--- Alastair Malcolm wrote:
> Note James is also saying that there is no such
> thing as an objective 'you' (other than bare
> instantaneous thought content). This part of the
> hypothesis, at least, has severe problems (see my
> email of 1st Feb or thereabouts).
Since I have maintained that the best definition
of 'you' is your observer-moment, I'll respond to
this. You appear, above, to be claiming that it is
necessary to believe that there is a "you" extended
over time, and that your post showed that. Let's have
a look at this legendary post. (It is quoted in full
below.)
It is clear that what you really claimed is that
believing that "you" are just an observer-moment, is
the same as ordinary (AUH) physics. Perhaps Fritz'
proposal made some other claim, but clearly you did
not show any problem with the observer-moment
*definition* of "you".
In fact, it seems to me that any claim that an
extended definition of "you" is needed would require
new physics (mind-like hidden variables). (The only
reasonable extended definition I see is merely the
option to label an extended implementation of a
computation as "you". Recall that a particular
implementation has a finite time duration though even
if the overall measure (~# of implementations) decays
with a tail.)
"Re: Everything is Just a Memory
From: Alastair Malcolm
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 04:52:07
From: Fritz Griffith <fritzgriffith.domain.name.hidden>
> > > As I said, the measure problems are the same
whether you use MW or my
> > > single observer moment theory.
> >
> >If by 'measure problem' it is meant that the WAP on
its own predicts 'chaos
> >to the brink' (because our measure should be
highest for chaotic universes
> > - the WR problem), then the measure problem is
potentially solvable for AUH
> >(All universes hypotheses), but not for your single
observer moment theory
> >(without an additional assumption, as mentioned in
my earlier post). The
> >underlying reason for this is that any minimum
information specification
> >that includes our universe (say a physicist's TOE)
can be considered as
> >simpler than a (near) *explicit* specification of a
single observer moment,
> >with all the attendent complication of a mechanism
that can support any
> >possible human memory (not to mention thought,
emotion, creativity and
> >so on). Again, see my web site or Russell's Ockham
paper for more details.
> But as I've already mentioned before, there is not
just one explicit
> observer moment. You seem to assume that I take a
Copenhagen-style approach
> to my theory, but in reality I take a more MW
approach. I believe that
> all possible observer moments exist in the
plentitude, and therefore the
> equation that describes them could be just as
simple, even the same, as
> those that could describe the universe with an AUH
theory.
I was always assuming that you were referring to a
plenitude, I was just trying to keep things simple by
mentioning only one. A plenitude of *only* observer
moments would have much the same problems as I
mentioned for one, with some compression available for
the whole range of possible SAS (say conscious)
memories. More likely, I would guess, is that you are
thinking in terms of a plenitude *including* all
possible observer moments. If the equation describing
this plenitude is the same as an AUH theory, I can't
see how your single observer moment theory differs
from ordinary physics (extended as necessary to
encompass other universes). If the equation is
different (the extra assumption I have referred to
earlier), then not only would some justification be
needed for why a different physics generates the
illusion of memories of our physics in action, but
also how this new physics could be simpler than
conventional TOE physics, bearing in mind it has to
support (at least) observer moments, with all their
complexity.
Alastair"
=====
- - - - - - -
Jacques Mallah (jackmallah.domain.name.hidden)
Physicist / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
My URL:
http://hammer.prohosting.com/~mathmind/
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Received on Wed May 10 2000 - 18:30:06 PDT