Saibal Mitra wrote:
>
>
> Hal wrote:
>
>
> > One of the concepts we have explored is that all universes and hence
> > all minds exist, but that some observer-moments have greater "measure"
> > than others. This may help to explain why we observe the kind of universe
> > that we do, because we must be observer-moments that have relatively
> > large measure.
> >
> > I wonder if it would be possible for the measure of an individual
> > to vary over the course of his lifetime. We do expect the measure
> > to fall as he ages, as he comes to occupy fewer and fewer universes.
> > However there may be other ways that his measure could change.
> >
> > For example, suppose he took a drug which made his mental processes
> > become confused. He was no longer sure of basic facts about himself
> > and the universe. This mental state would no longer be bound to one
> > specific universe. Instead, a large collection of distinct universes
> > could be consistent with this mental state. These observer-moments
> > might therefore have larger measure, since they would correspond to a
> > larger part of the multiverse.
> >
> > In general, one might expect those minds with less observational power
> > and less specific knowledge and understanding of the universe to have
> > larger measure.
> >
> > Does this have any implications for the use of the all-universe hypothesis
> > to explain and predict our observations?
>
> Yes it does. In particular it explains why we are of finite age, contrary to
> what one would naively expect from qti. As I have written some time ago qti
> needs to be modified precisely because of the effect you describe above.
>
> The analogy with the universal prior favoring simpler universes is
> interesting.
>
> Saibal
>
>
Are you implying that we will not see some "arbitrary large" age
because our minds will become confused (senile perhaps), and so our
self-perceived age might slip back? Or are you saying that the effect
of measure decreasing as a function of psychological time implies that
we must start from a simple nascent state of age 0, then experience
all intermediate states before reaching some enormous age? This later
statement is entirely consistent with the conventional form of QTI.
The former is an interesting point, but I'm not entirely sure how to
formalise it properly (perhaps as a corollory of the second law of
thermodynamics?).
Cheers
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Received on Sun Dec 09 2001 - 15:28:36 PST