RE: Observer-Moment Measure from Universe Measure

From: Jonathan Colvin <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 12:46:17 -0700

Hal wrote:
> I wanted to add a few points to my earlier posting about how
> to derive OM measure in a Schmidhuberian multiverse model.
>
> The method is basically to take all the universes where the
> OM appears and to sum up the contribution they make to the OM
> measure. However, the key idea is that this contribution has
> two components. One is the measure of the universe. The
> greater the measure of the universe, the greater the
> contribution to OM measure. But the other is the fraction of
> the universe that is involved in the OM. This means that a
> smaller universe that contains an OM gives a greater fraction
> of its measure as its contribution to the OM measure.
> Smaller universes make more contribution than larger ones.
>
> This last step may seem ad hoc but in fact it can be seen in
> a very natural way. It can be thought of as a two step way
> to output the description of a given OM: first write a
> program to output a universe with the OM in it, then write a
> program to take that universe and output the OM. We can
> think of combining these two programs into one: write a
> program that outputs the OM. Then, the sum of the measure of
> all such programs is the measure of the OM.
<snip>

Ok, this second step I don't get. This implies that our measure is dependant
on our physical size. If I weigh 50 times as much as an adult than as I do
as a baby (my fraction of the universe has increased by a factor of 50),
then this implies that my measure should also have increased by a factor of
50. This doesn't seem right. Why should my measure depend on my physical
size? Should I take to stuffing my face with donuts at every opportunity to
increase my measure? How about if I hang lead weights from my belt? Does
that increase my measure?

I presume the answer is that rather than look at physical size/weight of our
bodies, one must try to calculate the proportion of the universe's
information content devoted to that part of our beings essential to being an
observer (probably something to do with the amount of grey matter). But
again, this surely changes as we age. My brain (and consciousness) at age 2
was much smaller than at age 30, and will start to shrink again as I get
senile. Does our measure increase with age? If we get brain surgery, does
our measure diminish? And once the transhumanist's dream of mental
augmentation is possible, will our measure increase as our consciousness
increases?

Jonathan Colvin
Received on Wed Jun 15 2005 - 15:50:08 PDT