[KevinTryon: Jacques Mallah]

[Jack Mallah]

--- On Tue, 2/10/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@...> wrote:
> It seems that the disagreement may be one about personal identity. It is not clear to me from your paper whether you accept what Derek Parfit calls the "reductionist" theory of personal identity. Consider the following experiment:
>
> There are two consecutive periods of consciousness, A and B, in which you are an observer in a virtual reality program. A is your experiences between 5:00 PM and 5:01 PM while B is your experiences between 5:01 PM and 5:02 PM, subjective time. A is being implemented in parallel on two computers MA1 and MA2, so that there are actually two qualitatively identical streams of consciousness which we can call A1 and A2. At the end of the subjective minute, data is saved to disk and both MA1 and MA2 are switched off. An external operator picks up a copy of the saved data, walks over to a third computer MB, loads the data and starts up the program. After another subjective minute MB is switched off and the experiment ends.
>
> As the observer you know all this information, and you look at the clock and see that it is 5:00 PM. What can you conclude from this and what should you expect? To me, it seems that you must conclude that you are currently either A1 or A2, and that in one minute you will be B, with 100% certainty. Would you say something else?

I'd say it's a matter of definition, and there are three basic ones:

1)  If I am A1 and will become B, then A2 has an equal right to say that he will become B.  Thus, one could say that I am the same person as A2.  This is personal fusion.

2)  If the data saved to the disk is only based on A1 (e.g. discarding any errors that A2 might have made) then one could say that A1 is the same person as B, while A2 is not.  This is causal differentiation.

3)  If I am defined as an observer-moment, then I am part of either A1 or A2, not even the whole thing - just my current experience.  This is the most conservative definition and thus may be the least misleading.

Regardless of definitions, what will be true is that the measure of A will be twice that of B.  For example, if have not yet looked at the clock, and I want to place a bet on what it currently reads, and my internal time sense tells me only that about a minute has passed (so it is near 5:01, but I don't know which side of it), then I should bet that it is before 5:01 with effective probability 2/3.  This Reflection Argument is equivalent to the famous "Sleeping Beauty" thought experiment.




     


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[Brent Meeker-2]

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> 2009/2/10 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>:
>
>  
>> This sort of talk about "random sampling" and "luck" is misleading and is exactly why I broke down the roles of effective probability into the four categories I did in the paper.
>>
>> If you are considering future versions of yourself, in the MWI sense, there is no randomness involved.  Depending on how you define "you", "you" will either be all of them, or "you" are just an observer-moment and can consider them to be "other people".  Regardless of definitions, this case calls for the use of Caring Measure for decision making.
>>    
>
> It seems that the disagreement may be one about personal identity. It
> is not clear to me from your paper whether you accept what Derek
> Parfit calls the "reductionist" theory of personal identity. Consider
> the following experiment:
>
> There are two consecutive periods of consciousness, A and B, in which
> you are an observer in a virtual reality program. A is your
> experiences between 5:00 PM and 5:01 PM while B is your experiences
> between 5:01 PM and 5:02 PM, subjective time. A is being implemented
> in parallel on two computers MA1 and MA2, so that there are actually
> two qualitatively identical streams of consciousness which we can call
> A1 and A2. At the end of the subjective minute, data is saved to disk
> and both MA1 and MA2 are switched off. An external operator picks up a
> copy of the saved data, walks over to a third computer MB, loads the
> data and starts up the program. After another subjective minute MB is
> switched off and the experiment ends.
>
> As the observer you know all this information, and you look at the
> clock and see that it is 5:00 PM. What can you conclude from this and
> what should you expect? To me, it seems that you must conclude that
> you are currently either A1 or A2, and that in one minute you will be
> B, with 100% certainty. Would you say something else?
>  

I might say that while there are two computations, there is only one
"stream of consciousness".

Brent

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 10 Feb 2009, at 18:44, Brent Meeker wrote:

>
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>> 2009/2/10 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>:
>>
>>
>>> This sort of talk about "random sampling" and "luck" is misleading  
>>> and is exactly why I broke down the roles of effective probability  
>>> into the four categories I did in the paper.
>>>
>>> If you are considering future versions of yourself, in the MWI  
>>> sense, there is no randomness involved.  Depending on how you  
>>> define "you", "you" will either be all of them, or "you" are just  
>>> an observer-moment and can consider them to be "other people".  
>>> Regardless of definitions, this case calls for the use of Caring  
>>> Measure for decision making.
>>>
>>
>> It seems that the disagreement may be one about personal identity. It
>> is not clear to me from your paper whether you accept what Derek
>> Parfit calls the "reductionist" theory of personal identity. Consider
>> the following experiment:
>>
>> There are two consecutive periods of consciousness, A and B, in which
>> you are an observer in a virtual reality program. A is your
>> experiences between 5:00 PM and 5:01 PM while B is your experiences
>> between 5:01 PM and 5:02 PM, subjective time. A is being implemented
>> in parallel on two computers MA1 and MA2, so that there are actually
>> two qualitatively identical streams of consciousness which we can  
>> call
>> A1 and A2. At the end of the subjective minute, data is saved to disk
>> and both MA1 and MA2 are switched off. An external operator picks  
>> up a
>> copy of the saved data, walks over to a third computer MB, loads the
>> data and starts up the program. After another subjective minute MB is
>> switched off and the experiment ends.
>>
>> As the observer you know all this information, and you look at the
>> clock and see that it is 5:00 PM. What can you conclude from this and
>> what should you expect? To me, it seems that you must conclude that
>> you are currently either A1 or A2, and that in one minute you will be
>> B, with 100% certainty. Would you say something else?
>>
> I might say that while there are two computations, there is only one
> "stream of consciousness".

