Re: Variations in measure

From: Saibal Mitra <smitra.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 01:09:06 +0100

Russel wrote:
> 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?).
>
I mean it in the former sense. We could become senile and become identical
to a younger person (probably a baby at sleep) and that way evade death, or
it could happen as a result of massive head injuries. I think that the
probability of ``surviving´´ in this discontinuous way (on the long run) is
far larger than in a continuous way, as the conventional QTI seems to imply.

Saibal
Received on Sun Dec 09 2001 - 16:10:16 PST