Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > I am not so sure that the standard model of personal identity with which we > are familiar would be > a universal standard. Imagine intelligent beings evolved from hive insects > which go through > several radically different life stages, frequently share genetic information > with each other > like bacteria, identify self and others via pheromones which can change or be > transferred to > other individuals... the possibilities are endless. These beings would have > an utterly alien > psychology, ethics, aesthetics, and probably also an utterly alien sense of > what it means to be a > person, including what it means to be the same person from one life stage to > another. However, if > they were intelligent, they would come up with the same scientific truths as > us, even if they > thought about them very differently, because such truths are in a fundamental > sense > observer-independent. > > Perhaps we have reached a consensus of sorts (Brent and Lee, let me know if > you disagree): > evolution has given us brains hardwired with a sense of continuity of > personal identity over time > for very good reasons, but it could have been otherwise, and it would not > have been inconsistent > with any logical or empirical fact about the world had it been otherwise. I agree, except I don't see how evolution could have worked it out otherwise for our kind of animal. Your thought-experimental day-people took supernatural intervention to evolve. Assuming that their outward behavoir comported with personal continuity; I'm not sure how much their inner narrative could differ from our own. To what degree could they really worry (an emotion) about their future circumstance without feeling that they would *be* that future person. Is there anything to continuity of personal identity besides a) the third-person continuity of body, memory, personality and b) the emotions related to anticipation of pain, pleasure, etc. You make a good point though that a species like the social insects must have a different kind of feeling of identity - if any. Richard Hofstader imagined an intelligent ant colony in which the mind supervened on the spatial and chemical interactions among individuals of the colony. This has also been addressed in fiction. Greg Egan wrote a short story about a person who woke up in a different body every morning. Stanislaw Lem, in one of his Star Diaries stories, has the hero land on a planet where everyone changes societal roles each day. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis writes > I am not so sure that the standard model of personal identity with which we > are familiar would be a universal standard. Imagine intelligent beings evolved from hive insects which go through several radically different life stages, frequently share genetic information with each other like bacteria, identify self and others via pheromones which can change or be transferred to other individuals... the possibilities are endless. These beings would have an utterly alien psychology, ethics, aesthetics, and probably also an utterly alien sense of what it means to be a person, including what it means to be the same person from one life stage to another. < Yes, I think that that is right. > However, if they were intelligent, they would come up with the same > scientific truths as us, even if they thought about them very differently, because such truths are in a fundamental sense observer-independent. < Right. > Perhaps we have reached a consensus of sorts (Brent and Lee, let me know if > you disagree): evolution has given us brains hardwired with a sense of continuity of personal identity over time for very good reasons, but it could have been otherwise, < Otherwise in the sense that if we were like insects (instead of mammals, or maybe just large primate-like creatures), yes, we might not have this lingering notion that we are the same people from day to day. And the sense that (I claim) young people have that they will not be the same people when they are old. > and it would not have been inconsistent with any logical or empirical fact > about the > world had it been otherwise. Yes, that seems so too: though no tribe of humans (or even lions, for that matter) would ever develop the notion of "day-persons" (see Mike Perry's book, Forever For All for his independent discussion of day-persons), that is indeed a contingent fact of evolution. > On the other hand, evolution has also given us brains which tend to believe > that the Earth is flat and that there is an absolute up and down in the universe, also for fairly good reasons. However, in the latter case, the received belief *is* inconsistent with empirical facts about the world. < Only inconsistent, of course, when data became available that was not available in the EEA (Environment of Early Adapteness). > This is a basic, and I think not immediately obvious, difference between > beliefs about personal identity and logical or empirical facts. < I would agree. Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Re: A calculus of personal identity
