Re: A question concerning the ASSA/RSSA debate
On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 04:48:58AM -0700, Youness Ayaita wrote: > So, I don't see any need for some kind of fundamental measure for > observer moments. Whenever we have a restriction defining a subclass > of observer moments that are of interest, we are naturally driven to > the RSSA and to a specific measure. If we have no restriction, then we > assign equal measure to all observer moments leading to the ASSA. I do > not see the categorical difference between the two concepts. Can you > make clear where the difference lies? > > Thank you > > Youness Ayaita > The way I use the term, the ASSA just refers to use a global measure for answering the question "What is my next OM experienced". For other questions using a global measure over OMs, the original term SSSA (strong SSA) should be used. I'm aware of a few situations (mostly hypotheticals) where the SSSA is valid. The SSA refers to a global measure on birth moments, and the RSSA is typically based on the SSA. The everything list wiki has some notes on the RSSA/ASSA distinction - I'm wondering if these shouldn't be inserted directly into Wikipedia, as the everything wiki has been near death since its inception. Cheers -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
On Wed, Sep 19, 2007 at 12:10:33PM -0700, "Hal Finney" wrote: > The lifetime formulation also captures the intuition many people have > that consciousness should not "jump around" as observer moments are > created in the various simulations and scenarios we imagine in our > thought experiments. That was the conclusion I reached in the posting > referenced above, that teleportation might in some sense "not work" > even though someone walks out of the machine thousands of miles away > who remembers walking into it. The measure of such a lifetime would be > substantially less than that of a similar person who never teleports. > > Hal Finney I note that you have identified yourself with the the ASSA camp in the past (at least I say so in my book, so it must be true, right! :). What you are proposing above is an anti-functionalist position. The question is does functionalism necessarily imply RSSA, and antifunctionalism imply the ASSA? ie, does this whole RSSA/ASSA debate turn on the question of functionalism? I wonder where this leaves Mallah, who admits to computationalism, yet is died-in-the-wool ASSA? Cheers -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: One solution to the Measure Problem: UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe
[I want to first note for the benefit of readers that I am Hal Finney
and no relation to Hal Ruhl - it can be confusing having two Hal's on
the list!]
Rolf Nelson writes:
> UDASSA (if I'm interpreting it right, Hal?) says:
>
> 1. The measure of programs that produce OM ("I am experiencing A, and
> I remember my previous experience as B") as its single output,
> compared to the measure of programs that produce OM ("I am not
> experiencing A, and I remember my previous experience as B") as its
> single output, is what we perceive as "the likelihood of A following
> B, rather than A not following B."
I think you mean, "the likelihood of A following B rather than not-A
following B". That's probably reasonable, although I suggested a somewhat
different approach in this (as usual) somewhat overly long posting:
http://www.nabble.com/Teleportation-thought-experiment-and-UD%2BASSA-tf3057020.html#a8498222
Imagine that we could write down a description of a person's mental
states for his whole lifetime, from birth to death. Every possible such
sequence would be a possible lifetime and would exist in the universe
of all information patterns. Some would have higher measure than others.
As usual, it is plausible that the highest-measure such lifetimes would
be those which exist as parts of universes that have reasonably simple
descriptions.
Then we can get at your question of what is the likelihood of A following
B by asking, what is the measure of all lifetimes which experience event
B followed by event A, compared to the measure of all lifetimes which
experience event B not followed by event A.
The difference from what you expressed would be, for example, if some
future civilization creates simulated OMs which remember B followed by
A, while in the "real world" B did not get followed by A. Your OM based
formulation might have those future OMs add quite a bit of measure to
B-then-A, while the lifetime based formulation would consider those
as less important, because of the discontinuity between the "original"
lifetime and the future simulation of B-then-A.
The lifetime formulation also captures the intuition many people have
that consciousness should not "jump around" as observer moments are
created in the various simulations and scenarios we imagine in our
thought experiments. That was the conclusion I reached in the posting
referenced above, that teleportation might in some sense "not work"
even though someone walks out of the machine thousands of miles away
who remembers walking into it. The measure of such a lifetime would be
substantially less than that of a similar person who never teleports.