You are right, but I think that Stathis is right too. When Stathis  
talks about two identical stream of consciousness, he make perhaps  
just a little abuse of language, which seems to me quite justifiable.
Just give a mirror to the observer so that A *can* (but does not) look  
in the mirror to see if he is implemented by MA1 or by MA2. Knowing  
the protocol the observer can predict that IF he look at the mirror  
the stream of consciousness will bifurcate into A1 and A2. Accepting  
the Y = II rule, that is bifurcation of "future" = differentiation of  
the whole story) makes the Stathis "abuse of language" an acceptable  
way to describe the picture. So Stathis get the correct expectation,  
despite the first person ambiguity in "two identical stream of  
consciousness".
If two infinitely computations *never* differentiate, should we count  
them as one? I am not sure but I think we should still differentiate  
them. UD generates infinitely often such infinitely similar streams.  
That should play a role for the relative (to observer-moment) measure  
pertaining on the computations. OK?

Bruno




http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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[Brent Meeker-2]

Bruno Marchal wrote:

>
> On 10 Feb 2009, at 18:44, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>> 2009/2/10 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>:
>>>
>>>
>>>> This sort of talk about "random sampling" and "luck" is misleading  
>>>> and is exactly why I broke down the roles of effective probability  
>>>> into the four categories I did in the paper.
>>>>
>>>> If you are considering future versions of yourself, in the MWI  
>>>> sense, there is no randomness involved.  Depending on how you  
>>>> define "you", "you" will either be all of them, or "you" are just  
>>>> an observer-moment and can consider them to be "other people".  
>>>> Regardless of definitions, this case calls for the use of Caring  
>>>> Measure for decision making.
>>>>
>>> It seems that the disagreement may be one about personal identity. It
>>> is not clear to me from your paper whether you accept what Derek
>>> Parfit calls the "reductionist" theory of personal identity. Consider
>>> the following experiment:
>>>
>>> There are two consecutive periods of consciousness, A and B, in which
>>> you are an observer in a virtual reality program. A is your
>>> experiences between 5:00 PM and 5:01 PM while B is your experiences
>>> between 5:01 PM and 5:02 PM, subjective time. A is being implemented
>>> in parallel on two computers MA1 and MA2, so that there are actually
>>> two qualitatively identical streams of consciousness which we can  
>>> call
>>> A1 and A2. At the end of the subjective minute, data is saved to disk
>>> and both MA1 and MA2 are switched off. An external operator picks  
>>> up a
>>> copy of the saved data, walks over to a third computer MB, loads the
>>> data and starts up the program. After another subjective minute MB is
>>> switched off and the experiment ends.
>>>
>>> As the observer you know all this information, and you look at the
>>> clock and see that it is 5:00 PM. What can you conclude from this and
>>> what should you expect? To me, it seems that you must conclude that
>>> you are currently either A1 or A2, and that in one minute you will be
>>> B, with 100% certainty. Would you say something else?
>>>
>> I might say that while there are two computations, there is only one
>> "stream of consciousness".
>
>
> You are right, but I think that Stathis is right too. When Stathis  
> talks about two identical stream of consciousness, he make perhaps  
> just a little abuse of language, which seems to me quite justifiable.
> Just give a mirror to the observer so that A *can* (but does not) look  
> in the mirror to see if he is implemented by MA1 or by MA2. Knowing  
> the protocol the observer can predict that IF he look at the mirror  
> the stream of consciousness will bifurcate into A1 and A2.

I don't follow that.  If A1 looks in the "mirror" and sees A2, then, ex
hypothesi, A2 looks in the "mirror" and sees A1 and the two streams of
consciousness remain identical.  If consciousness is computation, independent of
  physical implementation, then computations that differ only in their physical
realizations are identical and cannot be counted as more than one.

