> On 26 Feb 2020, at 23:58, Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 10:35 PM Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be > <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote: > On 25 Feb 2020, at 12:43, Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com > <mailto:bhkellet...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 10:26 PM Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be >> <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote: >> >> In Helsinki, the guy write P(W) = P(M) = 1/2. That means he does not yet >> know what outcome he will feel to live. Once the experience is done, one >> copy will see W, and that is coherent with his prediction, same for the >> others. He would have written P(W) = 1, that would have been felt as refuted >> by the M guy, and vice-versa. >> >> But if he wrote p(W) = 0.9 and p(M) = 0.1 he would get exactly the same >> result. The proposed probabilities are here without effect. > > If I toss a perfect coin too. > > Huh????? If you toss a coin, perfect or not, you will get either heads or > tails -- you do not get both results in different branches of the wave > function. That is the difference here: in WM-duplication, or Everett, every > result is obtained every time, even if on different branches. That is why the > probabilities that you hypothesize at the start are irrelevant: you get the > same outcomes whatever probabilities you assign.
Here, you clearly confuse the first person experience and its third person description. If I toss a coin, I will get either head or tail not both, OK. But if a guy is duplicated from Helsinki in Moscow and Washington, that guy will live only Washington or Moscow, from its first person perspective, and, I recall, the question asked in Helsinki is about that first person experience. You can’t get both experience of being in W and in M at once. "To open the door of the reconstitution box and see W" is simply logically incompatible (in our hypothetical frame) with ""To open the door of the reconstitution box and see M”. > > > Of course, that would lead directly to some problem with the iterated case > scenario. > > I don't understand this comment. What difficulties? All, I am saying is that > no concept of probability applies in the WM-duplication case. Because you forget apparently that the question is about the first person experience. Do you agree that in Helsinki (and assuming mechanism ‘course) you know with certainty that you will have a cup of coffee (knowing that it is offered in both W and M after the reconstitutions)? > > >>> If not, tell me what is your prediction in Helsinki again, by keeping in >>> mind that it concerns your future subjective experience only. >>> >>> >>> In Helsinki I can offer no value for the probability since, given the >>> protocol, I know that all probabilities will be realized on repetitions of >>> the duplication. >> >> In the 3p picture. Indeed, that is, by definition, the protocol. But the >> question is not about where you will live after the experience (we know that >> it will be in both cities), but what do you expect to live from the first >> person perspective, and here P(W & M) is null, as nobody will ever *feel to >> live* in both city at once with this protocole. >> >> And, as I have repeated shown, the first person perspective does not give >> you any expectations at all. > > If I am duplicated like in the 2^(16180 * 10000) * (60 * 90) * 24 “movie” > scenario, I do expect seeing white noise, and I certainly don’t expect to see > “2001, Space Odyssey” with Tibetan subtitle. > > You make the same mistake as above with the coin tosses -- you are trying to > compare duplication scenarios to single-outcome scenarios. That is wrong -- > no matter how many pixels on your screen, they are all either black or white, > not both. And there are no other worlds in which all possibilities occur. The duplication/multiplication here are classical and real. All outcomes exist in the 3p picture, but each copies will write that he saw particular thing. Some rare individuals will see “2001, Space Odyssey” with Tibetan subtitle, but most will see something looking like snow (white noise). > > > I am not sure what you mean by “the first person perspective does not give > any expectations”. > > Just that you cannot assign any 1p probabilities to particular outcomes in > duplication scenarios. The probabilities are 3p. You just forget that the probabilities are *about* the 1p experience, relative to my decision made in Helsinki. You can justify those probabilities by by using the notion of bet, if you duplicate population of machines, but wu-ithout this you get them by simple counting, or by the frequency analysis made by most people. You can sample the copies, if they are too many, and justify the symmetries by the numerical identity of the copies, thanks to the digital mechanist hypothesis. > > > Do you agree that if you are promised, in Helsinki, that a cup of coffee will > be offered to you, both in M and W, you can expect, with probability one, to > get a cup of coffee after pushing the button in Helsinki? (Assuming > Mechanism, of course). > > I would expect, in Helsinki, to drink a cup of coffee with probability one > (using this protocole and all default hypotheses, like no asteroids hurt the > planet in the meantime, etc.). > > > Since both copies are given coffee, that is a certain outcome for both. OK. So now “seeing one city” will happen to both, so ”seing one city” is a certain outcome for both, too. Obviously, in Helsinki, the guy is unable to write which one in his prediction diary. OK? > > And I would consider myself maximally ignorant if that coffee will be Russian > or American coffee. > > Exactly, that is the point: you can't predict which brand of coffee you will > receive, even if you do know that you will be given coffee. > > But bringing coffee in here adds nothing. It is yet another meaningless > distraction. No, because if you agree that “I will drink some coffee” is a certain outcome, then “seeing only one city” is a certain outcome too, but then, I am not determined on which one I will see, for the same reason I am not determined on which brand of coffee I will get, and the measure of ignorance of the coffee brand is the same as the measure of ignorance of which city I will see. > >> The experience is totally symmetrical in the 3p picture, but that symmetry >> is broken from the 1p perspective of