>From: "Jesse Mazer" <lasermazer.domain.name.hidden>
>Personally, I've never been able to understand the attitude of the
>anti-measurists--how can anything make sense without one? What possible
>reason would I have to believe that the future will resemble the past in
>any way whatsoever? After all, there are an infinite number of possible
>universes that resemble the one I've experienced up to the present moment,
>and then suddenly transform into a swarm of white rabbits--should I be
>bracing myself for such a possibility at every moment? Without some kind of
>measure on the Plenitude we cannot even talk about the "probability" that
>the laws of physics will continue to operate normally a minute from
>now...you can't really talk about anything but the present moment, in fact.
You're right, almost. But what _about_ the present? Without an
_objective_ measure on possible experiences, there would be no reason for
even the present moment to be as wabbit-free as it is! (e.g. The present
moment suggests evolution, etc.)
And you can never see the future (maybe you _will_, depending on the
definition of "you", but you never have yet!), so clearly it is only the
present that supplies the info you have to make such Bayesian deductions.
In fact it's simpler to define "you" as just existing now.
(Which is not to say your utility function shouldn't care about future
guys.)
It should be apparent to all that an objective measure is needed on
observer-moments. I do not call this a "3rd person" measure because that
would falsely imply the existance of some other type of measure to be a
logical possibility.
- - - - - - -
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 03 2001 - 13:40:10 PDT