Jacques is right: there is no first person, so the distinction is spurious.
'you' have no 'future' so it's meaningless to try to predict it
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fritz Griffith [SMTP:fritzgriffith.domain.name.hidden]
> Sent: Thursday, 11 May, 2000 5:06 PM
> To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> Subject: RE: this very moment
>
> >From: Jacques Mallah <jackmallah.domain.name.hidden>
> >To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> >Subject: RE: this very moment
> >Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 18:43:38 -0700 (PDT)
> >
> >--- Higgo James <james.higgo.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> > > What you have written is in perfect agreement with
> > > what I have been trying to say.
> >
> > James, I guess this ends our alliance :(
> >
> > > > From: Fritz Griffith
> > > > Basically, I realized that if we accept that
> > > > everything exists already, then why the hell do we
> > > > need to bring up probability?
> >
> > To get retrodictions.
>
> That's nice... now what does retrodictions mean? I couldn't find the word
>
> in the dictionary, did you mean redtroductions? (it was the closest
> match).
> It means to lead or bring back.
>
> >
> > > > probability (1st person), but rather that we
> > > > experience everything (3rd person only),
> >
> > I never understood the 1st/3rd person crap, so I
> >don't know what you mean. But I know this: effective
> >probabilities are important, and they have absolutely
> >nothing to do with the crap known as "1st person
> >probabilities".
>
> If you don't understand 1st/3rd person crap, then how do you know it has
> nothing to do with effective probability? In fact, it has everything to
> do
> with probability. Probability is the chance that a universe that exists
> in
> the plentitude (3rd person) will be the universe you actually experience
> (1st person). Without a 1st person experience, probability would be
> useless. You could provide effective measures for all the universes in
> the
> plentitude, but it wouldn't matter because no single universe would be
> chosen. Rather, they would ALL be chosen, as a single 3rd person
> experience, and it wouldn't matter how unlikely a universe was, it would
> happen no matter what, as part of the whole. So probability wouldn't
> matter. This turns out to be exactly the situation I proposed in my last
> post.
>
> >
> > > > is that we experience each and every universe,
> > > > guaranteed, but each one feels like it is the only
> > > > one. So we'll see things make sense (100%
> > > > guaranteed), and we'll see things not make sense
> > > > (100% guaranteed), and each of these experiences
> > > > will include the lack of knowledge of the other.
> >
> > You seem to be saying, in effect, that there is
> >only one person that has all experiences. It sounds
> >like a useless definition.
>
> That is exactly what I am saying, except that 'person' is a subjective
> word.
> It would be more accurate to say that there is only one overall
> experience. This is what I call 3rd person experience. It is not a
> useless
> definition because, for the reasons I explained above, having only a
> single
> 3rd person experience would differ from many 1st person experiences
> because
> probability would become invalid.
>
> >
> > > > In short, every thought exists, so why should I be
> > > > surprised to be having this thought? (as you would
> > > > say it).
> >
> > You should only be surprised if your thought has
> >characteristics that have an unusually low effective
> >probability.
> > (Examples: you think of a long bit string, x,
> >which you obtained randomly. It looks random, so
> >while x has a low probability, you're not surprised.
> > If, however, you see the first 100 digits of pi
> >and you know you obtained them randomly, it's time to
> >be surprised - and suspicious of your random number
> >generator. This is a white rabbit.)
>
> Well thank you for your little lecture on how probability works, but I
> think
> you missed my point. I'm saying that with only a 3rd person experience,
> probability becomes useless, null, void, obsolete, unimportant and
> invalid.
> I don't care how many facts and figures you can spit out about
> probability,
> it doesn't make my proposition any less acceptable. And because
> probability
> has nothing to do with my theory, no matter how unlikely a universe seems,
>
> it will happen, in some universe, and you will experience it, even though
> it
> won't seem like it in the rest.
>
> ps. We should really get everyone together on IRC to discuss these
> things,
> we would accomplish in a few minutes what would take weeks to argue about
> on
> this discussion board.
>
> >
> >
> >=====
> >- - - - - - -
> > 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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> >
>
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Received on Thu May 11 2000 - 09:38:16 PDT