each copy. One will say “I feel to be >> in W, and not in M” and the other will say “I feel to be in M and not in W”. >> >> Regardless of any prior probability assignment. > > Exactly. > > What? Do you actually agree that there are no meaningful probability > assignments in this case? (I meant that the symmetry is regardless of the priors). > >>> I cannot infer a probability from just one trial, but the probability I >>> infer from N repetitions can be any value in [0,1]. >> >> But we try to find the probability from the theory. >> >> And we use the experimental data to test the theory. If you predict p(W) = >> p(M) =0.5, after a large number of duplications that prediction will be >> refuted by the majority of the copies. In fact, in the limit, only a set of >> measure zero will obtain p = 0.5 from their data. > > Then that is true for the iterated coin tossing too, and there is no > probabilities at all. > > > There you go again. Confusing single outcome scenarios with the duplication > scenarios in which all outcomes occur. You do confuse 1p and 3p, or you are just ignoring that the question is about the 1p experience. When you duplicate yourself, you have two outcomes only in the 3p description, but the 1p result is that you open the door of the r-box, and see one precise city, like you get one precise brand of coffee. And it is easy to see that you cannot write which one in advance in your prediction diary, that you take with you in the annihilation/copy device. > This is not 'honest dealing' in argument, Bruno. > >> As I illustrated with the WMS triplication, unknown to the candidate, we see >> that we cannot infer any probabilities, from experiences alone. >> >> What the WMS example shows is that if you guess the wrong theory, you will >> get the wrong answer. > > Yes, and that shows that the fact the guy in Helsinki knows the true protocol > is important, to derive the theoretical first person indeterminacy. > > > Knowledge of the protocol is irrelevant, for even in the third person view, > there are no meaningful individual probabilities. There are no probabilities at all in the 3p picture. The probabilities are for the 1p account on the 1p account. > All that one knows from the 3p view is that one copy will certainly be in M, > and one copy certainly in W. These are statements with p = 1. In the 3p picture, yes indeed. > And they are 3p, not 1p. Sure, but the question in Helsinki is about the 1p experience that they can expect before doing the experience. > From the first person perspective, there is indeterminacy, That is the whole point. That is the 1p-indeterminacy I am talking about (and that Clark, and only Clark, has a problem with). > but no sensible assignment of probabilities is possible. And you are right on this, in any “real case scenario”, but that is for the next steps. You anticipate rightly what will happen, perhaps. > > If you have a problem with the specific answer P = 1/2, keep in mind that > this is not use in the reduction of the mind-body problem the derivation of > matter appearance from a statistics on all computation (“all computations” > being defined in arithmetic). What is used is only the first person > indeterminacy (and some variants) and the fact that the means to calculate > the probabilities, or the credibilities, or the plausibilities is invariant > for the changes made at each step of the Universal Dovetailer Argument. > > > But the trouble is that there is no way to calculate invariant probabilities. > If each copy uses his or her individual data to estimate a probability, lover > the 2^N individual copies, all probabilities in the range (0,1) are observed > -- rendering the notion of probability totally suspect in these scenarios. A probability is never observed, but evaluated, using some theory. In the finite case, the numerical identity suggest the usual binomial, and this is easy to verify for simple scenario. > > (P = 1/2 is used just to fix the idea, and also because most people find this > to be the natural easiest solution with this “simple” protocol). > > > Using some particular value as an 'example' is completely disingenuous in > this case because there is no meaningful probability assignment. All what is used is the fact that you are maximally ignorant on the brand of coffee, and thus on the city you will see. Maximal ignorance is just modelled by P = 1/2 traditionally, but that is not important, as the math will show that we have no probabilities, but a quantum credibility measure. > >> Keep in mind that we *postulate* Mechanism. We work precisely in the frame >> of that theory/hypothesis. >> >> >> You might do so. But I do not. I am working with the protocols and data as >> they are generated. > > You seem to use also the assumption that there is a physical reality, even a > unique one. That is the point which does no more work when we assume digital > mechanism, or you need to say more about that ontological physical universe, > and explain how it makes consciousness, and how it deprives the same > computation in arithmetic of consciousness. > > Since I do not assume digital (or any other) mechanism, this comment is > irrelevant. Which is coherent with your metaphysical assumption that there is a ontologically primitive physical reality. The problem is only for those who believe in both materialism and mechanism. Now, I add that the experimental evidence favours mechanism, and disqualify materialism, up to now. > Also, whatever my theory of consciousness might be, it is irrelevant to the > points under discussion. The point is that if you believe that there is a primitive physical universe, you have to abandon mechanism. Many people believes explicitly or implicitly in both. > As usual, you raise irrelevancies in an attempt to divert attention from the > fact that you have no answer to the simple points that I am making. Now you have them. You get the first person indeterminacy quite well above. And your belief in a physical ontological universe is completely coherent with your assumption that Mechanism has to be false. So we agree on all the logical points, but might differ, or not, with personal (and irrelevant for the point I made) belief. OK. Good, we have progressed, I think. You just don’t like mechanism. I never claimed that I like it, and if you pursue the study of my contribution, you might hate Mechanism even more. No problem with that. 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