On 3/11/2012 8:03 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 3/11/2012 7:39 PM, meekerdb wrote:
On 3/11/2012 2:43 PM, acw wrote:
On 3/11/2012 21:44, R AM wrote:
This discussion has been long and sometimes I am confused about the whole
point of the exercise.
I think the idea is that if comp is true, then the future content of
subjective experience is indeterminated? Although comp might seem to entail
100% determinacy, just the contrary is the case. Is that correct?
3p indeterminacy in the form of the UD*, 1p determinacy from the perspective of those
minds relative to bodies in the UD*.
However, I think that if comp is true, future experience is not only
indeterminate, but also arbitrary: our future experience could be anything
at all. But given that this is not the case, shouldn't we conclude that
comp is false?
You're basically presenting the "White Rabbit" problem here. I used to wonder if that
is indeed the case, but after considering it further, it doesn't seem to be: your 1p
is identified with some particular abstract machine - that part is mostly determinate
and deterministic (or quasi-deterministic if you allow some leeway as to what
constitutes persona identity) in its behavior, but below that substitution level,
anything can change, as long as that machine is implemented correctly/consistently. If
the level is low enough and most of the machines implementing the lower layers that
eventually implement our mind correspond to one world (such as ours), that would imply
reasonably stable experience and some MWI-like laws of physics - not white noise
experiences. That is to say that if we don't experience white noise, statistically our
experiences will be stable - this does not mean that we won't have really unusual
"jumps" or changes in laws-of-physics or experience when our measure is greatly
reduced (such as the current statistically winning machines no longer being able to
implement your mind - 3p death from the point of view of others).
This implies that our measure is strongly correlated with the regularity of physics.
I'm not sure you can show that, but if it's true it means that physics is fundamental
to our existence, even if physics can be explained by the UD. Only worlds with
extremely consistent physics can support consciousness (which seems unlikely to me).
Brent
Hi Brent,
I do not understand how you think that "only worlds with extremely consistent
physics can support consciousness" is unlikely. Are you only considering a single
momentary instance of consciousness? It is quite easy to prove that if there exist
multiple conscious entities that can communicate coherently with each other (in the
sense that they can "understand" each other) then the physics of their common world will
necessarily be maximally consistent as it if where not then pathological Harry
Potterisms will occur that would prevent the arbitrary extension of their experience.
I don't know what you mean by 'the arbitrary extension of their experience'. How would
magical events prevent anything. We have reports of miracles all the time from less
scientific places and times and they don't seem to prevent anything. We tend to not
believe them because they violate the physics which we suppose to be consistent in time
and place - but you can't invoke that as evidence that physics is consistent on pain of
vicious circularity.
Additionally, it would be extremely difficult for such worlds to have conservation laws.
But the symmetry principles that result in conservation laws are arguably human
selections. We pay attention to and build 'laws' on what does not depend on particular
time/place/orientation; so may conservation of momentum and energy are (at least
approximately) inevitable.
There is also the problem that according to current theories are many possible kinds of
physics even if you limit them to just those consistent with string theory, much less
Classical physics.
But my main point was conditional. IF consciousness is strongly dependent on physics then
Bruno's program of replacing physics with arithmetic isn't going anywhere because
arithmetic will produce too many kinds of worlds and only by studying physics will we be
able to learn about our world.
It is because of this line of reasoning that I resist the Platonic interpretation of
COMP as it puts pathological universes on the same level of likelihood as
non-pathological ones.
That's the question. Is there some canonical measure that makes the non-pathological ones
overwhelmingly likely?
Brent
Onward!
Stephen
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