RE: mo' FIN
Jacques Mallah wrote: Actually I am still waiting to see the full UDA argument! I don't think you ever posted more than bits and pieces of it, without the precise definitions that I requested, and you referred people to papers written in French. But I'll check ... The full UDA appears at http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m1726.html A better more recent version is in the conversation with Joel Dobrzelewski: see the main links at http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m3044.html (note also that some people on the list seems to arrive independently to similar conclusions). (The older version in the list was called P-omega experience. I did explain my view, check the archive. But don't say that I believe in what you call comp. I never claimed to believe it, mainly because I have yet to see a clear definition of it. I believe in computationalism, meaning that computations (effectively) give rise to consciousness. The word survive appears nowhere in any definition of computationalism I might give. You *did* accept my way of presenting comp (saying yes to the brain surgeon proposing an artificial digital brain/body made at *some* level of description). You *do* give some meaning to survive, if only to prove us that comp immortality (QTI) entails that we should find ourself older than the expected age common for our species. More precisely, I don't see any 1st person view, other than as a description of what an observer-moment experiences. That's not too bad, and it is enough for the UDA. (the translation of the UDA in the language of a sound machine need a little more rigorous definition, possible with G and G*, we will probably come to that later). But the set of all such experiences is what the objective (which you might call 3rd person, but I don't) view describes. The objective truth has all the information, which we should guess as best we can. Both the thought experiences and the incompleteness phenomena can be used for explaining why the objective truth cannot have all the information. This is important and can be made completely precise. (something different but related happens in quantum self-reference, cf Albert's work). You say me (and thus, the 1st person concept) can't be defined. Maybe you have some idea of what you mean by it, but if you can't define it, there's no way you could ever convey that information to another person. that case, you might as well stop posting. First babies cannot define milk but can convey information about milk to another person. It is naive to believe we must define all the terms of our talk for using them. Second: me can be *both* interpreted from a 1 and 3 person pov. (pov = point of view). me can be precisely defined from a 3 pov: through a bet on a level of substitution. The fact that me cannot be defined from a first person pov does not entail that me cannot be made mathematically precise in a theory of the 1 person. I agree this is a subtil point (clearly ununderstood by people like Penrose or Lucas). We will see that the logic S4Grz is able to formalise the notion of informal and unformalisable proof!!! The trick is made simple once you realise the gap between truth and provability (captured by the gap between G and G* in the modal setting). My problem: logic is not very well known, but then I explain all details when people asks me so. I have little doubt that you pull some questionable tricks in reaching that conclusion, but here we get into the technical part that you have never fully explained on this list, I believe. Almost fully. The missing part are the non original part of my thesis: mainly Godel, Lob, Solovay theorems. I have begin recently a path toward such an explanation (diagonalisation 1: http://www.escribe.com/science/theory/m3079.html). I intend to go slowly but surely ... [...] You have never given a precise definition, but you always have the word survive in there, so maybe when you translate the implications of comp into precise mathematics you in effect are effectively assuming that conclusion from the start. At some time I will explain that indeed there is no possible precise definition of survive. Still the word has a folk meaning precise *enough* to understand that comp entails the reversal psycho/physics. If you don't understand the word survive you should remain silent about any mortality/immortality question. To believe in mortality = to believe there is an experience x such that I don't survive x. To believe in immortality is to believe that for all experience I survive x. If you don't understand the word survive you should be agnostic about FIN (your term). Now I agree with you: it can be argued that the immortality is build in in comp. No problem with that. You should show then comp being false or inconsistent. It's not meant to be comical. Scientists always doubt that they really have the complete right answer, but one the other hand, it is
RE: FIN too