Brent

>Accepting  
> the Y = II rule, that is bifurcation of "future" = differentiation of  
> the whole story) makes the Stathis "abuse of language" an acceptable  
> way to describe the picture. So Stathis get the correct expectation,  
> despite the first person ambiguity in "two identical stream of  
> consciousness".
> If two infinitely computations *never* differentiate, should we count  
> them as one? I am not sure but I think we should still differentiate  
> them. UD generates infinitely often such infinitely similar streams.  
> That should play a role for the relative (to observer-moment) measure  
> pertaining on the computations. OK?
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
>

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[Michael Rosefield-2]

I agree. They are both pointers to the same abstract computation.

--------------------------
- Did you ever hear of "The Seattle Seven"?
- Mmm.
- That was me... and six other guys.

2009/2/10 Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...>

Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 10 Feb 2009, at 18:44, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>> 2009/2/10 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>:
>>>
>>>
>>>> This sort of talk about "random sampling" and "luck" is misleading
>>>> and is exactly why I broke down the roles of effective probability
>>>> into the four categories I did in the paper.
>>>>
>>>> If you are considering future versions of yourself, in the MWI
>>>> sense, there is no randomness involved.  Depending on how you
>>>> define "you", "you" will either be all of them, or "you" are just
>>>> an observer-moment and can consider them to be "other people".
>>>> Regardless of definitions, this case calls for the use of Caring
>>>> Measure for decision making.
>>>>
>>> It seems that the disagreement may be one about personal identity. It
>>> is not clear to me from your paper whether you accept what Derek
>>> Parfit calls the "reductionist" theory of personal identity. Consider
>>> the following experiment:
>>>
>>> There are two consecutive periods of consciousness, A and B, in which
>>> you are an observer in a virtual reality program. A is your
>>> experiences between 5:00 PM and 5:01 PM while B is your experiences
>>> between 5:01 PM and 5:02 PM, subjective time. A is being implemented
>>> in parallel on two computers MA1 and MA2, so that there are actually
>>> two qualitatively identical streams of consciousness which we can
>>> call
>>> A1 and A2. At the end of the subjective minute, data is saved to disk
>>> and both MA1 and MA2 are switched off. An external operator picks
>>> up a
>>> copy of the saved data, walks over to a third computer MB, loads the
>>> data and starts up the program. After another subjective minute MB is
>>> switched off and the experiment ends.
>>>
>>> As the observer you know all this information, and you look at the
>>> clock and see that it is 5:00 PM. What can you conclude from this and
>>> what should you expect? To me, it seems that you must conclude that
>>> you are currently either A1 or A2, and that in one minute you will be
>>> B, with 100% certainty. Would you say something else?
>>>
>> I might say that while there are two computations, there is only one
>> "stream of consciousness".
>
>
> You are right, but I think that Stathis is right too. When Stathis
> talks about two identical stream of consciousness, he make perhaps
> just a little abuse of language, which seems to me quite justifiable.
> Just give a mirror to the observer so that A *can* (but does not) look
> in the mirror to see if he is implemented by MA1 or by MA2. Knowing
> the protocol the observer can predict that IF he look at the mirror
> the stream of consciousness will bifurcate into A1 and A2.

I don't follow that.  If A1 looks in the "mirror" and sees A2, then, ex
hypothesi, A2 looks in the "mirror" and sees A1 and the two streams of
consciousness remain identical.  If consciousness is computation, independent of
 physical implementation, then computations that differ only in their physical
realizations are identical and cannot be counted as more than one.

Brent

>Accepting
> the Y = II rule, that is bifurcation of "future" = differentiation of
> the whole story) makes the Stathis "abuse of language" an acceptable
> way to describe the picture. So Stathis get the correct expectation,
> despite the first person ambiguity in "two identical stream of
> consciousness".
> If two infinitely computations *never* differentiate, should we count
> them as one? I am not sure but I think we should still differentiate
> them. UD generates infinitely often such infinitely similar streams.
> That should play a role for the relative (to observer-moment) measure
> pertaining on the computations. OK?
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
>

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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/2/11 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>:

>
> --- On Tue, 2/10/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@...> wrote:
>> It seems that the disagreement may be one about personal identity. It is not clear to me from your paper whether you accept what Derek Parfit calls the "reductionist" theory of personal identity. Consider the following experiment:
>>
>> There are two consecutive periods of consciousness, A and B, in which you are an observer in a virtual reality program. A is your experiences between 5:00 PM and 5:01 PM while B is your experiences between 5:01 PM and 5:02 PM, subjective time. A is being implemented in parallel on two computers MA1 and MA2, so that there are actually two qualitatively identical streams of consciousness which we can call A1 and A2. At the end of the subjective minute, data is saved to disk and both MA1 and MA2 are switched off. An external operator picks up a copy of the saved data, walks over to a third computer MB, loads the data and starts up the program. After another subjective minute MB is switched off and the experiment ends.
>>
>> As the observer you know all this information, and you look at the clock and see that it is 5:00 PM. What can you conclude from this and what should you expect? To me, it seems that you must conclude that you are currently either A1 or A2, and that in one minute you will be B, with 100% certainty. Would you say something else?
>
> I'd say it's a matter of definition, and there are three basic ones:
>
> 1)  If I am A1 and will become B, then A2 has an equal right to say that he will become B.  Thus, one could say that I am the same person as A2.  This is personal fusion.

