Hi Jack
Nice to see you again.
The assumption that measure decreases continuously has been accepted too
easily. This is, however, really the crux of the discussion.
One could argue that measure actually increases continuously and
corresponds to the increase in entropy occurring in everyday life. So
even if you are 90 or 100 years old you could still experience an
increase in measure.
On the other hand, when you are really close to a near death event then
you may argue that measure decreases.
Whether the increase compensates for the decrease is debatable.
In any case, measure is measured over a continuum and its value is
infinite to begin with. So whether it increases or decreases may be a
moot point.
This being said, this issue is not easily dismissed and will impact
ethics and philosophy for years to come.
As I said, the increase or decrease in measure is at the crux of this
problem.Your paper really did not illuminate the issue in a satisfactory
manner.
George
Jack Mallah wrote:
> --- On Sun, 2/8/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>>> Suppose you differentiate into N states, then on
>>>
>> average each has 1/N of your original measure. I guess
>> that's why you think the measure decreases. But the sum
>> of the measures is N/N of the original.
>>
>> I still find this confusing. Your argument seems to be that you won't live to 1000 because the measure of 1000 year old versions of you in the multiverse is very small - the total consciousness across the multiverse is much less for 1000 year olds than 30 year olds. But by an analogous argument, the measure of 4 year old OM's is higher than that of 30 year old OM's, since you might die between age 4 and 30.
>> But here you are, an adult rather than a child.
>>
>
> You might die between 4 and 30, but the chance is fairly small, let's say 10% for the sake of argument. So, if we just consider these two ages, the effective probability of being 30 would be a little less than that of being 4 - not enough less to draw any conclusions from.
>
> The period of adulthood is longer than that of childhood so actually you are more likely to be an adult. How likely? Just look at a cross section of the population. Some children, more adults, basically no super-old folks.
>
>
>> Should you feel your consciousness more thinly spread or something?
>>
>
> No, measure affects how common an observation is, not what it feels like.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>
>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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 Wed Feb 11 2009 - 16:59:54 PST