Re: on formally describable universes and measures

From: Saibal Mitra <smitra.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 15:52:48 +0100

Jürgen wrote:

``Please read again. If "consciousness" is indeed a well-defined concept,
and if there are any "conscious" computable observers, then they will be
computed. Otherwise they won't. In either case there is no need to define
consciousness - I have not seen a convincing definition anyway. Similarly,
there is no need to define "love", although it might be an important
concept to certain computable observers in certain computable universes."

I think the source of the problem is equation 1 of Jürgens paper. This equation supposedly gives the probability that I am in a particular universe, but it ignores that multiple copies of me might exist in one universe. Let's consider a simple example. The prior probability of universe i (i>0) is denoted as P(i), and i copies of me exist in universe i. In this case, Jürgen computes the propability that if you pick a universe at random, sampled with the prior P, you pick universe i. This probability is, of course, P(i). Therefore Jürgen never has to identify how many times I exist in a particular universe, and can ignore what consciousness actually is.

Surerly an open univere where an infinite number of copies of me exist is infinitely more likely than a closed universe where I don't have any copies, assuming that the priors are of the same order?

Saibal
Received on Tue Feb 20 2001 - 07:01:01 PST