I am not so sure that the standard model of personal identity with which we are familiar would be a universal standard. Imagine intelligent beings evolved from hive insects which go through several radically different life stages, frequently share genetic information with each other like bacteria, identify self and others via pheromones which can change or be transferred to other individuals... the possibilities are endless. These beings would have an utterly alien psychology, ethics, aesthetics, and probably also an utterly alien sense of what it means to be a person, including what it means to be the same person from one life stage to another. However, if they were intelligent, they would come up with the same scientific truths as us, even if they thought about them very differently, because such truths are in a fundamental sense observer-independent. Perhaps we have reached a consensus of sorts (Brent and Lee, let me know if you disagree): evolution has given us brains hardwired with a sense of continuity of personal identity over time for very good reasons, but it could have been otherwise, and it would not have been inconsistent with any logical or empirical fact about the world had it been otherwise. On the other hand, evolution has also given us brains which tend to believe that the Earth is flat and that there is an absolute up and down in the universe, also for fairly good reasons. However, in the latter case, the received belief *is* inconsistent with empirical facts about the world. This is a basic, and I think not immediately obvious, difference between beliefs about personal identity and logical or empirical facts. Stathis Papaioannou > Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:25:07 -0700> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity> > > Stathis Papaioannou wrote:> > Brent Meeker writes:> > > > > >> I would say that what makes a statement like "we're the same person from moment to moment" true> >> is that it's an inference from, or a part of, a model of the world that is "true" in the> >> provisional sense of scientific theories, i.e. it subsumes and predicts many emprically> >> verified observations (e.g. if I wake you up in the middle of the night and ask you your name> >> you'll reply 'Stathis') and it has not made any falsified predictions. So in this sense we> >> could say that our model of personhood is better than that of the day-people - not in the sense> >> that we can show theirs is false, but in the sense that ours has greater predictive power and> >> scope.> > > > > > If I were a day-person and you woke me in the middle of the night, I would say that the person> > who went to bed last night was Stathis-1 and the person now awake is Stathis-2. I would agree> > that Stathis-1 and Stathis-2 are comprised of mostly the same matter and have similar mental> > attributes, but the fact remains, the brains of my species have evolved so that waking up from> > sleep makes them believe they are a new person. This isn't a model or a theory; it's more like> > reporting that I'm hungry, or frightened. Philosophical problems arise when this feeling of> > continuity of identity (or lack of it) is equated with some empirical fact. It happens that in> > our own evolution physical and mental continuity has been strongly correlated with the subjective> > feeling of continuity of identity, and it is tempting to say that therefore physical and mental> > continuity is equivalent to or (slightly weaker) necessitates continuity of identity. However,> > this default model that we all use day to day is flawed on two counts. Firstly, the correlation> > is not necessary, but contingent on evolutionary circumstances. It is easy enough to imagine> > rational beings like the day-people who have a completely different approach to personal> > identity. Secondly, the default model is not even internally consistent, as shown in duplication> > thought experiments. If I am to be duplicated tomorrow and one of the copies tortured, I am> > worried; but when tomorrow comes, and I am not tortured, I am relieved. How is it that I "become"> > one or other copy when my mental continuity with both is the same? There is no ambiguity in the> > empirical facts, but there is ambiguity in how I experience continuity of identity - because> > these are two different things and there is no simple, consistent relationship between them.> > Well, the default model, personal continuity, is consistent absent duplications...and there ain't > any yet.> > My example of waking you up and asking your name was a weak one. I agree with Lee that the test of > a
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Lee Corbin writes: > > There is an important difference between normative statements and descriptive or empirical statements. Quoting from Wikipedia:> > > > "Descriptive (or constative) statements are falsifiable statements that attempt to describe reality. Normative > > statements, on the other hand, affirm how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, > > which actions are right or wrong."> > Yes; it's always good to keep that in mind. Catch me if I slip ;-)> > > Suppose some powerful being sets up an experiment whereby organisms who believe they are the same individual day after > > day are selectively culled, while those who believe that they are born anew each morning and die when they fall asleep > > each night, but still make provision for their successors just as we make provision for our children, are left alone or > > rewarded> > You would then have to grant the day-people that their belief is just as good as ours, > > the difference between us just being an accident of evolution. What's more, to be consistent you would have to grant that > > a duplicate is not a self, on the grounds that the great majority of people do not believe this and our very language is > > designed to deny that such a thing is possible (only the British monarch uses "we" to mean what commoners refer to as "I"). > > Of course, actions speak louder than words. As you point out, people have> believed many seemingly strange things. I'm sure