Oh, I forgot my main problem with QTI :-) Basically it's to do with the rate at which decoherence spreads (presumably at the speed of light?) and the finite time it takes someone to die. So if you were shot (say) the QTI would predict that there was some point in the process of your body ceasing to operate at which some unlikely quantum processes separated branches of the multiverse in which you died to ones in which you remained alive (forever, presumably). The problem is working out exactly where that happens (I suspect it gets worse if you include relativistic considerations). Another question is what happens in cases of very violent death, e.g. beheading. After someone's head is cut off, so they say, it remains conscious for a few seconds (I can't see why it wouldn't). According to QTI it experiences being decapitated but then survives indefinitely - somehow . . . well, I'd like to hear what QTI supporters think happens next (from the pov of the victim). Are they magically translated into a non-decapitated version of themselves, and if so, how? Surely it can't be in the same quantum state that they're in? If not, do they experience indefinitely continued survival as a severed head, or . . . what??? Just curious! Charles -Original Message- From: Charles Goodwin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, 4 September 2001 1:42 p.m. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: FIN too Um, OK, I don't want to get into an infinite argument here. I guess we both understand the other's viewpoint. (For the record: I don't see any reason to accept QTI as correct, but think that *if* it is, it would fit in with the available (subjective) observational evidence - that being the point on which we differ. I also think that for QTI to be correct, a number of other things would have to hold - space-time would have to be quantised, objects in the same quantum state would have to be literally identical (no matter where they happened to be in the uni/multiverse) . . . and, either the multiverse has to exist, or our universe has to be infinite . . . and probably a few other points I can't think of right now!) Charles -Original Message- From: Jacques Mallah [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, 4 September 2001 1:12 p.m. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: FIN too From: Charles Goodwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] [Jacques Mallah wrote] But there's one exception: your brain can only hold a limited amount of information. So it's possible to be too old to remember how old you are. *Only if you are that old, do you have a right to not reject FIN on these grounds.* Are you that old? Yeah, that's one of my objections to QTI. Although perhaps add-on memory chips will become available one day :-) OK. (And even if the chips become available, you'd probably only be able to add a finite # before collapsing into a black hole.) Right. Do you think you are in an infinitesimal fraction, or in a typical fraction? Infinitesimal, if QTI is correct, otherwise fairly typical. Assuming QTI is correct and ignoring any other objections to it, it's *possible* for me to be in an infinitesimal fraction - in fact it's necessary. Right - which is why Bayesian reasoning falsifies FIN, but only with 100% reliability as opposed to complete reliability. but according to QTI I *must* pass through a phase when I see the unlikely bits, no matter how unlikely it is that a typical moment will fall into that phase. Even if I later spend 99.999% of my observer moments seeing the stars going out one by one, there still has to be that starting point! Right, again, that's why the reliability is just 100%. My (ahem) point is, though, that none of us ARE at a typical point (again, assuming QTI). In fact we're in a very atypical point, just as the era of stars might be a very atypical point in the history of the universe - but it's a point we (or the universe) HAVE TO PASS THROUGH to reach more typical points (e.g. very old, no stars left...). Hence it's consistent with QTI that we find ourselves passing through this point... Right, consistent with it but only 0% of the time, hence the Bayesian argument is to put 0 credence in the FIN rather than strictly no credence. I'm not arguing for QTI here, but I do think that you can't argue from finding yourself at a particular point on your world-line to that world-line having finite length, because you are guaranteed to find yourself at that particular point at some (ah) point. Right, which is why I'm (now) careful not to make *that* argument by arbritarily using one's current age to base a reference point on. (e.g. in my reply to Bruno.) Rather, I argue that from being at a point prior to some _natural reference point_ such as the can calculate my age crierion, one
Re: FIN insanity
Jacques Mallah wrote: From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] There are different versions of QTI (let's not call it FIN). I'm certainly not going to call it a theory. Doing so lends it an a priori aura of legitimacy. Words mean things, as Newt Gingrich once said in one of his smarter moments. The most reasonable one (my version, of course) takes into account the possibility that you find yourself alive somewhere else in the universe, without any memory of the atomic bomb that exploded. I totally ignore the possibility that one could survive an atomic bomb exploding above one's head. My version doesn't imply that your a priory expected lifetime should be infinite. Your version may not imply immortality, but I don't really see how it's different from other versions (and thus why it doesn't). As I have written before, a person is just a