Bruno:
let me draw your attention to one little phrasing in
Hal's (and everybody else's, I presume, as I read
these posts)- text:
"If we assume..."
And if we do not?
Or: <many people think so ...> - many think otherwise.
John
--- Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>
> Le 17-mars-06, à 20:27, Hal Finney a écrit :
>
> >
> > John M writes:
> >> 1. do we have a REAL argument against solipsism?
> >
> > Let me express how solipsism can be analyzed in
> the model where
> > physical
> > reality is part of mathematical reality.
> >
> > Let us adopt Bruno's UDA perspective: the
> Universal Dovetailer (UD)
> > is an abstract machine that runs all possible
> computer programs.
> > In this way it creates all possible universes, and
> more... it creates
> > all possible information objects: all of
> mathematics, logic, all
> > written
> > texts, everything. In particular it creates the
> information patterns
> > of conscious entities like you and me.
> >
> > Let us assume that this in fact represents the
> reality of the
> > multiverse,
> > that what we perceive and experience is all caused
> by the operation
> > of the UD, when it creates information patterns
> that correspond to
> > those experienes. I know that many people here
> reject this hypothesis,
> > but let us follow it forward to see what it can
> say about solipsism.
> >
> > The first thing to notice is that within the UD,
> each person exists
> > more
> > than once. There are many programs that include a
> particular
> > information
> > pattern in their output, in fact an infinite
> number of programs. Some
> > of
> > those programs will look much like the kind of
> model a physicist might
> > construct for a "theory of everything". It would
> include the physical
> > laws and initial conditions that define our
> universe. Running that
> > program forward would create the entire history of
> our universe,
> > including
> > the experiences of all of its inhabitants.
> >
> > However there are other kinds of programs that
> would also create the
> > patterns of our conscious experiences. Some might
> do it purely by
> > random
> > chance: they might produce enormous outputs and
> somewhere buried in
> > there
> > will be the pattern that corresponds to a portion
> of our experience.
> > Others would include bizarre universes such as one
> inhabited by aliens
> > who create computer simulations of other kinds of
> beings, and who have
> > created us. Yet another example would be a
> universe composed only of
> > one
> > person, with all that is outside of him being
> supplied by the computer
> > program, perhaps from some kind of table of
> sensory impressions, so
> > that
> > only he is real within that universe.
> >
> > Solipsism is the doctrine that only I exist, that
> everything else is an
> > illusion. In the context of the platonic
> multiverse, it would
> > correspond
> > to that last case: a portion of the UD program
> where only the one
> > person
> > is in his universe, and nothing else in the
> universe is real.
> >
> > So this raises the question: given that I exist
> multiple times within
> > the UD structure, and given that in some of them
> the universe I see
> > around me is real and in some of them it is an
> illusion, which is the
> > reality for me? In which one do I actually exist?
> >
> > I believe Bruno argues, and I agree, that this is
> a meaningless
> > question.
> > You exist in all of them. There is no single
> instance of your
> > information
> > pattern which is "really you". Your consciousness
> spans all of the
> > places in the UD where it is instantiated.
> However, there is a related
> > question which is relevant: what will happen next?
> If some of your
> > consciousness is in the real universe, and some of
> it is in universes
> > where you are an alien simulation, some in a
> universe where it is a
> > random fluctuation, and some in a universe where
> you are all there is,
> > how can you make a prediction about the future?
> In the random universe
> > you would expect to disintegrate into chaos. In
> the aliens, they might
> > open up the simulation and start talking to you.
> In the solipsism
> > case,
> > various bizarre things might happen. And in the
> "plain vanilla"
> > universe,
> > you would expect things to go along pretty much as
> you remember them.
> >
> > Here is where I may depart from Bruno, although I
> am not sure.
>
>
> OK.
>
>
>
> > I argue
> > that you can in fact set up a probability
> distribution over all of the
> > places in the UD where your mind exists, and it is
> based roughly on the
> > size of the part of the UD program that creates
> that information
> > pattern.
>
>
> I will take the time to come back on this. I have a
> problem with this
> which is not entirely unrelated to our perennial
> ASSA/RSSA debate.
> Another problem is related with the fact that from
> the first person
> point of view it is hard to distinguish big and
> little programs, and
> their way of recurring hyper-redundantly.
>
>
>
>
> > Recall that the UD in effect runs all programs at
> once. But some
> > programs
> > are shorter than others. I use the notion of
> algorithmic complexity
> > and the associated measure, which is called the
> Universal Distribution
> > (an unfortunate collision of the UD acronym).
> Basically this says that
> > the measure of the output of a given UD program of
> n bits is 1/2^n.
>
>
>
> Yes. And it is even a machine independent notion
> (modulo some
> constant). But "big programs" cannot be dismissed
> "so easily", I will
> try to find a short explanation for why I think
> "saying yes" to the
> doctor makes, for the first person point of view,
> some limiting
> behavior of the UD "hard" from the supremacy of the
> little programs,
> seen as possible TOE.
>
>
>
>
> >
> > This gives us a probability distribution over all
> the places our minds
> > are implemented, such that the shortest program(s)
> get the bulk of
> > the probability. This has relationships to such
> traditional notions as
> > Occam's Razor, as Russell Standish has emphasized.
> Just as we say that
>
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Received on Sun Mar 19 2006 - 18:09:27 PST