that some medieval> scholastics, or perhaps people in an insane asylum, have consistently> held many positions. What determines sanity, as well as what one's> true beliefs are, is the way that one acts. This is just the point I was making above: there are (at least) two different kinds of craziness. On the one hand there is the person who jumps off a tall building because he doesn't care if he lives or dies, and on the other hand there is the person who jumps because he thinks he is superman and will be able to fly. The result is the same - both will probably be killed - but one is deluded while the other is not. > In your example, indeed people could go around saying that they were> not the same person from day to day. But (as you also point out) > evolution might cull certain beliefs. Now what is important is that> someone *acts* as though they are the same from day to day. And in> fact, no matter how people's lips move, we would find that all but> the seriously deranged *act* as though what happened to "them" > tomorrow mattered. > > So I can imagine people *saying* that they are not the same from > day to day, but I cannot imagine successful human organisms acting> as thought they were not. In the world which we actually live in evolution has, in fact, culled those who don't believe they are the same person from moment to moment, which is why it is such a rare belief. But in the example I gave with the day-people, evolution has had the opposite effect. Intelligent and rational day-people, as described, completely agree on the objective facts of their existence with you, me, and every other rational species. They know that they are made up of substantially the same matter and have mostly the same memories and other mental attributes from day to day, but they report that they believe themselves to be different people from day to day. This would be a false belief regardless of how it evolved if continuity of personal identity were equivalent to physical and/or mental continuity. In our culture, this equivalence is generally taken for granted. But just about every example other than the single branch, birth to death existence with which we are familiar shows that this view is deeply problematic: teleportation, duplication, time travel, fission, parallel universes, alternate evolution, ad hoc psychological changes can all result in "paradoxes" of personal identity if we stubbornly stick to the intuitive, naive theory we have grown up with. > > Survival and continuity of identity consist solely in the fact that we *believe* we survive from moment to moment.> > Whereas I believe that how we act is what is important, and that our> language should simply reflect how we act. Since people do in fact> try to save their skins over days, in some sense this makes them at> least the same "vested interest".> > In your scenario, language would evolve, although perhaps awkwardly,> to account for people's behavior. For instance, contracts could no> longer be between persons (except ones whose terms expired within> the course of a single day), but instead would specify "vested > interests" or something that meant the same thing as we ordinarily> mean by "person". Not at all. A system could develop so that people feel responsible for the actions of their predecessors and successors, like a stronger form of the responsibility that we feel for the actions of family members. Some people in our society care more about the welfare of their children than they ca
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Thank you for your responses, Bruno. I will reply in return. As an overview to my original theme, I believe you missed several key notions.First, yes, I am bothered by interpretations of Godel's Incompleteness Theorems, but I avoid getting entangled in debating 'interpretations' by getting to deeper theorems-criteria and analyzing those. When I read the Theorems - which I do not have at hand to quote - it was apparent that invariant - systemwide information compatibility was and is a founding requirement -- when attempting to assess and invoke those -situations and conditions- whereby 'some' information becomes segmented and partitioned away, producing a 'self-evaluation incompleteness'. Godel expressed the projection that non-present data or rules may at some future time be made present and then-inclusive, allowing for satisfactory completion of true-false statement assessments; with the always receding horizon ... where new true-false assessments arise that are undecidable under the new added information/relations expansion. But the scenario depends upon the criteria presumption that no information is permanently incompatible with any other information. That is, he begins and foundations his entire assessment on a true-false statement that is most definitely Intuitionist. And a constructive keystone as well -- because invariant induction is at the heart of existence and of mathematics -- before any 'local' differentiations produces conditional-incompleteness states. A mathematics and systemic analysis that key on alpha-omega compatibility are far superior and more productive than those built on 'incompleteness'. But I see that no one is doing that, and they are missing critically important new understandings because they are not doing that. As far as your reaction that some of my statements were 'vague'. You might try re-reading and re-interpreting them. They were in fact rather explicit. There are very real relational analogues that scale very nicely and exactly between tiers of existence and different fields/subjects/topics also. You need to think of metaphors as a real-form of transduction, with all mapping validity retained. Best of luck Bruno ; someday 'the lightbulb'. :-) James Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 09-juil.