On 22 Mar -1, Marchal wrote:
> Jacques Mallah wrote:
> >One could regard Windows 98 as a program,
> >or as input to the more basic program of the CPU; it's an artificial
> >distinction.
>
> Perhaps for the 3-person point of view. Trivialy idiotic from the
> 1-person point of view. I will not believe that you don't see the
> difference between Jacques Mallah *as* the person Jacques Mallah
> (the one I'm talking to right now), and Jacques Mallah as an
> input to Gaia or the Universal Wave function.
I'd say the former is an implementation of a computation, while
the latter is a program.
> > I don't quite follow you, but I don't really want to. I think you
> >have just not absorbed the lesson that measure is proportional to the
> >number of copies, *not* the number of '1st person' distinctions.
>
> 1) So you *do* understand the distinction, in some sense, don't you?.
I understand that you don't take the measure to be proportional to
the number of copies. What I don't really know is why.
> 2) You don't follow me indeed. I DO believe that the measure is
> proportional to the number of copies. I just aknowledge that the notion
> of copies is not easy to define (and I know you know too!). Now the concept
> of "first person" (introduced in physics by Galileo, progressing a
> little bit with Einstein, progressing tremendously with Everett, IMO)
> can at least be seen just as a philosophical tool helping to realise
> the essential relativity of the (computational, quantum) states.
> So, although the measure is linked (plausibly ``proportionaly") to the
> (transfinite?) number of copies, what we must explain, in fine,
> are our 1, 1-plural, experiences.
What I must explain is my now-experience. It is plausibly one of
many experiences that exist, both similar and at different times, and less
similar and in different people.
> > There's no difference between those two things.
>
> where the two things were a) an infinitely long program
> b) a short program + an infinitely long input.
>
> But here too I AGREE with you! You should really read more
> carefully my posts before answering :-).
This seems inconsistent with your earlier remarks re: Windows
98. If you agree that input is the same as part of the program, let's
banish the word input from now on.
> I was talking about a short program/state (think about a state of
> your artificial digital body existing with comp) relatively
> to an indetermined (infinitely long) computation. That indetermined
> (infinitely long) computation looks more like a *set* of
> (infinitely long) computations.
That sounds more like a short program, like the UD, that
implements various other programs. But I don't see your point here.
> By all your distinction-blurring you dissolve problems.
> That old sort of trick does not solves problems.
It's hard to rhyme 'problems', but once again you're
cheating. The line-1 word is the same as the line-2 word.
> >From your URL it seems to me you are aware of the mind-body problem,
> but like some physicist (BTW Congratulation!), you are still
> trying to put the mind under the carpet.
No, I'm just keeping track of the numbers of minds.
> Let me ask you a question:
>
> Suppose that either:
>
> 1) You are anesthetized, cooled, scanned, annihilated at A, and the
> information is send at B, where you are reconstituted.
>
> 2) or You are anesthetized, cooled, scanned, annihilated at A, and the
> information is send at B and C. At B you are reconstituted, but at C the
> information is destroyed.
>
> 3) or You are anesthetized and put in the Schroedinger-cat's box.
>
> >From an older post of you I can infer that you believe you will survive
> with certainty to 1). Will you survive with certainty 2) ?
> And, in that case, why will you not survive 3) ?
In case 1), for all practical purposes, I would survive.
Case 2) is identical to case 1).
In case 3), 2n copies of me go in and only n copies come out. For
all practical purposes, that's like having a 50% chance to be killed.
4) Being copied - is the opposite of case 3). You might not be
aware of it, or each copy might be labeled 1 and 2.
5) Suppose you measure a spin that has a 50% chance to be
up. There is no copying or killing, but there are now two types of you,
up seeing and down seeing. That has no effect on your total measure in my
view because each type has half the original measure; it's not like
copying.
- - - - - - -
Jacques Mallah (jqm1584.domain.name.hidden)
Physicist / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
My URL:
http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Received on Tue Feb 22 2000 - 18:05:09 PST