On Tue, Jun 20, 2006 at 09:35:12AM -0700, "Hal Finney" wrote:
>
> The starting point was the framework I have described previously, which
> can be stated very simply as that the measure of an information pattern
> comes from the universal distribution of Kolmogorov. I then applied this
> analysis to specific information patterns which represent subjective,
> first person lifetime experiences. I concluded that the truncated version
> which ends when the teleportation occurs would probably have higher
> measure than the ones which proceed through and beyond the teleportation.
Comment to Bruno - Hal starts with the ASSA. I'm pretty sure this
negates functionalism and hence COMP.
I just checked my book - I noted Hal as a staunch member of the ASSA
camp :).
>
> This leads to a Schmidhuber-like ensemble where we would consider
> all possible universes and estimate the contribution of each one to
> the measure of a particular first-person experience. It is important
Echoes of my previous correspondence to Bruno - it would seem
Schmidhuber is an ASSA supporter too...
>
> I think that one of the fundamental principles of your COMP hypothesis
> is the functionalist notion, that it does not matter what kind of system
> instantiates a computation. However I think this founders on the familiar
> paradoxes over what counts as an instantiation. In principle we can
> come up with a continuous range of devices which span the alternatives
> from non-instantiation to full instantiation of a given computation.
> Without some way to distinguish these, there is no meaning to the question
> of when a computation is instantiated; hence functionalism fails.
>
I don't follow your argument here, but it sounds interesting. Could you
expand on this more fully? My guess is that ultimately it will depend
on an assumption like the ASSA.
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Received on Tue Jun 20 2006 - 20:56:18 PDT