OK.

> 2)  If the data saved to the disk is only based on A1 (e.g. discarding any errors that A2 might have made) then one could say that A1 is the same person as B, while A2 is not.  This is causal differentiation.

Yes, but I'm assuming A1 and A2 have identical content.

> 3)  If I am defined as an observer-moment, then I am part of either A1 or A2, not even the whole thing - just my current experience.  This is the most conservative definition and thus may be the least misleading.

This is the way I think of it, at least provisionally.

> Regardless of definitions, what will be true is that the measure of A will be twice that of B.  For example, if have not yet looked at the clock, and I want to place a bet on what it currently reads, and my internal time sense tells me only that about a minute has passed (so it is near 5:01, but I don't know which side of it), then I should bet that it is before 5:01 with effective probability 2/3.  This Reflection Argument is equivalent to the famous "Sleeping Beauty" thought experiment.

But the point is, I do look at the clock and I do know that I am A,
with probability 1, and therefore that I will soon be B with
probability 1. This would still be the case even if the ratio of A:B
were 10^100:1. There is no option for me to feel myself suspended at
5:01 PM, or other weird experiences, because the measure of A is so
much greater.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Pete Carlton-2]

>> As the observer you know all this information, and you look at the
>> clock and see that it is 5:00 PM. What can you conclude from this and
>> what should you expect? To me, it seems that you must conclude that
>> you are currently either A1 or A2, and that in one minute you will be
>> B, with 100% certainty. Would you say something else?

I think if the observer knows everything I know, they can't conclude  
anything more or less than I can.
Namely, that at 5:00 there are two computers running simulations, and  
in one minute there will be one computer running a simulation.

I don't see how the observer asking "Which one am I?" is in any sense  
asking for more information. The problem is the word "I" - what does  
it refer to? Both computers MA1 and MA2 simulate an observer asking  
"Which one am I".  We know everything that happens - and "when you've  
explained everything that happens, you've explained  
everything." (Dennett again)



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[Günther Greindl]

I'm with Mike and Brent.

Bruno, giving A1 and A2 mirrors which would show different stuff
violates Stathis' assumption of running the _same_ computation - you
can't go out of the system.

And your remark that we should differentiate infinite identical platonic
computations confuses me - it seems to contradict unification (which I
gather you assume).

Measure can only be influenced by _different_ computations supporting
the same OM.

Cheers,
Günther

Michael Rosefield wrote:

> I agree. They are both pointers to the same abstract computation.
>
>
> --------------------------
> - Did you ever hear of "The Seattle Seven"?
> - Mmm.
> - That was me... and six other guys.
>
>
> 2009/2/10 Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...
> <mailto:meekerdb@...>>
>
>
>     Bruno Marchal wrote:
>      >
>      > On 10 Feb 2009, at 18:44, Brent Meeker wrote:
>      >
>      >> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>      >>> 2009/2/10 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...
>     <mailto:jackmallah@...>>:
>      >>>
>      >>>
>      >>>> This sort of talk about "random sampling" and "luck" is misleading
>      >>>> and is exactly why I broke down the roles of effective probability
>      >>>> into the four categories I did in the paper.
>      >>>>
>      >>>> If you are considering future versions of yourself, in the MWI
>      >>>> sense, there is no randomness involved.  Depending on how you
>      >>>> define "you", "you" will either be all of them, or "you" are just
>      >>>> an observer-moment and can consider them to be "other people".
>      >>>> Regardless of definitions, this case calls for the use of Caring
>      >>>> Measure for decision making.
>      >>>>
>      >>> It seems that the disagreement may be one about personal
>     identity. It
>      >>> is not clear to me from your paper whether you accept what Derek
>      >>> Parfit calls the "reductionist" theory of personal identity.

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[Jack Mallah]

--- On Mon, 2/9/09, Quentin Anciaux <allcolor@...> wrote:
> Also I still don't understand how I could be 30 years old and not 4, there are a lot more OM of 4 than 30... it is the argument you use for 1000 years old, I don't see why it can hold for 30 ?

Quentin, why would the measure of 4 year olds be "a lot more" than the measure of 30 year olds?  I have already explained that the effect of differentiation (eg by learning) is exactly balanced by the increased number of versions to sum over (the N/N explanation) and the effect of child mortality is small.

Is there some third factor that you think comes into play?  Can you estimate quantitatively what you think the measure ratio would be?