-06, à 17:20, James N Rose a écrit : > > > > > from July 2, 2006 (lightly amended and then addended) > > > > > > Bruno, > > > > I have found myself in this lifetime to be a staunch > > OP-ponent and challenger to Godel's incompleteness theorems. > > Are they other math theorems you are opposed too? > To be frank, I could imagine that you believe having find an error. If > that is the case let me know or try to publish it. I doubt it of > course. Until now I have been able to find the error of all those who > have pretended to me having finding such an error. > Sometimes people does not challenge Godel's proof, but some > interpretation of it. That is a different matter, and obviously less > simple. > Did you realize that I have, just last week, give an astonishingly > simple proof, based on Church thesis, of a stronger form of Godel's > incompleteness? Did you try to follow it? > > > > > In the way that they are structured - with the premises > > Godel preset: of initial boundaries for what he was > > about to design by 'proof' - his theorems -are- both > > sufficiently closed and constituently -accurate- in > > their conclusion and notions. > > OK you are cautious. So you criticize an interpretation of Godel's > theorem. > > > > > _But_ what I find disturbing about them is that they are > > RELIANT on a more formative -presumption-, which presumption > > enables an analyst to draw quite a -contrary result- to what > > Godel announced. A self-discontinuity _within_ his theorems, > > as it were. > > > > Clearly, this: > > > > He tacitly identifies any information resident -outside- any that > > current/known, as -eventually accessible, connectible, relatable-; > > even if it means restructuring known-information in regard to > > alternative/new criteria and standards definitions, descriptions, > > statements. A presumption/definition of universal information > > compatibility - of all information - whether known or unknown. > > You could say this about my proof, or about Emil Post's one, or about > some simplified version of it. But it is 99% unfair to say Godel made > those presumptions. You could argue like that a little bit by invoking > its use of the omega-consistency notion, but then that case is closed > after Rosser's amelioration of Godel's proof. The Godel-Rosser proof > does not rely in any way on any semantical notion, not even AR. > Godel's proof is even constructive and completely acceptable, even for > an intuitionist. > > > > > It is through this process of "add then re-evaluate" that new > > paradigms are achieved. But, it is dependent on the compatibility > > of the -whole- scope of all the information present at that
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Brent Meeker writes: > > >> I would say that what makes a statement like "we're the same person from >> moment to moment" true >> is that it's an inference from, or a part of, a model of the world that is >> "true" in the >> provisional sense of scientific theories, i.e. it subsumes and predicts many >> emprically >> verified observations (e.g. if I wake you up in the middle of the night and >> ask you your name >> you'll reply 'Stathis') and it has not made any falsified predictions. So >> in this sense we >> could say that our model of personhood is better than that of the day-people >> - not in the sense >> that we can show theirs is false, but in the sense that ours has greater >> predictive power and >> scope. > > > If I were a day-person and you woke me in the middle of the night, I would > say that the person > who went to bed last night was Stathis-1 and the person now awake is > Stathis-2. I would agree > that Stathis-1 and Stathis-2 are comprised of mostly the same matter and have > similar mental > attributes, but the fact remains, the brains of my species have evolved so > that waking up from > sleep makes them believe they are a new person. This isn't a model or a > theory; it's more like > reporting that I'm hungry, or frightened. Philosophical problems arise when > this feeling of > continuity of identity (or lack of it) is equated with some empirical fact. > It happens that in > our own evolution physical and mental continuity has been strongly correlated > with the subjective > feeling of continuity of identity, and it is tempting to say that therefore > physical and mental > continuity is equivalent to or (slightly weaker) necessitates continuity of > identity. However, > this default model that we all use day to day is flawed on two counts. > Firstly, the correlation > is not necessary, but contingent on evolutionary circumstances. It is easy > enough to imagine > rational beings like the day-people who have a completely different approach > to personal > identity. Secondly, the default model is not even internally consistent, as > shown in duplication > thought experiments. If I am to be duplicated tomorrow and one of the copies > tortured, I am > worried; but when tomorrow comes, and I am not tortured, I am relieved. How > is it that I "become" > one or other copy when my mental continuity with both is the same? There is > no ambiguity in the > empirical facts, but there is ambiguity in how I experience continuity of > identity - because > these are two different things and there is no simple, consistent > relationship between them. Well, the default model, personal continuity, is consistent absent duplications...and there ain't any yet. My example of waking you up and asking your name was a weak one. I agree with Lee that the test of a model is in the behavoir it predicts (and not just the vocal behavoir). And on that basis I think the model of personal continuity would be a better one, and you might even convince a day-person of it; Just the reverse of trying convince people here that there isn't *really* continuity. Of course if they didn't act as if there were personal continuity, their physical continuity would likely end. