By this contribution to the Everything list I want to argue that there is a fundamental equivalence between the first person and the third person viewpoint: Under few assumptions I show that it doesn't matter for our reasoning whether we understand the Everything ensemble as the ensemble of all worlds (a third person viewpoint) or as the ensemble of all observer moments (a first person viewpoint). I think that this result is even more substantial than the assumptions from which it can be deduced. Thus, I further suggest to reverse my argument considering the last statement as a principle, the equivalence principle.
Let me first present and explain the two viewpoints: 1. The ensemble of worlds This approach starts from the ontological basis of all worlds (or descriptions thereof). I am not precise to what exactly I refer by saying "worlds" and "descriptions" for I don't want to lose wider applicability of my arguments by restricting myself to specific theories of the Everything ensemble. But admittedly, I mainly think of theories similar to Russell's ideas. However, the crucial property of theories starting from the ensemble of worlds consists in their third person viewpoint. The ontological basis does not explicitly refer to observers nor to observer moments. Observers are regarded as being self-aware substructures of the worlds they inhabit. Coming from the sciences, this approach is very natural. In the sciences, we are used to the idea of a physical reality independent of us humans. We are studying phenomena happening in our universe. Thus, when we invent a theory of the Everything ensemble, we are naturally driven to the idea that not only our universe, but a multiverse consisting of all possible worlds exists. We already know how observers come into the scene: As an emergent property, a huge number of the fundamental building blocks can constitute an observer. In order to understand this, one has to introduce a semantic language which describes the emergent phenomenon. The description of the world itself is expressed in the syntactic language (I adopt Russell's nomenclature). The link between between these two languages is some kind of neurological theory explaining how the states of the fundamental building blocks (more precise: the description of the world) lead to mental states (or the emergence of an observer). Though, finding such a neurological theory is a very difficult task. In this world, we are facing the so-called hard problem of consciousness. And even if neurologists, psychologists and philosophers will finally succeed to find an adequate theory in this world, it is not clear whether we can apply the theory to other worlds. So, to conclude, this approach has the great advantage of being very close to the structure of the physical worlds. The explanation of observers and observer moments seems to be possible, but surely is very complicated and difficult. 2. The ensemble of observer moments When I first thought of the Everything ensemble, I did not come from the sciences, but from philosophy. I judged that the concept of absolute "existence" was a dubious extension of the concepts of subjective accessibility and perceptibility. So, it was natural for me to start from the ensemble of observer moments, a first person viewpoint. The class of all observer moments constitutes the ontological basis of this second approach. Later, I realized that the theory of the Everything ensemble could be used to draw conclusions about the physical world. But this seemed to be unfeasible starting from observer moments: the relatively simple laws of nature that we find in our universe are obscured by the complex properties of our senses. Starting from observer moments seemed to be a complication. Consequently, I switched viewpoints and studied the ensemble of worlds. I always hoped that both approaches would finally turn out to be equivalent. Even in principle, it is very difficult to think of "worlds" when starting from observer moments only. This task is similar to understanding observer moments when starting from the descriptions of worlds. Starting from worlds, we must identify the observer moments as substructres. Starting from observer moments, we must somehow extract information that allows us to meaningfully talk about a world. From the sciences, we know how difficult this is because there we try to find a description of our world given our observer moments. We see how complementary the two approaches are: The first approach needed some kind of neurological theory to explain the appearance of observer moments within a world, the second approach needs some kind of physical theory to explain the appearance of a world when first studying observer moments. The two approaches are another manifestation of the deep connection between laws of physics and properties of an observer. The assumptions My first assumption is related to our reasoning. The equivalence of the two approaches does not mean that they are identical. I will say that they have identical implications for our reasoning. To clarify this, I must first explain how we shall reason. Here, I take the ASSA (maybe we can check during the discussion whether or not my argument generalizes to other versions of the self-sampling assumption): 'Each observer moment should reason as if it were randomly selected from the class of all observer moments.' The second assumption is more subtle. Suppose we take the first approach, with all worlds as ontological basis. We explain observer moments with the help of some neurological theories. At first, it is not clear whether we can find every possible observer moment under these emergent observer moments. The assumption is that we can. Every possible observer moment is realized in at least one world. Perhaps, some of you remember that I wrote about this topic September last year. At that time, I came to the conclusions that the equivalence did not exist. But yesterday, I read Bostrom's paper that is currently analyzed on this list ("Quantity of experience: brain- duplication and degrees of consciousness") and I understood that September last year I took for granted what Bostrom calls "Duplication". His arguments in favor of Duplication didn't convince me, quite the opposite happened: I have adopted the other position, "Unification". The question Bostrom raises is the following: "Suppose two brains are in the same conscious state. Are there two minds [Duplication], two streams of conscious experience? Or only one [Unification]?" This may seem to be a matter of definition. But let us return to the ASSA: Which measure should be assigned to each observer moment? Given Unification it is natural to assign a uniform measure: no observer moment is more likely to be selected than any other. Given Duplication it is natural to assign a measure to each observer moment proportional to the number of its occurences in the Everything ensemble. I assume a uniform measure. Surely, we can soften this assumption. Nonetheless, it is decisive that the measure does not fundamentally depend on the worlds but can also be deduced when taking the class of observer moments as ontological basis. This is why I think that the RSSA does not do any worse than the ASSA. The equivalence principle 'Our reasoning does not depend on whether the ensemble of worlds or the ensemble of observer moments is considered fundamental.' I assumed that our reasoning should follow from the ASSA (or any other version of the SSA compatible with my argument). Due to Unification, we cannot detect any difference between the two different approaches: The measure for each observer moment is the same. The equivalence principle is a fundamental expression of what Russell so eloquently explained in his book: "Not only is our psyche emergent from the eletrical and chemical goings on in our brain, but the laws governing that chemico-electrical behaviour in turn depend on our psyche." I speculate that both approaches to the Everything ensemble, the ensemble of worlds and the ensemble of observer moments, are two different windows to the same theory. Youness Ayaita --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---