>From: RS <R.Standish.domain.name.hidden>
>I finally had a bit of a chance to glance through Nick's thesis. I
>guess Nick stayed out of the ASSA/RSSA debate for good reasons.
>
>His SSSA introduced SSA over observer moments, so one could rightly
>say that the ASSA and the RSSA are both examples of SSSA. Note the
>SSSA clearly states that the reference class includes all observer
>moments that don't differ by any relevant respect.
I guess what's "relevant" is the question.
>With the ASSA, the reference class is all observer moments belonging to a
>particular individual (rooted at that individual's birth, lets say).
At this point I have to ask - what are you smoking? Because I don't
want any.
With the ASSA, the reference class is just all observer-moments.
(Weighted according to number, or measure. i.e. Fully identical twins
(supposing that were possible) still have double the measure of one man.)
Of course additional conditionals are added as appropriate for a particular
question. (i.e. If I ask "What is the effective probability of seeing X
given that I see Y", then you could say OMs that see Y is the reference
class.) (Example: X="my age>50", Y="I am human".
p(X|Y) = M(X and Y)/M(Y).)
Note: important point: the ASSA does not, in any way, shape or form,
single out the notion of "a particular individual" as having any
significance whatsoever. That is one advantage it has over the RSSA, and
one I have harped on many a time, so it's surprising you don't know that.
>With RSSA,the reference class is the set of all future moments adjacent to
>a given observer moment. All of this assumes that a temporal partial
>ordering in fact exists between observer moments.
I guess the RSSA assumes that. (ASSA doesn't, although I also believe
in time.) Your above definition of RSSA is unclear.
>With the ASSA, the measure attached to a particular observer moment is
>related to the complexity of that observer moment, ie how much history
>is contained within it.
Not necessarily related to complexity, but with the AUH there is a
relation. Definitely not related to the amount of history; that's just
depth, not complexity. Grab a Li & Vitanyi if you don't know what I mean.
>It can also be computed by integrating the
>RSSA values from birth over the history that leads up to that observer
>moment. Several histories may need to be integrated over in the case
>of forgotten events.
An interesting statement on your part. Here, you seem to be saying that
the absolute measure does in fact exist.
>It would seem to me that when discussing expected self-observed age,
>the ASSA is the wrong reference class, here age is a relevant
>variable. However, the ASSA treats all observer moments of a given
>individual throughout its lifetime as equivalent. Surely this is wrong.
The only thing that's wrong is your understanding of the ASSA and of
related matters.
- - - - - - -
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 Tue Jul 04 2000 - 15:15:35 PDT