RE: on formally describable universes and measures (fwd)

From: Meeker, Brent <MeekerDB.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 09:23:28 -0800

        Bruno, perhaps I'm just unusally dense today; but I dont' grasp the
uncertainity to you write of the the Washington-Moscow thought experiment.
It seems obvious to me that when I am reconstituted in Washington and
reconstituted in Moscow then I am in both places. This of course assumes
that there is no mystical, indivisble "soul" that is "really" me. It
follows from the idea that my internal pyschological states derive from the
physical processes of my body - and if the body is reproduced then so are
those processes.

        Perhaps you don't accept this last because you propose to derived
physics from psychology. If so I would say your project is misguided,
because as I tried to illustrate in the diagram I sent, the physical world
and the psychological world are just different ways of organizing raw
experience. They are not independent and regarding one or the other as more
basic is a choice depending on what we mean by "basic". At present it seems
more fruitful for scientist (not necessarily philosophers) to treat physics
as basic and try to explain pyschology. But this is just because at present
we happen to know more about how to do physics experiments than
psychological experiments.

        But I may be mistaking your point. Please explain this
"uncertainity".

        Brent Meeker

> From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
> To: Juergen Schmidhuber <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
> Subject: Re: on formally describable universes and measures
> Resent-Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 03:33:06 -0800
> Resent-From: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
>
> Hi Juergen,
>
> With (classical) comp it exists a level such that we survive
> a Washington-Moscou self-duplication where the reconstitution
> are made at that level (WM).
>
> (Later I will prove that no machine can ever know its correct
> levels of substitution, but still a machine could guess one
> correctly, and that is all we need in the reasoning).
>
>
> Here is the "precise question" I promise. We agree that
> in the WM self-duplication experiment there is an uncertainty
> about where "I" will find myself after it has been done.
> This does not mean we have chosen the uniform distribution
> (P(W) = P(M) = 1/2)) to modelise this uncertainty.
>
> Now suppose that at Moscow we delaye the reconstitution. Do
> you agree it cannot change the distribution of uncertainty?
>
> That is: whatever ways you choose to modelize the first-person
> uncertainty in self-multiplication experience/experiment,
> comp entails it must remain invariant with respect to
> arbitrary delays introduced in the reconstitutions.
> We don't know the distribution. But we know it is invariant
> for the addition of delays.
>
> Do you agree ?
>
>
> Bruno
> PS
>
> 1) Of course I know that you do not accept COMP, which
> includes a minimal amount of arithmetical realism.
> That is not a problem because I don't ask people to believe
> in COMP, just to believe that my thesis shows that COMP
> entails the REVERSAL. Too bad: you will miss both
> the solution of the mind-body problem *and* the origin
> of the physical laws.
> Note that I am used to people abandoning COMP when they begin
> to understand the reversal.
>
> 2) It does not mean I believe your are consistent. This
> is because if you believe there is a "great programmer" I can
> prove to you the existence of uncomputable functions, which
> you should'nt accept with your constructive move. I guess
> you know that there is no Universal Machines computing all
> and only the total (or those with recursive domain) computable
> functions.
> Another exemple: you cannot use Lowenheim-Skolem theorem,
> like in your last post, for your constructive purpose,
> 'cause the Lowenheim -Skolem theorem does not admit
> constructive proof (and necessarily so according to a result
> by McNeil and Tennant). But the biggest problem for a
> constructive philosopher is the "other mind" problem. A
> constructivist cannot really believe in another "person",
> still less understand the 1/3-person differences.
> A constructivist approach of the mind-body problem leads
> necessarily toward solipsism.
>
Received on Fri Feb 09 2001 - 09:32:59 PST