Jacques Mallah wrote:
> Everett is discussed below; he does _not_ believe in your "1st person"
>by another name "subjective".
My feeling is that you are putting too much in "my" 1st person notion.
> A relationship between a computation and another mathematical
>structure, ...
What relationship, what mathematical structure ?
>in which the properties of the latter are similar in the right ways
>(presumably a mapping satisfying restrictions) ...
How could that works ?
> to the former that for many
>practical purposes (such as consciousness) we can regard the existance of
>the latter as having the same effect as the existance of the former, in
>addition to any other possible effects such as those due to considering more
>than one implementation mapping.
I will search for an aspirin ...
>You know where to find my thoughts on how
>to restrict the mappings.
Yes but I don't see how that defines an implementation.
>Sounds like Platonism, but doesn't define existence.
I use "existence" as a quantifier, like in logic, not as a property which
need a definition.
> Why is 10,000 such an important number for you?
It is a Chinese way to say "a lot".
>Surely 666 is the only
># that holds the key to existence. (Just kidding!)
No. The key number of existence is 24.
>>Except that U is undefined. All Universes are indeed in Plato's heaven, but
>>none are material. They appears material to their inhabitant, that's all.
>
> Suppose instead they are all "material" by hypothetical logical
>necessity. Tell me what would be different. (i.e. define "material".)
The point is that they would be no difference, and that is why I don't
believe in matter and I don't need to search a definition of it.
Now I was a little quick in saying that all Universe are in Plato's
heaven. I should have said only that all apparence of universes are in
plato heaven, and this only through the "eyes" of Heaven's inhabitant.
Matter and Universes are just sort of superstitions. (With COMP).
>>No. measure are relevant for inhabitant relatively to their computational
>>histories. And that need "trans-univers" reasoning. (A good thing, because
>>without that there would be no hope for a computationalist explanation of
>>quantum interferences).
>
> I guess by "relatively" you mean there is no objective measure
>distribution...
Not at all!!!! The measure is objective, and objectively relative.
>...Sorry, that won't cut it. Without an objective measure
>distribution you can say nothing about what a typical observer would see.
>(For example, you can't explain Darwin.)
I agree. But I repeat that comp entails the existence of an objective
measure (from which the laws of physics supervenes), and that this
measure is or can be shown to be necessarily (and objectively) relative.
>>The "All Computation + comp" *is* quasi-falsifiable. Mmmh...
>
> How? (I'm not sure what you mean by "comp" though, since you like to
>talk about whether "you" survive substitutions but did not define "you".)
Then forget computationalism and think about computationalists! In that
case you can follow the entire UDA without any other definition than
the computationalist *belief*: "me is the guy who will survives with
an artificial digital body". And what I show is that, if the
computationalist is honnest and patient, he will understand that
physics is a branch of machine's psychology. Then he will perhaps
appreciate how, by the interview of the sound machine (and its
miraculous Solovay Guardien Angel) he can actually derive the mathematical
structure of the observable proposition.
> Everett never
>defined "machines", which is why his formulation leads to "paradoxes" like a
>stationary state being able to be "conscious".
This seems to be an interesting remark. Could you developpe it a
little bit. Could you tell me which passage of Everett you are refering?
> First, memory (which he [Everett] deals with) is nothing like
>the kind of "flow" QTI freaks talk about.
What do you mean by "flow"? There is only states of consistent
machines and the (big) class of their consistent computational
extensions appearing in UD*.
>>Everett derives the first person plural probability from the third
>>person SE.
>
> NO!
> He 'derived' objective effective probabilities, "3rd person" in your
>strange language (and I don't mean French). ('' indicate his derivation
>itself was flawed, but that's not important here.)
Read DeWitt & Graham page 63seq. He says for exemple (emphasis by
Everett):
<<However, we do not do justice to the theory of pure wave mechanics
until we have investigated what the theory itself says about the
*appearance* of phenomena to observers, rather than hastily concluding
that the theory must be incorrect because the actual states of systems
as given by the theory seem to contradict our observations.
We shall see that the introduction of observers can be accomplished
in a reasonable manner, and that the theory then predicts that the
*appearance* of phenomena, as the subjective experience of these
observers, is precisely in accordance with the predictions of the
usual probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics>>
As you can see the probabilities are subjective and belong to the
appearance, to the first person, with my "strange" language.
>You need to realize that the notion of "1st person" used on this list is
>just an extra-crackpot version of mind-like hidden variables that has no
>basis in objective reality:
Refer me to a post where "1st person" is used as mind-like
hidden variables.
And recall me what you mean by "objective reality".
Recall that for me objective reality is just arithmetical truth.
(The first person plenitude appears then (with comp) as
a very (very, very, very) big thing in comparison with which
even Deutsch multiverse looks like a tiny dust grain).
> That's not an objective measure distribution if it depends
>on you...
Let us say it is conditionalised by "me" (my history).
>.. I
>said there is one unique objective measure distribution - if you don't
>believe it you must believe in hidden variables and other crackpot nonsense.
> There is no other consistent possibility (except, you could believe in
>both).
I dislike hidden variables. But by reading your post I am
more and more willing to belief in the existence of crackpot nonsense :-)
>>Ridiculous, I am not talking to a thought.
> For practical purposes, of course we identify a person with a body that
>gives rise to many thoughts.
I hope you realise I never identify a person with a body. I bet on the
presence of an owner of most human bodies, but as you know with comp we
can change our body for another.
The person is neither the body nor the thought, but the owner of bodies
and thoughts.
>> > What does differentiate different people?
>>Memories. Cosmological, genetical, individual memories. I would
>>say. Most of the time there are organized into histories, so I could
>>have said simply: Histories. Isn't it?
>
> Suppose my memory is a set of bits. A cosmic ray comes in and flips one
>bit. Did the ray kill me and create a new person? If so, OK, but no QTI.
>If not what if it keeps happening? I could end up with identical memories
>to a completely different person. So, really, there is no distinction
>between 2 people.
So you agree that, provided that there is no end for the human race,
you *are* immortal, because if there is no distinction between two
people, there is no distinction between you and any of our descendants,
isn't it?
Jacques :-)
Received on Fri Apr 20 2001 - 03:26:48 PDT
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