On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 09:42:49PM -0700, Jonathan Colvin wrote:
> Russell Standish wrote:
> >>
> >> (JC) My consciousness (or degree of such) is a complicated function of my
>
> >> evolutionary history, but the problem is so multifactorial it is
> >> inappropriate to use anthropic reasoning.
> >
> >Nonsense. You are either conscious, in which case you will
> >observe something, or you are not, which case you don't. This
> >is a simple two state logic.
>
> That seems a remarkable assertion. As I grow from a fetus to an adult, is
> there one particular interval of planck time where I go from being an
> unconscious object to a conscious observer?
It is unlikely to be resolvable to the planck scale, but I do expect
there to be a first observer moment (ie resolvable on the millisecond
scale). It may not be possible to pin down exactly when this occurs
with human beings, however, just as it is extraordinarily difficult to
draw a dividing line between conscious animals and unconscious ones.
>
> Ok, forget observer moments/ momentary income, and look at your total income
> integrated over your entire life. Shouldn't you expect your lifetime net
> worth to be sampled randomly from the distribution of all lifetime net
> worths?
Interesting suggestion. Alas my knowledge of statistics is not really
up to the task of analysing this. Also, unfortunately, I do not know
my lifetime net worth. I'll leave an instruction in my will to send
you the amount after I've died :)
>
> Jonathan Colvin
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Received on Wed Jun 22 2005 - 19:03:36 PDT