> Also even if absolute measure had sense, do you mean that the measure of a 1000 years old OM is strictly zero (not infinitesimal, simply and strictly null)?

No, it is not zero, but it is extremely small.  I have never suggested that there is no long time tail in the measure distribution that extends to infinite time.  Of course there is.  Any MWIer knows that.  But it is negligable.  You will never experience it, or depending on definitions, at least not in any significant measure.  The general argument against immortality proves that.  It is no more significant then any other very-small-measure set of observations, such as the ones in which you are king of the demons.  You might as well forget about it.




     


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[Jack Mallah]

--- On Tue, 2/10/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@...> wrote:
> 2009/2/11 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>:
> > 2)  If the data saved to the disk is only based on A1
> (e.g. discarding any errors that A2 might have made) then
> one could say that A1 is the same person as B, while A2 is
> not.  This is causal differentiation.
>
> Yes, but I'm assuming A1 and A2 have identical content.

That actually doesn't matter - causation is defined in terms of counterfactuals.  If - then, considering what happens at that moment of saving the data.  If x=1 and y=1, and I copy the contents of x to z, that is not the same causal relationship as if I had copied y to z.

> > 3)  If I am defined as an observer-moment, then I am
> part of either A1 or A2, not even the whole thing - just my
> current experience.  This is the most conservative
> definition and thus may be the least misleading.
>
> This is the way I think of it, at least provisionally.

OK.

> But the point is, I do look at the clock and I do know that I am A, with probability 1, and therefore that I will soon be B with probability 1.

That contradicts what you said above about being an observer-moment.  If you are, then some _other_ observer-moments will be in B, not you.




     


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[russell standish-2]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 07:07:50PM -0800, Jack Mallah wrote:
>
> That actually doesn't matter - causation is defined in terms of counterfactuals.  If - then, considering what happens at that moment of saving the data.  If x=1 and y=1, and I copy the contents of x to z, that is not the same causal relationship as if I had copied y to z.
>

But surely the counterfactuals are the same in each case too? In which
case it is the same causal relationship. We're talking computations
here, each computation will respond identically to the same
counterfactual input.

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[Brent Meeker-2]

Jack Mallah wrote:

> --- On Tue, 2/10/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@...> wrote:
>> 2009/2/11 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>:
>>> 2)  If the data saved to the disk is only based on A1
>> (e.g. discarding any errors that A2 might have made) then
>> one could say that A1 is the same person as B, while A2 is
>> not.  This is causal differentiation.
>>
>> Yes, but I'm assuming A1 and A2 have identical content.
>
> That actually doesn't matter - causation is defined in terms of counterfactuals.  If - then, considering what happens at that moment of saving the data.  If x=1 and y=1, and I copy the contents of x to z, that is not the same causal relationship as if I had copied y to z.

Isn't that making the causal chain essential to the experience; contrary to the
idea that the "stream of consciousness" is just the computation?  The causal
chain is not part of the computation, A1 and A2 could be implemented by
different physics and hence different causation.

Brent Meeker

>
>>> 3)  If I am defined as an observer-moment, then I am
>> part of either A1 or A2, not even the whole thing - just my
>> current experience.  This is the most conservative
>> definition and thus may be the least misleading.
>>
>> This is the way I think of it, at least provisionally.
>
> OK.
>
>> But the point is, I do look at the clock and I do know that I am A, with probability 1, and therefore that I will soon be B with probability 1.
>
> That contradicts what you said above about being an observer-moment.  If you are, then some _other_ observer-moments will be in B, not you.
>
>
>
>
>      
>
>
> >
>

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[russell standish-2]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 06:43:11PM -0800, Jack Mallah wrote:
>
> --- On Mon, 2/9/09, Quentin Anciaux <allcolor@...> wrote:
> > Also I still don't understand how I could be 30 years old and not 4, there are a lot more OM of 4 than 30... it is the argument you use for 1000 years old, I don't see why it can hold for 30 ?
>
> Quentin, why would the measure of 4 year olds be "a lot more" than the measure of 30 year olds?  I have already explained that the effect of differentiation (eg by learning) is exactly balanced by the increased number of versions to sum over (the N/N explanation) and the effect of child mortality is small.
>
> Is there some third factor that you think comes into play?  Can you estimate quantitatively what you think the measure ratio would be?
>

In my book (page 146) I make the comment:

"The Doomsday argument with selection of observer moments made
according to a monotonically declining function of age would predict
the youngest of observer moments to be selected. By this argument, it
is actually mysterious why we should ever observe ourselves as adults,
a reductio ad absurdum for the Mallah argument."

Jacques has convinced me that the measure in question may be
sufficiently slowly declining over (say) the first 80 years of human
life that anthropic arguments becomes blunt. Particularly when the
categories concerned are things like childhood, adolescence, youth,
middle age and old age, rather than specific ages. Of course, infant
mortality is still very high in many parts of the world, so the
overall measure of babies is much higher than other age groups, but
one could argue that infants are not conscious until after the brain
reorganisation that occurs in the second year of life, so it is possible
that high infant mortality doesn't count.

