Saibal Mitra wrote:
[quoting Stathis]
> > I understand your point, but I think you are making an invalid
>assumption
> > about the relationship between a random sampling of all the OM's
>available
> > to an individual and that individual's experience of living his life.
> > Suppose a trillion trillion copies of my mind are made today on a
>computer
> > and run in lockstep with my biologically implemented mind for the next
>six
> > months, at which point the computer is shut down. This means that most
>of
>my
> > measure is now in the latter half of 2005, in the sense that if you pick
>an
> > observer moment at random out of all the observer moments which identify
> > themselves as being me, it is much more likely to be one of the copies
>on
> > the computer. But what does this mean for my experience of life? Does it
> > mean that I am unlikely to experience 2006, being somehow suspended in
>2005?
>
>I would say so. You would find yoursef to be suspended in 2005, just like
>you are now suspended between 1900 and 2100. But this would require the
>simulations of your mind in 2005 to dominate over all other versions of
>you.
>Now unless experiencing 2006 would require a miracle this can't be the
>case.
>The reason is that all possible versions of you 'already' exist in the
>multiverse. Your measure in 2005 is what it is. This includes the effects
>of
>others simulating your mind experiencing 2005 (the simulation can be done
>at
>any time, of course).
>
>So, you can say that your measure for experiencing time t is:
>
>m(t) = m_{biol}(t) + m_{sim}(t)
>
>
>m_{biol} being the 'biological' contribution of your measure and m_{sim}
>the
>digital contribution. Both terms are fixed by the laws of physics. If
>indeed
>m_{sim}(2005) is trillions of times larger than m_{biol}(2005) and zero at
>other times, you would be suspended in 2005. But this cannot be the case
>unless there is some reason why m_{sim}(t) is so strongly peaked around
>2005. If there are branches in which someone is simulating you in 2005 for
>no good reason, then that decision is taken at random. That means that in
>some other branch you are simulated in some other time. So, the measure
>isn't strongly peaked around 2005 at all!
>
>
>
>
> >
> > More generally, if a person has N OM's available to him at time t1 and
>kN
>at
> > time t2, does this mean he is k times as likely to find himself
>experiencing
> > t2 as t1? I suggest that this is not the right way to look at it. A
>person
> > only experiences one OM at a time, so if he has "passed through" t1 and
>t2
> > it will appear to him that he has spent just as much time in either
>interval
> > (assuming t1 and t2 are the same length). The only significance of the
>fact
> > that there are "more" OM's at t2 is that the person can expect a greater
> > variety of possible experiences at t2 if the OM's are all distinct.
>
>
>The same is true here. It must follow from the laws of physics (which
>include the effects of simmulations) that there are indeed many more copies
>of you at t2.
In dealing with this type of problem you have to consider not only the
physics, which I'm sure you understand much better than I do, but also the
psychology of how the first person experience of being a unique individual
persisting through time is constructed from observer moment building blocks.
This is not as obvious as may first appear; specifically, it does not follow
in general that more copies/ greater measure at time t = more likely to
experience time t. The important thing to keep in mind is that each
individual experiences only one OM at a time. If I consider the future, then
there is a potential that I could "become" any of the many OM's who consider
me to be in their past. However, when I arrive at the future, and also when
I remember the past, I consider myself to be unique. All the other OM's
which from a third person perspective are other versions of "me" (and this
third person perspective includes me looking at my potential futures) from
my perspective are completely separate people. So if I am told that tomorrow
I will be copied ten times and one of these copies will be tortured, I am
worried, because that means there is a 1/10 chance I will be tortured. But
when tomorrow comes and I am not the torture victim, I am relieved, because
it is someone else who is suffering, and I can feel sorry for him in the way
I feel sorry for suffering strangers.
What this means is that if you trace an individual's history from his birth
to his ultimate demise (which may never come, if QTI is correct), at each
time point he is associated with only *one* OM. Two or more individuals may
share two or more OM's at some point in their life, for example when a
duplication occurs, but from the point of view of each of them, they still
only experience one OM at a time for their entire life history. Two OM's may
also "combine" in one of two ways: either a third OM exists with the content
of the other two, or they do not really combine but a later OM has the
memory of having been both in the past. The one OM per time point for each
individual rule is maintained.
The conclusion from the above is that the absolute measure of an individual
at any time point, from that individual's point of view, is unity. When
looking into the future, the other copies in the multiverse do matter, but
in this case it is the relative measure of different outcomes rather than
the absolute measure which is important. Once the future becomes present,
the other copies from the first person perspective are just other people.
--Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Sun May 29 2005 - 07:30:04 PDT