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Brent Meeker writes: > I would say that what makes a statement like "we're the same person from > moment to moment" true is > that it's an inference from, or a part of, a model of the world that is > "true" in the provisional > sense of scientific theories, i.e. it subsumes and predicts many emprically > verified observations > (e.g. if I wake you up in the middle of the night and ask you your name > you'll reply 'Stathis') and > it has not made any falsified predictions. So in this sense we could say > that our model of > personhood is better than that of the day-people - not in the sense that we > can show theirs is > false, but in the sense that ours has greater predictive power and scope. If I were a day-person and you woke me in the middle of the night, I would say that the person who went to bed last night was Stathis-1 and the person now awake is Stathis-2. I would agree that Stathis-1 and Stathis-2 are comprised of mostly the same matter and have similar mental attributes, but the fact remains, the brains of my species have evolved so that waking up from sleep makes them believe they are a new person. This isn't a model or a theory; it's more like reporting that I'm hungry, or frightened. Philosophical problems arise when this feeling of continuity of identity (or lack of it) is equated with some empirical fact. It happens that in our own evolution physical and mental continuity has been strongly correlated with the subjective feeling of continuity of identity, and it is tempting to say that therefore physical and mental continuity is equivalent to or (slightly weaker) necessitates continuity of identity. However, this default model that we all use day to day is flawed on two counts. Firstly, the correlation is not necessary, but contingent on evolutionary circumstances. It is easy enough to imagine rational beings like the day-people who have a completely different approach to personal identity. Secondly, the default model is not even internally consistent, as shown in duplication thought experiments. If I am to be duplicated tomorrow and one of the copies tortured, I am worried; but when tomorrow comes, and I am not tortured, I am relieved. How is it that I "become" one or other copy when my mental continuity with both is the same? There is no ambiguity in the empirical facts, but there is ambiguity in how I experience continuity of identity - because these are two different things and there is no simple, consistent relationship between them. Lee Corbin's solution would be that we should take the empirical facts alone - both copies are me - and dismiss the nagging feelings that make us think otherwise, but this reminds me of an old Australian poem in which a drunk is receiving counselling for his addiction: "you've convinced me it's bad for me, now convince me I don't like it." Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Brent wrote > I would say that what makes a statement like "we're the same person from > moment to moment" true is > that it's an inference from, or a part of, a model of the world that is > "true" in the provisional > sense of scientific theories, i.e. it subsumes and predicts many empirically > verified observations > (e.g. if I wake you up in the middle of the night and ask you your name > you'll reply 'Stathis') and > it has not made any falsified predictions. So in this sense we could say > that our model of > personhood is better than that of the day-people - not in the sense that we > can show theirs is > false, but in the sense that ours has greater predictive power and scope. Well---I should have quoted this before I wrote that last post. Yes, accurate beliefs (as I would call them) enable one to, as you say, "subsume and predict many empirically verified observations". As for your last statement about "greater predictive power and scope", I can't quite agree, because the day-persons that Stathis postulates *could* make just as accurate statements as we do, only they'd have to do so quite circumspectly, in a round-about way. They'd have to evolve the same meanings we have, and simply avoid the use of certain terms we already employ for the purpose, e.g., "persons". If in your example, Stathis grew up in the culture he hypothesizes, then when you woke him in the middle of the night and asked him his name, he may say that he has not picked one for the day yet. If you asked him what his name was before he fell asleep, he may have to say that names are not as such used in the way you are suggesting. But if you watch his actions (instead of listening to his unusual words), then you see that the organism goes to the dentist today so that there is less pain to the "same" organism later that year. We are free to use whatever vocabulary we want to describe the situation. It's hardly a coincidence that every culture on Earth has evolved terms suggesting the continuation of personal identity beyond a day. Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis writes > There is an important difference between normative statements and descriptive > or empirical statements. Quoting from Wikipedia: > > "Descriptive (or constative) statements are falsifiable statements that > attempt to describe reality. Normative > statements, on the other hand, affirm how things should or ought to be, how > to value them, which things are good or bad, > which actions are right or wrong." Yes; it's always good to keep that in mind. Catch me if I slip ;-) > Suppose some powerful being sets up an experiment whereby organisms who > believe they are the same individual day after > day are selectively culled, while those who believe that they are born anew > each morning and die when they fall asleep > each night, but still make provision for their successors just as we make > provision for our children, are left alone or > rewarded > You would then have to grant the day-people that their belief is just as good > as ours, > the difference between us just being an accident of evolution. What's more, > to be consistent you would have to grant that > a duplicate is not a self, on the grounds that the great majority of people > do not believe this and our very language is > designed to deny that such a thing is possible (only the British monarch uses > "we" to mean what commoners refer to as "I"). Of course, actions speak louder than words. As you point out, people have believed many seemingly strange things. I'm sure that some medieval scholastics, or perhaps people in an insane asylum, have consistently held many positions. What determines sanity, as well as what one's true beliefs are, is the way that one acts. In your example, indeed people could go around saying that they were not the same person from day to day. But (as you also point out) evolution might cull certain beliefs. Now what is important is that someone *acts* as though they are the same from day to day. And in fact, no matter how people's lips move, we would find that all but the seriously deranged *act* as though what happened to "them" tomorrow mattered. So I can imagine people *saying* that they are not the same from day to day, but I cannot imagine successful human organisms acting as thought they were not. > Survival and continuity of identity consist solely in the fact that we > *believe* we survive from moment to moment. Whereas I believe that how we act is what is important, and that our language should simply reflect how we act. Since people do in fact try to save their skins over days, in some sense this makes them at least the same "vested interest". In your scenario, language would evolve, although perhaps awkwardly, to account for people's behavior. For instance, contracts could no longer be between persons (except ones whose terms expired within the course of a single day), but instead would specify "vested interests" or something that meant the same thing as we ordinarily mean by "person". > You're right, of course [in that] The belief that we are the same > person from moment to moment has a certain utility, otherwise it > would never have evolved. But do you think there is more to the idea > than evolutionary expediency? Offhand, I can't think of any reason except, as you say, evolutionary expediency. As you also say, there can be no absolute truth to the matter. Nonetheless, as I said above, if we want our words to chase our actual behavior, then there are the usual "persons". Notice the great utility of it that even fits the usage I'm suggesting. Young people strongly discount things that will happen to them when "they" are much older. But you can see a certain reason to it; in the sense I use, they may not later be the same person (of course it lies on a continuum, as you know). > Also, if a particular belief or behaviour has evolved, does that > necessarily makes it true and/or good? The belief---as all our beliefs---are either accurate (good maps) or they are not. We could call our accurate beliefs "true"---isn't that Tarski's or someone's Correspondence Theory of Truth?. For sure, a belief is good, (or perhaps I should simply say better) if either it advances survival or corresponds to the structure of the world. lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > [Working my way slowly up the list of many excellent posts from the past few > days, excuse me if > someone else has already answered this...] > > Lee Corbin writes (quoting SP): > > >>> If [a] species believed that 2+2=5, or that their kidneys were the organs >>> of respiration, >>> they would be wrong. But if they believe that they wake up a different >>> person every day, and >>> live their lives based on this belief, they would *not* be wrong; they >>> could hold this belief >>> quite consistently even if they knew all there was to know about their >>> biology. >> >> I claim that there is an important sense in which they *would* be wrong, >> that is, nature >> endowed us with a strong prejudice that we are the same creature from moment >> to moment for a >> reason. A creature exhibits a great deal of fear if a threat arises not to >> "it" itself in the >> sense of the creature this moment, but "it" in the extended sense. It acts >> consistently to >> ensure that itself of a few moments hence does not come to harm, and we, of >> course, understand >> quite well why nature did this. >> >> Creatures who do not identify with themselves a few moments hence are >> "punished". They undergo >> pain or discomfort that is linked by their intelligence to what the other >> creature (i.e. its >> self of a few moments ago) actually did. Again, in this way they become >> fearful of future >> pain, and, on the other hand, eager to ravish future gain. > > > There