Re: Paper+Exercises+Naming Issue

From: Benjamin Udell <budell.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 11:12:15 -0500

Russell, list,

[Russell]> "Multiverse" was coined by David Deutsch to refer to the many worlds
of MWI. This corresponds to Tegmark's level 3 parallel universe. I
follow this terminology, as do many others on this list. We also tend
to use the terms "Plenitude" or "Platonia" to refer to his Level 4
parallel universe. The other levels have not been "christened" so to speak.
[Russell]> Tegmark uses multiverse to refer to any type of parallel universe -
which I think contradicts usual usage.

Thank you, that clarifies quite a few points.

[Russell]> The term bird/frog viewpoint is Tegmark's, which he used in his 1998
paper. I can well imagine applying to his 2003 multilevel scheme.
[Russell]> The association of 3rd person viewpoint (not bird viewpoint) with the
Multiverse is mine, and is justified on the basis that all observers
must be embedded in quantum mechanical many worlds structure. This
result is derived by assuming a level 4 plenitude, and is given in my
2004 paper "Why Occams Razor". Bruno's work also seems to point to a
similar conclusion.
[Russell]> The particular Plenitude I assume (ensemble of all bitstrings) is
actually a completely uninteresting place to have a view of (it has
precisely zero informational complexity).

Is this kind of Plenitude (ensemble of all bitstrings) more or less Tegmark's Level IV of all mathematical structures? (I.e., if it's different, does the difference involve a restriction to discrete or finitistic structures or some such? Or is your Plenitude simply something else, not really "Platonia"?) I can sense intuitively that a plenitude of all mathematical structures might, "from its own viewpoint," be too undifferentiated to be interesting. I had something like that in mind when I said earlier in the thread that I didn't know how to think of mathematicals "in themselves" (as if prior to representation) in terms of consistency. "As if prior to representation" -- or so richly represented that one might as well be attempting to view the undifferentiated "objects" themselves. Well, I'm trying to give form to a vague intuition, so, if it makes no sense, then it's my fault.

If a Tegmark-like math level, some sort of Platonia, is what you're talking about with your Plenitude as ensemble of all bitstrings, then perhaps it can still be said that it is still interesting to view it by "interrupting" it, i.e., by marking out mathematical structures, etc., and that this kind of viewpoint is what one gets "instead" of a genuine Level IV viewpoint of any interest. We couldn't really adopt Level IV's viewpoint, but we could crane our necks and see what happens when we (imaginatively) make furrows in it, stir it around, etc., or whatever metaphor suits. We'd learn about it indirectly, perhaps somewhat analogously as we learn about "possibility waves" and unitary evolution through understanding the statistical patterns of particle hits which we do detect and through knowing the actual experimental setups as controlled by us. In other words, I'm trying to string, like some sort of baubles, "associations" of some kind with the Levels out along the particle/w!
 ave's career, taking as example the association of Level III with probabilities for various outcomes. I'm a believer in trying out expansions of conceptual structures as if the conceptual structures were commitments to patterns which one needs to hunt out for simplicity's sake, but unfortunately nearly all of the physics that I know is of the physics-for-layfolks variety.

IV. possibility waves (variational principles)
III. probabilities for various outcomes
II. information, news, outcomes, events, interactions, phenomena
I. evidence of causes/dependencies (dependencies, e.g., emission --> open slit --> hit)

I ended up also correlating the stages to optimization - probability - information - logic ("logic" in the sense of (dis)confirmation, evidence, etc.), but that's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it's remembered that "correlations" to Levels are not at all necessarily equations to Levels.

[Russell]> I do not see any particular arguments suggesting that observers must
be embedded in a universe described by string theory (which would move
the 3rd person viewpoint to level 2) or embedded in just this universe
(moved to level 1), but I would not rule it out a priori.

I think I sort of get what you're saying. (Whew!)

[Russell]> I never used the word experience. Where did that come from? I seemed
to have avoided a particular word above, but I would say "knowledge"
is probably the most relevant. There are things one can know as a 1st
person, that are unknowable as a 1st person plural. I know I am
conscious. I don't know that you are conscious, but nevertheless
assume it. Conciousness is therefore 1st person, but not 1st person plural.

Observation is often regarded as a kind of experience, where one cognizes (especially perceptually) something (the thing seems to impress itself on one's cognitive awareness), and one notes it, makes at least mental notice of it, especially in a scientific manner. Seeing and noting. Consciousness itself is also in a sense an experience, insofar as it involves a cognitive/affective subjectedness to things beyond one's entire control. In some way, with the talk of observers, I was thinking of experiencers. Perhaps you're taking "experience" in the sense of the experience sharable among members of a community, such that my personal, unsharable "experience" doesn't count as empirical. I sometimes trip over differences in meaning across traditions.

Anyway, how would I know of (or believe in) my quantum immortality except by inference from abstractions? What sort of personal, non-sharable knowledge would one have of quantum immortality such that the knowledge of it is comparable with the knowledge of consciousness? Is it a subjective sense that it's somehow possible for oneself not to exist? -- i.e., not a consciousness of immortality, but a consciousness of an underlying impossibility of mortality? Something like that?

