Re: First Person Frame of Reference

[George Levy]

Bruno Marchal wrote: GL wrote: A first person perception is a subjective or relative experience. A third person perception is an objective or absolute experience. Of course I would say A first person perception is a subjective experience, and then an absolute one (in the sense that it is not relativizable, if you have a headache you cannot relativize the feeling itself, although you could relativize the importance of it, ...). A third person perception is an objective experience, and then a relative one (in the sense that you will need to choose either a theory or a set of experimental devices, let us say a frame (?), without which the proof or the observation are not defined.   Here I think we agree with the words "first/third person", and "subjective/objective", but apparently we are using "absolute" and "relative" in the opposite sense. We agree on most things except on the terms relative and absolute. How strange that we should disagree precisely on those terms! This is the proof that the meaning of these terms is relative to our mental states and that our frame of reference must be different! OK let's agree at least that our terminology should be consistent with Einstein's. For example when Einstein says that length is a relative quantity he means that two observers occupying inertial frames of reference in motion relative to each other perceive the length of an object differently. On the other hand, such observers perceive a charge as an absolute quantity because in spite of their motion, the charge of an object appears identical to both observers. A third person in yet another frame of reference would perceive the charge  exactly the same as those first two obsevers. Hence length is relative and dependent on the observer's frame of reference, and charge is absolute and independent on the observer's frame of reference. In the context of relativity, first person = subjective = relative and third person = objective = absolute. Now let's move on to a Q-suicide experiment that parallels Einstein's scenario: two observers occupy different frames of reference because their continuing existence is differently contingent on a particular event (such as winning a lottery ticket). They perceive this particular event differently. As length in Einstein's relativity, this event is relative to the observers: its value or occurence depends on the observers' frame of reference. On the other hand, another event such as the movement of the moon, that has no effect or an equal effect on the life of these observers, is perceived to be absolute: like charge in relativity, the value of this event is the same for both observers or for a hypothetical third person. Are you ready for some definition? (We can abandon for a while the "absolute"/"relative" opposite view giving that we agree on the 1/3 distinction and on the subjective/objective opposition, and that's what counts in the interview of the Universal Machine (and its Godelian "Guardian Angel"). I still wish to resolve our disagreement of the terms relative and absolute because it may indicates some roadblocks in narrowing the gap. Remember, you begin with an absolute formulation but end up with a relative one and I argued that you had no justification for starting with the third person  (absolute?) formulation. My goal was to (help you?) achieve the ultimate relativization. However, yes I am ready for some definitions. :-) George