Of course my major problem with the argument depending on the ASSA
still stands, but I'm willing to grant that this particular objection
may be overegged.

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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/2/11 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>:

>> > 3)  If I am defined as an observer-moment, then I am
>> part of either A1 or A2, not even the whole thing - just my
>> current experience.  This is the most conservative
>> definition and thus may be the least misleading.
>>
>> This is the way I think of it, at least provisionally.
>
> OK.
>
>> But the point is, I do look at the clock and I do know that I am A, with probability 1, and therefore that I will soon be B with probability 1.
>
> That contradicts what you said above about being an observer-moment.  If you are, then some _other_ observer-moments will be in B, not you.

But the same could be said about everyday life. The person who wakes
up in my bed tomorrow won't be me, he will be some guy who thinks he's
me and shares my memories, personality traits, physical
characteristics and so on. In other words, everyone only lives
transiently, and continuity of consciousness is an illusion. The
question of survival is then the question of how to ensure that this
illusion continues. QI allows the illusion to continue indefinitely.



--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Brent Meeker-2]

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> 2009/2/11 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>:
>
>>>> 3)  If I am defined as an observer-moment, then I am
>>> part of either A1 or A2, not even the whole thing - just my
>>> current experience.  This is the most conservative
>>> definition and thus may be the least misleading.
>>>
>>> This is the way I think of it, at least provisionally.
>> OK.
>>
>>> But the point is, I do look at the clock and I do know that I am A, with probability 1, and therefore that I will soon be B with probability 1.
>> That contradicts what you said above about being an observer-moment.  If you are, then some _other_ observer-moments will be in B, not you.
>
> But the same could be said about everyday life. The person who wakes
> up in my bed tomorrow won't be me, he will be some guy who thinks he's
> me and shares my memories, personality traits, physical
> characteristics and so on. In other words, everyone only lives
> transiently, and continuity of consciousness is an illusion.

I think I understand your point, but I don't see that the continuity of
consciousness is any more an illusion than any other continuity: the continuity
of space, the persistence of objects, etc.  You are just generalizing Zeno's
paradox.  But once you look at it that way, the question becomes, "Why imagine
the continuity is made up of discrete elements?"  It is this conceptualization,
points in space, moments in time, observer moments as atoms of consciousness,
that creates the paradox.  So maybe we should recognize continuity as
fundamental.  The continuity need not be temporal, it could be a more abstract
property such a causal connection or perhaps what Bruno says distinguishes a
computation from a description of the computation.

Brent

>The
> question of survival is then the question of how to ensure that this
> illusion continues. QI allows the illusion to continue indefinitely.
>
>
>


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[Quentin Anciaux-2]

2009/2/11 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>

--- On Mon, 2/9/09, Quentin Anciaux <allcolor@...> wrote:
> Also I still don't understand how I could be 30 years old and not 4, there are a lot more OM of 4 than 30... it is the argument you use for 1000 years old, I don't see why it can hold for 30 ?

Quentin, why would the measure of 4 year olds be "a lot more" than the measure of 30 year olds?  I have already explained that the effect of differentiation (eg by learning) is exactly balanced by the increased number of versions to sum over (the N/N explanation) and the effect of child mortality is small.

I don't get it. Why should the "measure" suddenly decrease at 80 (or 100) years old ? Why not 30 ? Why not 4 ?

Also this is still assuming ASSA and does not take in accound that my next momemt is not a random momemt (with high measure) against all momemts, but a random momemt again all momemts that have my current moment as memories/previous. Even if being Napoleon at the age of 30 would have a measure 10^30 higher than any individual measure of momemts that has composed me so far... I'm not Napoleon at age 30, my next moment will never be Napoleon at age 30 and never will and that changes everything. I know that in 1 minute, it will be 1 minute later from now whatever the measure of now and in one minute is.

Also Stathis as a point, you said in the A1/A2 (A) vs B case that A as 2 times the measure of B... But B will be with probabilty 1... does B feel less real ? less conscious (that would contradict the assumption B was a conscious moment). If the measure doesn't change anything to these attributes... then however small this measure is as long as it is not striclty null, the experienced moment will be real... as real as the real here and now is.
 

Is there some third factor that you think comes into play?  Can you estimate quantitatively what you think the measure ratio would be?

> Also even if absolute measure had sense, do you mean that the measure of a 1000 years old OM is strictly zero (not infinitesimal, simply and strictly null)?