Hal Finney
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Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
Bruno Marchal skrev: Le 19-sept.-07, à 09:59, Youness Ayaita wrote (in two posts): Probably, we won't find the set of natural numbers within this universe, the number of identical particles (as far as we can talk about that) of any kind is finite. Not in all "models" (cf type 1 multi-realty of Tegmark). The type 1 multi-reality of Tegmark does not require infinity. The type 1 multi-reality is true also in a finite universe, that is *enough* big... -- Torgny Tholerus --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
Le 19-sept.-07, à 09:59, Youness Ayaita wrote (in two posts): > You mentioned the ASSA. Yesterday, motivdated by your hint, I have > read about the ASSA/RSSA debate that is said to have divided the list > into two camps. Since I have trouble with the reasoning I read, I will > probably send a new message hoping for leaving the misunderstanding > behind. > Searching for the Universal Dovetailer Argument, I found a quite > formal demonstration that you wrote in the list, and an even more > formal demonstration that you published in the original work. I do see > the advantage to have such a formal demonstration when it comes to > detailed discussions, but sometimes I'd prefer a simplified outline to > get the basic idea and the main conclusions before going into detail. > If you have written such an outline (in English or in French as well) > I would be thankful to get the link. Otherwise I'll read one of the > formal versions in the future. Actually I like to say that the UDA is informal, yet rigorous. The *formal* counterpart of the UDA is given by the "interview" of a lobian machine (or a couple of lobian machines). Thios part is called sometimes AUDA for Arithmetical UDA because it gives a translation of the thought experiment and its consequence into arithmetic. It leads also to a theory of everything: intensional number theory (which is equivalent to informal extensional number theory + computer science/mathematical logic, in a large sense). Now the main consequence of the UDA is so startling (relatively to our current Aristotelian (naturalistic, materialist, physicalist prejudices) that I prefer that people got them by themselves. By knowing just the result, you could aswell decide I should go in some asylum! But I can give you a short (but risky, thus) outline: I use the computationalist thesis as a working hypothesis. The idea is to take seriously that hypothesis and to derive consequences from it. If the consequences are too much absurd, then this can be seen as an argument against comp. But up to now comp does not lead to contradiction; it leads just too some weirdness. BY comp I mean CT + "Yes doctor". CT is for CHURCH THESIS (sometimes called Church Turing Thesis; Post Law, etc.). CT asserts the existence of a *universal* language (or of a universal machine, which is the one "understanding" that language). The universality concerns computability abilities (not the provability one, for which there is no equivalent theses). CT has many forms, like: the language LAMBDA is universal, FORTRAN is universal, JAVA is universal, etc. Those are provably equivalent. "Yes doctor" is the assumption that there is a level of description of myself such that I survive (or see nothing changed) when a functional substitution is made at that level. It is almost an operational definition: you are a comp practitioners when you accept that your doctor substitutes *any* part of what you think to be your body. Amateurs of MATRIX and novels like SIMULACRON III can appreciate this ... (like amateurs of Plato ...). The UDA then consists in a many steps thought experiment showing that IF comp is correct THEN physicalism is false, and to solve the mind body problem you have to, not only get a theory of mind, but you have to justify the belief in natural law entirely through a relative measure on Sigma_1 sentences (corresponds to the state accessible by the UD). > > On 18 Sep., 16:23, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> So without putting any >> extra-stcruture on the set of infinite strings, you could as well have >> taken as basic in your ontology the set of subset of N, written P(N). >> Now, such a set is not even nameable in any first order theory. In a >> first order theory of those strings you will get something equivalent >> to Tarski theory of Real: very nice but below the turing world: the >> theory is complete and decidable and cannot be used for a theory of >> everything (there is no natural numbers definable in such theories). >> From this I can deduce that your intuition relies on second order >> arithmetic or analysis (and this is confirmed by the way you introduce >> time). > > Bruno and Russell, I don't want to interfere with your discussion. But > I want to say something concerning the mathematics applied to study > the ensemble of infinite bitstrings (which is, as you, Bruno, > mentioned correctly, equivalent to the power set of the natural > numbers). For me, the Everything ensemble is something given. I have no problem with that. > I'm not > forced to restrict myself to the use of mathematical structures > definable by the structure of the Everything ensemble. I can use the > whole of mathematics developed until today in order to study the > Everything ensemble. Yes, you are right; at least concerning the way you prove propositions about the "Everything Ensemble". But obviously, if your "everything ensemble" is supposed to be the ontiic pa