is an important difference between normative statements and descriptive > or empirical > statements. Quoting from Wikipedia: > > "Descriptive (or constative) statements are falsifiable statements that > attempt to describe > reality. Normative statements, on the other hand, affirm how things should or > ought to be, how to > value them, which things are good or bad, which actions are right or wrong." > > Suppose some powerful being sets up an experiment whereby organisms who > believe they are the same > individual day after day are selectively culled, while those who believe that > they are born anew > each morning and die when they fall asleep each night, but still make > provision for their > successors just as we make provision for our children, are left alone or > rewarded. After several > generations, everyone would believe that they only lived for a day, and their > culture, language > and so on would reflect this belief. Philosophers would point out that the > day-person belief, > though universally accepted and understood, is nevertheless contingent on the > particular > environment in which the species evolved. That is, it is not a fact "out > there in the world", > independent of culture and psychology, like the belief that "2+2=4" or that > "the most common > isotope of the element with six protons found in our planet's crust has six > neutrons". Everyone > capable of understanding the language would agree that these two statements > are true, or at least > that they have a definite true or false answer. The question of the truth or > otherwise of the > day-person belief is not straightforward in the same way. In order to make, > "a person lives for > a day, then dies, and another person is born the next day inheriting most of > his memories" a > true-or-false statement, one would have to add, "according to the concept of > personhood and death > that we have evolved to believe". If this latter clause is understood as > implicit, then your > treatment of the idea of continuity of identity over time is valid. You would > then have to grant > the day-people that their belief is just as good as ours, the difference > between us just being an > accident of evolution. What's more, to be consistent you would have to grant > that a duplicate is > not a self, on the grounds that the great majority of people do not believe > this and our very > language is designed to deny that such a thing is possible (only the British > monarch uses "we" to > mean what commoners refer to as "I"). > > >> Suppose on the other hand that this is incorrect. Suppose that identity does >> not extend in time >> past one Planck constant (whatever that is). Then no object or person >> "survives". But then the >> term "survival" is also lost. > > > Survival and continuity of identity consist solely in the fact that we > *believe* we survive from > moment to moment. There is no "objective fact" beyond this that can be > invoked to decide whether > we do or do not survive in ambiguous cases. Superficially it may seem that > that this last > statement is false, because we can, for example, do a DNA test, or specify > that there must be > physical and/or mental continuity between two instantiations of the same > person. However, we can > always come up with a counterexample that would fool any such test. > > >> (Words don't have absolute meanings; only meanings that convey relative >> utility a
Re: A calculus of personal identity
[Working my way slowly up the list of many excellent posts from the past few days, excuse me if someone else has already answered this...] Lee Corbin writes (quoting SP): > > If [a] species believed that 2+2=5, or that their kidneys were the organs > > of respiration, > > they would be wrong. But if they believe that they wake up a different > > person every day, > > and live their lives based on this belief, they would *not* be wrong; they > > could hold > > this belief quite consistently even if they knew all there was to know > > about their biology. > > I claim that there is an important sense in which they *would* be wrong, > that is, nature endowed us with a strong prejudice that we are the same > creature from moment to moment for a reason. A creature exhibits a great > deal of fear if a threat arises not to "it" itself in the sense of the > creature this moment, but "it" in the extended sense. It acts consistently > to ensure that itself of a few moments hence does not come to harm, and we, > of course, understand quite well why nature did this. > > Creatures who do not identify with themselves a few moments hence are > "punished". They undergo pain or discomfort that is linked by their > intelligence to what the other creature (i.e. its self of a few moments > ago) actually did. Again, in this way they become fearful of future > pain, and, on the other hand, eager to ravish future gain. There is an important difference between normative statements and descriptive or empirical statements. Quoting from Wikipedia: "Descriptive (or constative) statements are falsifiable statements that attempt to describe reality. Normative statements, on the other hand, affirm how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, which actions are right or wrong." Suppose some powerful being sets up an experiment whereby organisms who believe they are the same individual day after day are selectively culled, while those who believe that they are born anew each morning and die when they fall asleep each night, but still make provision for their successors just as we make provision for our children, are left alone or rewarded. After