computation being implemented somewhere. Suppose that the person has discovered that he suffers from a terminal ilness and he dies (the computation ends). Now in principle the person in question could have lived on if he wasn't diagnosed with this terminal ilness. Somewhere in the multiverse this person exists. Some time ago I wrote (I think on the FoR list) that the transformation from the old dying person to the new person is a continuous one. The process of death must involve the destruction of the brain. At some time the information that the person is dying will be lost to the person. The person might even think he is 20 years old while in reality he is 92. Anyway, the point is that his brain had stored so much information that adding new information would lead to an inconsistency. By dumping some of the information, the information left will be identical to the information in a similar brain somewhere else of a younger person, free from disease. I say: 1) If you are hurt in a car accident and the surgeon performes brain surgery and you recover fully, then you are the same person. OK, that's merely a matter of definition though. 2) You would also be the same person if the surgeon made a new brain identically to yours. I'm not sure what you mean here. The new brain would be the same as the old you, the old one would remain the same, the old one was destroyed, or what? Well, suppose that the damaged brain contains enough information to reconstruct the original one. It doesn't matter if you repair the old one or create a new one. 3) From 2) it follows that if your brain was first copied and then destroyed, you would become the copy. A matter of definition agin, but let me point out something important. If your brain is copied, then there is a causal link between the old brain and any copies. Thus it's quite possible for an extended implementation of a computation to start out in the old brain and end up in the copy, without violating the requirement that implementations obey the proper direct causal laws. 4) From 3) you can thus conclude that you will always experience yourself being alive, because copies of you always exist. I don't see how 4 is supposed to follow from 3. In any case, it's certainly not true that copies of you always exist. Rather, people who are structurally identical do exist, but they are not copies as they are not causally linked. Even if they were linked in the past, they have diverged on the level of causal relationships between your brain parts vs. their brain parts. I don't understand why it is necessary for one person to qualify as a copy of another iff there is a causal link. 5) It doesn't follow that you will experience surviving terrible accidents. If 4 were true, I don't see how 5 could be true. 5) is true because you can survive with memory loss (see above). You would be killed, but copies of you exist that never experienced the accident. Saibal
RE: FIN
Hi, I'm sorry, it's an accident. I keep hitting 'reply' rather than 'reply to all' and because of the way the list is set up, which means I reply to the person who posted the message. It's a bad habit, because other lists I post to allow you to just hit 'reply' and your message goes to the list. There's something in the email header which tells it where to send the reply to, apparently Apologies to anyone I've replied to directly, it wasn't intentional. Charles -Original Message- From: Brent Meeker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, 2 September 2001 6:59 a.m. To: Everything-list Subject: Re: FIN Hello Jacques On 01-Sep-01, Jacques Mallah wrote: Hello. (This is not posted to the list as you just replied to me directly. If that was unintentional you can sent replies to the list, I'm just pointing it out.) Ok, although I would say to be more precise that you should identify yourself with an implementation of a computation. A computation must be performed (implemented) for it to give rise to consciousness. This seems incoherent. What's the point of a computational explanation of the world if it requires that the computation be implemented...in some super-world? The basic computational explanation is not of the world - it's of conscious observations. As for the arena where things get implemented - that could either be a physical world, or it could be Plato's realm of math. Either way makes little difference for these issues, but surely at least one of those exists. That an implementation might be in another physical world I can understand. I don't see how an implementation can be in Plato's realm of mathematics. In mathematics there are axioms and theorems and proofs - none of these imply any occurence in time. You might be able to impose an order on theorems (ala' Godel) and it might be possible to identify this with time (although I doubt this can work), but even so it is just a single order that is implicit - there is no way to distinguish two different implementations of this order. Brent Meeker The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. ---Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden
FW: FIN insanity