Re: A question concerning the ASSA/RSSA debate
On 18/09/2007, Youness Ayaita <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What remains unclear in this definition is the term "reference class" > which is also the source of the ASSA/RSSA debate. When we want to know > which observer moment to expect "next", we look at the class of all > observer moments provided with a measure. The ASSA applies a uniform > measure over all observer moments, whereas supporters of the RSSA may > for example apply the Born rule to the class of observer moments given > by quantum theory. That's an outline of how I understand it. One of the main issues of contention where the ASSA/RSSA distinction has come up on this list is quantum immortality. In the situation where your measure in the multiverse will plummet in the next moment as the result of some disaster which will from a third person perspective almost certainly kill you, ASSA proponents say that from a first person perspective too you will almost certainly die, while RSSA proponents say that from a first person perspective you will certainly survive. The way the problem is stated - what will I experience in the next moment? - sets the reference class: those moments of conscious experience which could qualify as my "next moment". > I have serious problems with this kind of reasoning. It suggests the > misleading idea of some entity (let's call it the "self") jumping from > one observer moment to the next. In general, this is a very > questionable concept, of course. I feel satisfied with the idea that > the observer moments don't come up with a measure by themselves and > that nothing at all is jumping. Nothing at all is jumping, but it feels as if something is jumping. Continuity of consciousness may be an illusion, but it's an illusion that people generally wish to continue. > We will introduce measures for practical reasons depending on the > problem we are concerned with. The same holds for the study of chains > of observer moments. In each case, I will find it useful to introduce > different concepts that will show resemblance to the ASSA or RSSA. > > 1st problem: "What will I experience next?" > > I refused the idea of the 'self' being an entity jumping between > observer moments. So the word "I" does not refer to something fixed. > It is a vague perception of self-identification (e.g. to be Youness > Ayaita) that is part of the current observer moment. If we consider > the evolution of the observer from a third person perspective (within > our world and its usual dynamics), then we will see how the observer > changes with time. Though, as far as his capacity for remembering did > not disappear, the observer will still find within himself the old > self-identification. This self-identification makes the observer have > the feeling that his identity is something constant which is > preserved. This feeling gives a meaningful understanding of the word > "I" in the question of interest. By the word "I" the question > restricts the class of observer moments to those who share the > mentioned self-identification, e.g. to be Youness Ayaita. This class > probably consists for the most part of observers that other observers > would identify as Youness Ayaita, too. > > The word "next" (despite of the fact that it makes only sense in > worlds with time) leads to a further restriction to the class of > observer moments: The observer moment to choose must include the > memory that the last experience was to ask the question: "What will I > experience next?" The small subclass we have now typically corresponds > to what we would expect from quantum theory. The measure that comes up > with it corresponds to the Born rule. > Nonetheless, the Born rule is not of general applicability here. For > example, if the observer falls into coma and wakes up some years later > or if he is frozen for some time in some futuristic machine, the > observer moments waking up at a later time must have a nonzero measure > as well. On the contrary, if the observer experiences a dangerous > accident losing his capacity for remembering, the observer moment > after the accident has a zero measure for the question of interest. > > To summarize, we see that a specific question leads to a specific > measure. In this case, we get a result usually assigned to the RSSA. Right! > 2nd problem: Having had an accident that led to the loss of his > capacity for remembering, an observer asks himself (before noticing > his environment): "Who am I?" > > In this case, the self-identification process failed. Thus, the word > "I" cannot be refered to a self-identification but rather to the > identification by other observers. The class of observer moments of > interest is restricted: We are only interested in conscious observers > that don't have a self-identification process. Thus, in worlds similar > to ours we would assign a non-zero measure to all observer moments > waking up after such an accident or having lost their capability of > self-identification due to some kind
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 04:23:58PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> OK. You know I like your little book as an introduction to the field,
> but, as you have already acknowledge, there is some lack in rigor in
> it, and it is not even clear if eventually you are of the ASSA type or
> RSSA type, or if you accept comp or not. Use of Bayes and Prior, for
I am clearly on the record, both in the book and also in the list
archives as an "RSSA type".
