow of explanation of why such
destructive phenomenon do occur indeed from the first person (plural)
points of view of self-observing machine.
I mainly agree with what you "want", but we have to explain it.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Fri Dec 05 2008 - 04:06:35 PST