-Original Message- From: Saibal Mitra [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] There are different versions of QTI (let's not call it FIN). The most reasonable one (my version, of course) takes into account the possibility that you find yourself alive somewhere else in the universe, without any memory of the atomic bomb that exploded. I totally ignore the possibility that one could survive an atomic bomb exploding above one's head. My version doesn't imply that your a priory expected lifetime should be infinite. Death involves the destruction of your brain. But there are many brains in the universe which are almost identical to yours. Jacques says that you can't become one of them. I say: 1) If you are hurt in a car accident and the surgeon performes brain surgery and you recover fully, then you are the same person. 2) You would also be the same person if the surgeon made a new brain identically to yours. 3) From 2) it follows that if your brain was first copied and then destroyed, you would become the copy. 4) From 3) you can thus conclude that you will always experience yourself being alive, because copies of you always exist. 5) It doesn't follow that you will experience surviving terrible accidents. Saibal Ok, that's a similar argument to the one Frank Tipler used in 'The physics of immortality' (except that he allowed a simulation of a brain to have continuous consciousness with the original physical brain). Your version is more reasonable that Tiplers, imo, because it only assumes that 2 objects in the same quantum state *are* the same object (rather than an object and its simulation). There will almost certainly be objects in the same quantum state if the universe is infinite OR the MWI is correct, AND space-time really is quantised, AND quantum-identical objects really *are* the same object. This seems like a reasonable theory on the face of it. Hard to prove, though, unless you've had personal experience of living a *very* long time Charles
FW: FIN too
-Original Message- From: Jacques Mallah [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] The problem is that the probability isn't 0% that you'd find yourself at your current age (according to the QTI - assume I put that after every sentence!). Because you HAVE to pass through your current age to reach QTI-type ages, the probability of finding yourself at your current age at some point is 100%. At some point, yes. At a typical point? 0%. My (ahem) point is, though, that none of us ARE at a typical point (again, assuming QTI). In fact we're in a very atypical point, just as the era of stars might be a very atypical point in the history of the universe - but it's a point we (or the universe) HAVE TO PASS THROUGH to reach more typical points (e.g. very old, no stars left...). Hence it's consistent with QTI that we find ourselves passing through this point... I'm not arguing for QTI here, but I do think that you can't argue from finding yourself at a particular point on your world-line to that world-line having finite length, because you are guaranteed to find yourself at that particular point at some (ah) point. So I'm rejecting, not Bayesian logic per se, but the application of it to what (according to QTI) would be a very special (but still allowable) case. The basic problem is that we experience observer moments as a sequence. Hence we *must* experience the earlier moments before the later ones, and if we happen to come across QTI before we reach QTI-like observer moments then we might reject it for lack of (subjective) evidence. But that doesn't contradict QTI, which predicts that we have to pass through these earlier moments, and that we will observe everyone else doing so as well. I wish I could put that more clearly, or think of a decent analogy, but do you see what I mean? Our observations aren't actually *incompatible* with QTI, even if they do only cover an infinitsimal chunk of our total observer moments. Charles
Re: plato
From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 01-Sep-01, Jacques Mallah wrote: There is more than that in mathematics. Structures, for example. Anything that could be described mathematically, such as geometries, computations, and anything that could be a model of a (hypothetical) world. There's plenty of room for implementations there. Even structures in mathematics, e.g. an isocolese triangle, or a set of partial differential equations with boundary conditions are either different or they are identical (and hence indistinguishable). I don't see how they can be regarded as different implementations of the same structures or theorems. We only speak of different implementations because we can run the same program on two different computers, we can write down the same theorems on two different pieces of paper. In the Platonic realm two things that are mathematically identical are absolutely identical and hence are the same thing. There is plenty of room in Plato's kitchen, though. For example the structure that physicists think best describes our universe is in there. Different parts of that structure are not identical, but they can implement the same (type of) computation as other parts. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Physicist / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://hammer.prohosting.com/~mathmind/ _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
RE: FIN too