No, it is not zero, but it is extremely small.  I have never suggested that there is no long time tail in the measure distribution that extends to infinite time.  Of course there is.  Any MWIer knows that.  But it is negligable.  You will never experience it, or depending on definitions, at least not in any significant measure.  The general argument against immortality proves that.  It is no more significant then any other very-small-measure set of observations, such as the ones in which you are king of the demons.  You might as well forget about it.

So even if being 1000 years had a so small but not null measure, it will come into existence by MWI, then the person which will be living this OM having my currents life as past will feel as real as I am... so what's the difference ?
 
Regards,
Quentin

--
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 10 Feb 2009, at 20:11, Brent Meeker wrote:

>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> On 10 Feb 2009, at 18:44, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>> 2009/2/10 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...>:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> This sort of talk about "random sampling" and "luck" is misleading
>>>>> and is exactly why I broke down the roles of effective probability
>>>>> into the four categories I did in the paper.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you are considering future versions of yourself, in the MWI
>>>>> sense, there is no randomness involved.  Depending on how you
>>>>> define "you", "you" will either be all of them, or "you" are just
>>>>> an observer-moment and can consider them to be "other people".
>>>>> Regardless of definitions, this case calls for the use of Caring
>>>>> Measure for decision making.
>>>>>
>>>> It seems that the disagreement may be one about personal  
>>>> identity. It
>>>> is not clear to me from your paper whether you accept what Derek
>>>> Parfit calls the "reductionist" theory of personal identity.  
>>>> Consider
>>>> the following experiment:
>>>>
>>>> There are two consecutive periods of consciousness, A and B, in  
>>>> which
>>>> you are an observer in a virtual reality program. A is your
>>>> experiences between 5:00 PM and 5:01 PM while B is your experiences
>>>> between 5:01 PM and 5:02 PM, subjective time. A is being  
>>>> implemented
>>>> in parallel on two computers MA1 and MA2, so that there are  
>>>> actually
>>>> two qualitatively identical streams of consciousness which we can
>>>> call
>>>> A1 and A2. At the end of the subjective minute, data is saved to  
>>>> disk
>>>> and both MA1 and MA2 are switched off. An external operator picks
>>>> up a
>>>> copy of the saved data, walks over to a third computer MB, loads  
>>>> the
>>>> data and starts up the program. After another subjective minute  
>>>> MB is
>>>> switched off and the experiment ends.
>>>>
>>>> As the observer you know all this information, and you look at the
>>>> clock and see that it is 5:00 PM. What can you conclude from this  
>>>> and
>>>> what should you expect? To me, it seems that you must conclude that
>>>> you are currently either A1 or A2, and that in one minute you  
>>>> will be
>>>> B, with 100% certainty. Would you say something else?
>>>>
>>> I might say that while there are two computations, there is only one
>>> "stream of consciousness".
>>
>>
>> You are right, but I think that Stathis is right too. When Stathis
>> talks about two identical stream of consciousness, he make perhaps
>> just a little abuse of language, which seems to me quite justifiable.
>> Just give a mirror to the observer so that A *can* (but does not)  
>> look
>> in the mirror to see if he is implemented by MA1 or by MA2. Knowing
>> the protocol the observer can predict that IF he look at the mirror
>> the stream of consciousness will bifurcate into A1 and A2.
>
> I don't follow that.  If A1 looks in the "mirror" and sees A2, then,  
> ex
> hypothesi, A2 looks in the "mirror" and sees A1 and the two streams of
> consciousness remain identical.

I don't understand what you mean by A1 sees A2. I guess we have a  
misunderstanding, and I have probably be not clear.
When A1 looks at itself in the third person way, he discovers is most  
probable "running universal machine", which is MA1. So the stream of  
consciousness differentiate at this point. Mallah get the correct  
probability here.




> If consciousness is computation, independent of
>  physical implementation, then computations that differ only in  
> their physical
> realizations are identical and cannot be counted as more than one.

But what we call the "physical implementations" is a sum on all  
possible computations going through the relevant states. The measure  
has to be taken on all computational histories exactly because the  
stream of consciousness is the same for all those computational  
histories.

Bruno

>
>
> Brent
>
>> Accepting
>> the Y = II rule, that is bifurcation of "future" = differentiation of
>> the whole story) makes the Stathis "abuse of language" an acceptable
>> way to describe the picture. So Stathis get the correct expectation,
>> despite the first person ambiguity in "two identical stream of
>> consciousness".
>> If two infinitely computations *never* differentiate, should we count
>> them as one? I am not sure but I think we should still differentiate
>> them. UD generates infinitely often such infinitely similar streams.
>> That should play a role for the relative (to observer-moment) measure
>> pertaining on the computations. OK?
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> >

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Feb 2009, at 00:38, Günther Greindl wrote:

>
> I'm with Mike and Brent.
>
> Bruno, giving A1 and A2 mirrors which would show different stuff
> violates Stathis' assumption of running the _same_ computation - you
> can't go out of the system.