[Ben]>> Nevertheless, I've liked the idea of distinguishing an inclusive 1st-&-2nd person "we," both addressor and addressee, from an exclusive 1st person addressor-only, so I'm glad to see it pop up in this context.
[Russell]> I think we can credit Bruno with this distinction :)

I'll count that credit as established.

Best, Ben Udell


----- Original Message -----
From: "Russell Standish" <r.standish.domain.name.hidden>
To: "Benjamin Udell" <budell.domain.name.hidden>
Cc: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 12:13 AM
Subject: Re: Paper+Exercises+Naming Issue

On Thu, Jan 12, 2006 at 11:12:13PM -0500, Benjamin Udell wrote:
> Russell, list,
>
> > Tegmark's 4 level "Multiverse" (actually the Multiverse is only one of the levels) does not really have viewpoints at each level.
> > In my book, which largely follows the tradition of this list, there is 3 viewpoints identified: 1st person, 1st person plural and 3rd person.
> > The 3rd person corresponds to the bird viewpoint of the Multiverse, or Tegmark Level 3 'verse. Calling it a viewpoint is a stretch of the language since necessarily observers must be embedded in the Multiverse.
>
> Where does Tegmark say that the Multiverse is only one of the levels? Which one?

"Multiverse" was coined by David Deutsch to refer to the many worlds
of MWI. This corresponds to Tegmark's level 3 parallel universe. I
follow this terminology, as do many others on this list. We also tend
to use the terms "Plenitude" or "Platonia" to refer to his Level 4
parallel universe. The other levels have not been "christened" so to speak.

Tegmark uses multiverse to refer to any type of parallel universe -
which I think contradicts usual usage.

> What is meant by "viewpoint"? Tegmark's elementary description of the four levels sounds like the outline of four viewpoints, with "frog" and "bird" marking the extremes of a four-step set of gradations. Level IV is associated with "pure" maths. Level III is associated with alternatives among cases, which marks it as associated with maths of logic, information, probability, etc., despite what Tegmark says about logic's being the most general and underlying thing in maths. Level III is more "abstract" than Level II and actualizes alternate outcomes across quantum branchings, while Level II actualizes alternate outcomes in various times and places along a single branch, so that the two levels come out the same in their features. Level II seems associable with statistical theory, some areas of information theory, and some other fields deal in a general way with gathering data from various actual places and times and drawing ampliatively-inductive conclusions from parts, sampl!
 es, etc., to totalities. Level I, with its possibly idiosyncratic constants, initial conditions, historical dependencies, seems associable with physical, chemical, life sciences and human & social studies. So those seem four viewpoints with distinctive content and associations, though not the kind of content which the idea of viewpoint seems to have received on the everything list, which is decidedly not to say that there's anything wrong with the kind of content given on the everything list to the idea of viewpoint.
>
> Is it Tegmark's view, that the bird's eye view is associated particularly with Level III, or does it depend on ideas as developed on the everything list? Why wouldn't a view be associated with Level IV as well? (I thought that, at least in Tegmark's view, the bird's eye view _was_ Level IV).

The term bird/frog viewpoint is Tegmark's, which he used in his 1998
paper. I can well imagine applying to his 2003 multilevel scheme.

The association of 3rd person viewpoint (not bird viewpoint) with the
Multiverse is mine, and is justified on the basis that all observers
must be embedded in quantum mechanical many worlds structure. This
result is derived by assuming a level 4 plenitude, and is given in my
2004 paper "Why Occams Razor". Bruno's work also seems to point to a
similar conclusion.

The particular Plenitude I assume (ensemble of all bitstrings) is
actually a completely uninteresting place to have a view of (it has
precisely zero informational complexity).

I do not see any particular arguments suggesting that observers must
be embedded in a universe described by string theory (which would move
the 3rd person viewpoint to level 2) or embedded in just this universe
(moved to level 1), but I would not rule it out a priori.

> > Both of the 1st person viewpoints correspond to the frog viewpoint, the difference being the 1st person plural is an objective viewpoint - all things in the 1pp vpt will be agreed upon by 2 or more observers, whereas the 1p vpt is subjective, containing items such as quantum immortality that are _necessarily_ subjective.
>
> The idea of quantum immortality doesn't seem like something that you could call an "experience." If you found yourself alive even after what seemed an unlikely long period of time, after a series of periodic extraordinary escapes, any other observers would agree that you're still alive -- in other words, you'd still be alive from the 1pp vpt. Only in the case where _no records_ remain of your much earlier existence, nothing but your personal memory of it, would quantum immortality seem possibly like an experience, an "especially" subjective one. The quantum immortality idea seems like, not an experience, but an idea requiring one's intellectually adopting some sort of 3rd-person view.

I never used the word experience. Where did that come from? I seemed
to have avoided a particular word above, but I would say "knowledge"
is probably the most relevant. There are things one can know as a 1st
person, that are unknowable as a 1st person plural. I know I am
conscious. I don't know that you are conscious, but nevertheless
assume it. Conciousness is therefore 1st person, but not 1st person plural.

> Nevertheless, I've liked the idea of distinguishing an inclusive 1st-&-2nd person "we," both addressor and addressee, from an exclusive 1st person addressor-only, so I'm glad to see it pop up in this context.

I think we can credit Bruno with this distinction :)

> Best, Ben Udell
Received on Fri Jan 13 2006 - 11:16:22 PST