From: Charles Goodwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Um, OK, I don't want to get into an infinite argument here. I guess we both understand the other's viewpoint. (For the record: I don't see any reason to accept QTI as correct, but think that *if* it is, it would fit in with the available (subjective) observational evidence - that being the point on which we differ. Um, no, I still don't understand your view. I think the point that Bayesian reasoning would work with 100% reliability, even though the FIN is technically compatible with the evidence, is perfectly clear. Any reason for disagreeing, I have no understanding of. It may help you to think of different moments of your life as being different observers (observer-moments). That's really just a matter of definition. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Physicist / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://hammer.prohosting.com/~mathmind/ _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
RE: FIN too
-Original Message- From: Russell Standish [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] This case bothers me too. The initial (or perhaps traditional) response is that consciousness is lost the instant blood pressure drops in the brain, a few hundred milliseconds after the neck is severed, thus the beheading is not experienced. However, there is some anecdotal evidence (eg the beheading of Lavoisier) that consciousness can survive up to 10-20 seconds after the neck is severed. Even if this is true, it still does not eliminate magical solutions, such as waking up Matrix-style in an alternative reality. Yesor in a tipler style afterlife inside some megacomputer trillions of years in the future (or equivalently, I suppose, somewhere else in the multiverse). Definitely starts to sound like an act of faith to believe that's what would happen, though Even if you lost consciousness a split second after having your head removed, QTI would still have to explain how you got from 'immediately after being beheaded' to anywhere else...! Charles
Re: FIN too
Charles Goodwin wrote: Another question is what happens in cases of very violent death, e.g. beheading. After someone's head is cut off, so they say, it remains conscious for a few seconds (I can't see why it wouldn't). According to QTI it experiences being decapitated but then survives indefinitely - somehow . . . well, I'd like to hear what QTI supporters think happens next (from the pov of the victim). Are they magically translated into a non-decapitated version of themselves, and if so, how? Surely it can't be in the same quantum state that they're in? If not, do they experience indefinitely continued survival as a severed head, or . . . what??? Just curious! Charles This case bothers me too. The initial (or perhaps traditional) response is that consciousness is lost the instant blood pressure drops in the brain, a few hundred milliseconds after the neck is severed, thus the beheading is not experienced. However, there is some anecdotal evidence (eg the beheading of Lavoisier) that consciousness can survive up to 10-20 seconds after the neck is severed. Even if this is true, it still does not eliminate magical solutions, such as waking up Matrix-style in an alternative reality. Cheers Dr. Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 () Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centrehttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
RE: FIN too
Charles Goodwin, [EMAIL PROTECTED], writes: Another question is what happens in cases of very violent death, e.g. beheading. After someone's head is cut off, so they say, it remains conscious for a few seconds (I can't see why it wouldn't). According to QTI it experiences being decapitated but then survives indefinitely - somehow . . . well, I'd like to hear what QTI supporters think happens next (from the pov of the victim). Are they magically translated into a non-decapitated version of themselves, and if so, how? Surely it can't be in the same quantum state that they're in? If not, do they experience indefinitely continued survival as a severed head, or . . . what??? Just curious! The answer is very simple. The future that is experienced is the least unlikely that allows for continuation of consciousness. (More precisely, the probability distribution over those futures where you are still alive determines the relative probability of experience given that you find yourself alive, a tautology.) So, your head has been cut off and clunk, you fall on the ground, getting a nasty knock on the head, not to mention the neck soreness and missing body. How could you survive? There are several alternatives. It is possible that entropy ceases to operate in your brain, and that you continue to think despite the loss of blood flow. This however would be an astronomically unlikely future. More likely, aliens or supernatural intelligences of some sort would intervene to keep you alive. Alternatively, it would turn out that you were playing a futuristic video game where you had temporarily blanked out your memory to make it more realistic. Then next thing you see is Game Over. These possibilities makes most sense if you consider the set of all physical systems where you have the same mental state, rather than just the systems which are part of your corner of the QM multiverse. There are universes where aliens are monitoring the earth, unknown to its inhabitants, and the