On Sat, 4 Mar 2000 GSLevy.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> jqm1584.domain.name.hidden writes:
> > Why do you say WRs cancel out? I disagree completely.
>
> The white rabbits I was referring to are quantum events such as elementary
> particles popping out of the vacuum for very short time intervals. In theory,
> even Napoleon or Elvis Presley could be considered to pop out if we make the
> existence time interval short enough.
I'm surprised to see a MWIer say such a thing. The vacuum is an
energy eigenstate, therefore a stationary state. There is no time
evolution in it. It's not orthogonal to states with (pre-renormalized)
"particles", hence the rather misleading popularization that particles
"pop in and out". It's like saying that a spin pointing in the +X
direction is "flipping back and forth" in the Z direction.
A WR, on the other hand, by definition is an anomoly that requires
additional complexity in the laws of physics in order to explain it. The
non-orthogonality of the vacuum to the above mentioned states is clearly
not in that category.
> > > > an effective probability distribution.
> > > to take a ratio. Divide the measure of the computer by something. By
> what?
> >
> > Obviously, you need some general way to take the limit. In the TM
> > program ensemble, it's easy because one can consider strings of length N
> > (2^N being finite) and let N go to infinity. I'd say that's the most
> > sensible way.
> > In the quantum wavefunction case, where I am comparing numbers of
> > implementations, the best way seems to be discreting the system in some
> > natural coordinate system and taking the limit as the step size goes to
> > zero. (This being in wavefunction space, not 3-space or even 3N-space.)
>
> When you take the limit as your step size goes to zero, the measure of all
> objects in your environment goes to infinity. So, to make comparisons you
> must take the ratio of the measure of two objects. That's fine, if you make
> third person comparisons. You could always select the measure of your shoe as
> the denominator. But what's so unique about your shoe? Can you find something
> more universal?
Since we're looking for the effective probability distribution,
the best denominator would be the sum of the measures of all conscious
computations.
> Trying to use a number like N is meaningless because in the
> real non-TM world N would be equivalent to the size of the Plenitude. I
> suppose dividing any measure by such a large N would reduce all normalized
> measure to zero.
Huh? You don't divide by N, you take the ratio's limit as N
approaches infinity. It's true that it's far from obvious how to
generalize this to include non-TM mathematical structures, but that's a
problem for all approaches and a major reason TMs are so popular on this
list.
> > That's total stupidity and bullshit. There is not even an
> > absolute definition of "you" so it's not even well defined. And what's
> > needed is an overall measure distribution of observer moments, which that
> > method could never provide thus giving NO predictions and having NO value.
>
> C'mon Jacques, you make me blush with the BS talk.
Sorry. Perhaps you could suggest a more family-friendly
alternative derogation.
> True, the ABSOLUTE definition of "you" from a third person perspective is not
> obvious. You could draw the boundary between "you" and the rest of the world
> in many places. Your choice of coordinate is arbitrary. And this is
> precisely the problem if you select the non-relativistic, absolute route.
>
> However, the relativistic approach provides a crystal clear value for the
> measure of self. It is simply and always unity.
What is? If you can't even draw the boundary, the measure of
*any* thing would become unity. Back to WRs.
- - - - - - -
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 Sun Mar 05 2000 - 13:22:06 PST