As far as comp is concerned, I do not assume it, but accept it as a
model of what's going on. See page 79 of my book.
> example, is a symptom of ASSA type reasoning. Distinction between 1 and
> 3 person points of view is symptom of the RSSA type of reasoning, (and
> favored with comp).
Not if the prior were actually given by the observer erself. This is
the main point of departure between Schmidhuber's and my approach.
> >
> > Not equivalent. Equivalent status. Assumption of the set of all
> > infinite strings plays the same role as your assumption of
> > arithmetical realism, and that is of the ontological background.
>
>
> I don't know. Let us fix a simple alphabet: {0, 1}. Then an infinite
> string like
>010001001110001010010111101001 . (infinite on the
> right) can be seen as the chracteristic function of a subset of N (the
> first 1 in the string means then that 0 is in the set,, the second one
> that 1 is in the set etc. The resulting set is
> {0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 12, 13, 14, 22, 24, 27, 29, 34, 35, 37, 40, ...}
> So there is a bijection between the set of infinite strings on the
> {0,1} alphabet, and the subset of N. So without putting any
> extra-stcruture on the set of infinite strings, you could as well have
> taken as basic in your ontology the set of subset of N, written P(N).
> Now, such a set is not even nameable in any first order theory. In a
> first order theory of those strings you will get something equivalent
> to Tarski theory of Real: very nice but below the turing world: the
> theory is complete and decidable and cannot be used for a theory of
> everything (there is no natural numbers definable in such theories).
> From this I can deduce that your intuition relies on second order
> arithmetic or analysis (and this is confirmed by the way you introduce
> time). But then this again is really a strong assumption, far stronger
> than arithmetical realism.
Stronger in what sense? I have only assumed just enough to make sense
of the notion of complexity.
> To be sure, I still don't know if your ontic base is just "nothing"
> (but then in which theory?) or the infinite strings (again, in which
> theory and as I said you will to use rich mathematics for that), etc.
> As you know, I am trying to go a little beyond the UDA result so as to
> give a little smell of the real thing. The trouble is that the basic
> tools of logic and axiomatic are not very well known by anybody but the
> professional logicians.
>
Its not so much that, but in how you interpret the logical
results. Calling G*/G an angel for instance might be colourful
rhetoric, but it doesn't really mean much to me.
>
>
>
> > It might seem like such uncountable sets are too much to assume, but
> > in fact it is the simplest possible object. It has precisely zero
> > information.
>
> Zero information. Zero justification. Occam razor ... I do agree with
> these major motivations for the everything idea, but I disagree with
> the proposition saying that the the set of strings needs
> zero-information. Why not the infinite strings on both right and left
> (coding the integers), or infinite many-dimensional lattices fit with
> zero and one on the vertex, or etc. ?
Information theory is defined on one-sided strings. It would be
possible to redefine complexity to use two-sided strings, or subsets
of N, or real numbers, but you just end up with an isometric theory,
it wouldn't be saying anything different/
> There is just a lack of enough precise definition so as to verify your
> statements that strings needs zero-information, and as I say above,
> from some standard and traditional view points, infinite strings needs
> a lot of information to be define.
>
>
> > No countable set has this property.
>
> Why?
>
For finite sets, one has the objection - why that finite number? For
infinite countable sets, can one even define a measure?
>
> > I put your objection
> > into the same category as those who claim the multiverse is
> > ontologically profligate. Apologies to intuistionists out there.
>
>
> Apologies to intutionists and also to constructivist like Schmidhuber,
> but also to weak arithmetical platonist like, imo, digital mechanist
> ought to be.