mental states of residents of earth in such universes will be identical to the states of people in some other universes without aliens. When you find yourself with head chopped off, you don't know which class of universe you are in. I would argue that there is no fact of the matter about it (this is our old argument about whether your consciousness is tied to a specific instance of the many which instantiate it). Hence you will experience the most likely continuation which is consistent with your mental experiences in any branch of the QM universe which could produce that experience. I think we all agree with the objective facts of the situation here. For any observer moment there exist other observer moments which are subjectively in its future (equivalently, for which it is subjectively in the past). The question is whether to interpret this fact as meaning continued survival. Ultimately that is a matter of definitions. Hal Finney
RE: FIN too
From: Charles Goodwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] [Jacques Mallah wrote] But there's one exception: your brain can only hold a limited amount of information. So it's possible to be too old to remember how old you are. *Only if you are that old, do you have a right to not reject FIN on these grounds.* Are you that old? Yeah, that's one of my objections to QTI. Although perhaps add-on memory chips will become available one day :-) OK. (And even if the chips become available, you'd probably only be able to add a finite # before collapsing into a black hole.) Right. Do you think you are in an infinitesimal fraction, or in a typical fraction? Infinitesimal, if QTI is correct, otherwise fairly typical. Assuming QTI is correct and ignoring any other objections to it, it's *possible* for me to be in an infinitesimal fraction - in fact it's necessary. Right - which is why Bayesian reasoning falsifies FIN, but only with 100% reliability as opposed to complete reliability. but according to QTI I *must* pass through a phase when I see the unlikely bits, no matter how unlikely it is that a typical moment will fall into that phase. Even if I later spend 99.999% of my observer moments seeing the stars going out one by one, there still has to be that starting point! Right, again, that's why the reliability is just 100%. My (ahem) point is, though, that none of us ARE at a typical point (again, assuming QTI). In fact we're in a very atypical point, just as the era of stars might be a very atypical point in the history of the universe - but it's a point we (or the universe) HAVE TO PASS THROUGH to reach more typical points (e.g. very old, no stars left...). Hence it's consistent with QTI that we find ourselves passing through this point... Right, consistent with it but only 0% of the time, hence the Bayesian argument is to put 0 credence in the FIN rather than strictly no credence. I'm not arguing for QTI here, but I do think that you can't argue from finding yourself at a particular point on your world-line to that world-line having finite length, because you are guaranteed to find yourself at that particular point at some (ah) point. Right, which is why I'm (now) careful not to make *that* argument by arbritarily using one's current age to base a reference point on. (e.g. in my reply to Bruno.) Rather, I argue that from being at a point prior to some _natural reference point_ such as the can calculate my age crierion, one can conclude that one's world-line is finite. So I'm rejecting, not Bayesian logic per se, but the application of it to what (according to QTI) would be a very special (but still allowable) case. There are no grounds to reject it in this case, since it would be reliable almost all of the time. There's no difference between using a method because it works for most people vs. using a method because it works for me most of the time. At any given time, it works for most people, too. The basic problem is that we experience observer moments as a sequence. Hence we *must* experience the earlier moments before the later ones, and if we happen to come across QTI before we reach QTI-like observer moments then we might reject it for lack of (subjective) evidence. But that doesn't contradict QTI, which predicts that we have to pass through these earlier moments, and that we will observe everyone else doing so as well. I wish I could put that more clearly, or think of a decent analogy, but do you see what I mean? Our observations aren't actually *incompatible* with QTI, even if they do only cover an infinitsimal chunk of our total observer moments. Indeed so, I know only too well what you mean. This has come up more than once on the list. I hope you understand why I say it's irrelevant. _Just like_ in the A/B case, it would be wrong to not use Bayesian reasoning just because seeing A is, yes, compatible with both #1 and #2. Seeing A could even have been a way to confirm theory #2, if the rival theory #1 hadn't existed. The bottom line is that Bayesian reasoning usually works for most people. - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Physicist / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate I know what no one else knows - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://hammer.prohosting.com/~mathmind/ _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