See my answer to Brent. Once A1 looks at itself in the mirror (and  
thus A2 too, given the protocol). A1 sees MA1 and A2 sees MA2, and the  
computation differs. It is like being duplicated in two identical  
rooms. This change the (local and relative) measure, because if you  
open the "box" in the room you will find zero or one, but not both.



>
>
> And your remark that we should differentiate infinite identical  
> platonic
> computations confuses me - it seems to contradict unification (which I
> gather you assume).

Not if you distinguish first person and third person. It is the third  
person computations which gives the local relative probabilities, but  
yes the stream of consciousness (first person) is the same. This lead  
to a vocabulary problem like chosing the word "bifurcation" or  
"differentiation" for computation which, at some point *becomes*  
different.
Consciousness is unique and immaterial. As such it resides in  
"Platonia". Life, that is embedding in relative computaional histories  
is what makes consciousness differentiate.

>
>
> Measure can only be influenced by _different_ computations supporting
> the same OM.

You are right, but different computations can be understood locally  
and globally. The "computation of me up to Washington is different of  
the computation of me up to Moscow, even when I am still in Brussels.  
It is contained in the Y = II idea. Note that the same "vocabulary"  
problem occurs with Quantum Physics.

Of course we still lack a definite criteria of identity for  
computation. But we can already derive what can count as different  
computations if we want those measure question making sense.


Best,


Bruno

>
>
> Cheers,
> Günther
>
> Michael Rosefield wrote:
>> I agree. They are both pointers to the same abstract computation.
>>
>>
>> --------------------------
>> - Did you ever hear of "The Seattle Seven"?
>> - Mmm.
>> - That was me... and six other guys.
>>
>>
>> 2009/2/10 Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...
>> <mailto:meekerdb@...>>
>>
>>
>>    Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>> On 10 Feb 2009, at 18:44, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>>
>>>> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>>>> 2009/2/10 Jack Mallah <jackmallah@...
>>    <mailto:jackmallah@...>>:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> This sort of talk about "random sampling" and "luck" is  
>>>>>> misleading
>>>>>> and is exactly why I broke down the roles of effective  
>>>>>> probability
>>>>>> into the four categories I did in the paper.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you are considering future versions of yourself, in the MWI
>>>>>> sense, there is no randomness involved.  Depending on how you
>>>>>> define "you", "you" will either be all of them, or "you" are just
>>>>>> an observer-moment and can consider them to be "other people".
>>>>>> Regardless of definitions, this case calls for the use of Caring
>>>>>> Measure for decision making.
>>>>>>
>>>>> It seems that the disagreement may be one about personal
>>    identity. It
>>>>> is not clear to me from your paper whether you accept what Derek
>>>>> Parfit calls the "reductionist" theory of personal identity.
>
> >

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/2/11 Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...>:

>> But the same could be said about everyday life. The person who wakes
>> up in my bed tomorrow won't be me, he will be some guy who thinks he's
>> me and shares my memories, personality traits, physical
>> characteristics and so on. In other words, everyone only lives
>> transiently, and continuity of consciousness is an illusion.
>
> I think I understand your point, but I don't see that the continuity of
> consciousness is any more an illusion than any other continuity: the continuity
> of space, the persistence of objects, etc.  You are just generalizing Zeno's
> paradox.  But once you look at it that way, the question becomes, "Why imagine
> the continuity is made up of discrete elements?"  It is this conceptualization,
> points in space, moments in time, observer moments as atoms of consciousness,
> that creates the paradox.  So maybe we should recognize continuity as
> fundamental.  The continuity need not be temporal, it could be a more abstract
> property such a causal connection or perhaps what Bruno says distinguishes a
> computation from a description of the computation.

I don't think it makes a difference if life is continuous or discrete:
it is still possible to assert that future versions of myself are
different people who merely experience the illusion of being me.
However, this just becomes a semantic exercise. Saying that I will
wake up in my bed tomorrow is equivalent to saying that someone
sufficiently similar to me will wake up in my bed tomorrow.



--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Jack Mallah]

--- On Wed, 2/11/09, Quentin Anciaux <allcolor@...> wrote:
> I don't get it. Why should the "measure" suddenly decrease at 80 (or 100) years old ? Why not 30 ? Why not 4 ?

Heart disease.  Cancer.  Stroke.  Degradation of various organs leading to death.  Such ailments are known to strike older people more than young people.  Are such things unheard of in your country?

I wouldn't call it "sudden", but certainly by 100 the measure has dropped off a lot.  By 200, survival is theoretically possible, so the measure isn't zero, but such cases are obviously quite rare.

> Also this is still assuming ASSA and does not take in accound that my next momemt is not a random momemt (with high measure) against all momemts, but a random momemt again all momemts that have my current moment as memories/previous.

There is no randomness whatsoever involved.  See my replies to Stathis.




     


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