>
>
>
> >>> Obviously I'm departing from
> >>> Schmidhuber at that point, and whilst in "Why Occam's Razor" I use
> >>> the
> >>> term Schmidhuber ensemble to refer to this, in my book I distinguish
> >>> between Schmidhuber's Great Programmer idea
> >>
> >>
> >> (which
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
On Sep 19, 2:23 am, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Schmidhuber and me do agree on comp (100% > agreement: we have the same hypothesis). And relatively to the comp hyp > and the importance of the universal machine Schmidhuber and me are much > closer than with Tegmark whi is just very naïve about notion of > mathematical reality. *sigh*. I of course, don't even agree with comp. One day when I'm better educated, I'm going to have to come back and teach both you, Schmidhuber and Tegmark a lesson ;) Now the problem is that, unlike many people in > this list, Schmidhuber does not address neither the mind body problem > nor the 1-3 person distiinction, and the relativity of states which > derives from that distinction. This forces him to literally defend the > idea that randomness in nature never really exist, which is hard to > justify in front of the physical branch of history we are living. This > does not makes his work wrong, but at least incomplete (and then he > should use Bennett notion of depth for the cosmological/geographical > aspect (like I do in Conscience et mécanisme: using just Kolmogorov is > not enough, but here I am going out topic. You should think carefully about the distinctions you just mentioned (1st-3rd person distinction) and mind-body problem, because it seems to me that the reality of these distinctions is precisely what is at odds with comp. I've talked often about 'the three types of properties' (for my property dualism) : Mathematical, Teleological and Physical. These three properties are based on three different kinds of distinction: Mathematics: The distinction is *model/reality* (or mind-body, information, concept). Teleology: The distinction is *observer/observerd* (self-other or 1st person/3rd person, intention) Physics: The distinction is *here/there* (space, geometry). These are simply three incommensurable types of distinction. You (believers in comp) can try to derieve the observer/observed and here/ there distinctions from the model/reality distinction all you want, you just won't succeed. Nor will materialists ever succeed in extracting a model/reality and observer/observed distinction from a here/there distinction. That's why both materialism *and* comp must fail. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
On Sep 19, 1:18 pm, Hal Ruhl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Marc: > > The objects I use are divisions of the list - such divisions are > static elements of the power set. > > My objects have nothing to do with programing and do not change - > they can be the current state of a something on its path to completion. > > Hal > It sounded to me like you were confusing universals and particulars. The list of properties used to define an object (the univerasl) cannot be equated to a particular instance of an object possessing these properties (a particular). That's why in programming there's a sharp division between classes and objects when modelling the world. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
On 18 Sep., 16:23, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > So without putting any > extra-stcruture on the set of infinite strings, you could as well have > taken as basic in your ontology the set of subset of N, written P(N). > Now, such a set is not even nameable in any first order theory. In a > first order theory of those strings you will get something equivalent > to Tarski theory of Real: very nice but below the turing world: the > theory is complete and decidable and cannot be used for a theory of > everything (there is no natural numbers definable in such theories). > From this I can deduce that your intuition relies on second order > arithmetic or analysis (and this is confirmed by the way you introduce > time). Bruno and Russell, I don't want to interfere with your discussion. But I want to say something concerning the mathematics applied to study the ensemble of infinite bitstrings (which is, as you, Bruno, mentioned correctly, equivalent to the power set of the natural numbers). For me, the Everything ensemble is something given. I'm not forced to restrict myself to the use of mathematical structures definable by the structure of the Everything ensemble. I can use the whole of mathematics developed until today in order to study the Everything ensemble. Let's consider our universe that is studied by physics. Probably, we won't find the set of natural numbers within this universe, the number of identical particles (as far as we can talk about that) of any kind is finite. Nonetheless, it is useful to define the natural numbers and to construct rational, real and even complex numbers in order to study the universe. A vivid though quite ridiculous example might be: When we study the unaffected tropics, we go there with cameras despite of the fact that cameras don't come from the tropics. As Everything ensemble, we use the set of infinite bitstrings. But the Theory of Everything, which doesn't really exist so far, may use every mathematical structure that proves to be useful. This of course differs seriously from arithmetical realism. Youness --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