several generations, everyone would believe that they only lived for a day, and their culture, language and so on would reflect this belief. Philosophers would point out that the day-person belief, though universally accepted and understood, is nevertheless contingent on the particular environment in which the species evolved. That is, it is not a fact "out there in the world", independent of culture and psychology, like the belief that "2+2=4" or that "the most common isotope of the element with six protons found in our planet's crust has six neutrons". Everyone capable of understanding the language would agree that these two statements are true, or at least that they have a definite true or false answer. The question of the truth or otherwise of the day-person belief is not straightforward in the same way. In order to make, "a person lives for a day, then dies, and another person is born the next day inheriting most of his memories" a true-or-false statement, one would have to add, "according to the concept of personhood and death that we have evolved to believe". If this latter clause is understood as implicit, then your treatment of the idea of continuity of identity over time is valid. You would then have to grant the day-people that their belief is just as good as ours, the difference between us just being an accident of evolution. What's more, to be consistent you would have to grant that a duplicate is not a self, on the grounds that the great majority of people do not believe this and our very language is designed to deny that such a thing is possible (only the British monarch uses "we" to mean what commoners refer to as "I"). > Suppose on the other hand that this is incorrect. Suppose that identity > does not extend in time past one Planck constant (whatever that is). > Then no object or person "survives". But then the term "survival" is > also lost. Survival and continuity of identity consist solely in the fact that we *believe* we survive from moment to moment. There is no "objective fact" beyond this that can be invoked to decide whether we do or do not survive in ambiguous cases. Superficially it may seem that that this last statement is false, because we can, for example, do a DNA test, or specify that there must be physical and/or mental continuity between two instantiations of the same person. However, we can always come up with a counterexample that would fool any such test. > (Words don't have absolute meanings; only meanings that convey relative > utility and which correspond to actual structure in the world. An object > and even a person *does* persist in time as is revealed by a close > examination of structure. It simply isn't very different from moment > to moment, and if it is, the
Re: A calculus of personal identity (ERRATA)
Bruno Marchal a écrit (to Jamie N Rose): > Concerning your use of the word "proposition", I don't understand > exactly what you mean by the words "exists" "accessible" "perfectly > accessible", The whole sentence is rather hard to follow. > Godel used this: > From A -> B and A -> ~B, infer ~A. > > Godel did not really use the non intuitionist principle (but readily > accepted by arithmetical platonist): > From A -> B and A -> ~B, infer ~A. > > Of course Godel was platonist (even set-platonist), but he did it to > satisfy as much as possible the finititary requirement imposed by its > goal to solve (negatively) Hilbert's problem. > Of course with Church thesis, all this is made much simpler. The formula in the second paragraph should be: From ~A -> B and ~A -> ~B, infer A. Sorry. (An intuitionist will accept only "From ~A -> B and ~A -> ~B, infer ~~A.). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 09-juil.-06, à 17:20, James N Rose a écrit : > > Bruno, I reviewed the archive and found no reply. > I will repeat it again, hoping for your thoughts: > > > > > > from July 2, 2006 (lightly amended and then addended) > > > Bruno, > > I have found myself in this lifetime to be a staunch > OP-ponent and challenger to Godel's incompleteness theorems. Are they other math theorems you are opposed too? To be frank, I could imagine that you believe having find an error. If that is the case let me know or try to publish it. I doubt it of course. Until now I have been able to find the error of all those who have pretended to me having finding such an error. Sometimes people does not challenge Godel's proof, but some interpretation of it. That is a different matter, and obviously less simple. Did you realize that I have, just last week, give an astonishingly simple proof, based on Church thesis, of a stronger form of Godel's incompleteness? Did you try to follow it? > > In the way that they are structured - with the premises > Godel preset: of initial boundaries for what he was > about to design by 'proof' - his theorems -are- both > sufficiently closed and constituently -accurate- in > their conclusion and notions. OK you are cautious. So you criticize an interpretation of Godel's theorem. > > _But_ what I find disturbing about them is that they are > RELIANT on a more formative -presumption-, which presumption > enables an analyst to draw quite a -contrary result- to what > Godel announced. A self-discontinuity _within_ his theorems, > as it were. > > Clearly, this: > > He tacitly identifies any information resident -outside- any that > current/known, as -eventually accessible, connectible, relatable-; > even if it means restructuring known-information in regard to > alternative/new criteria and standards definitions, descriptions, > statements. A presumption/definition of universal information > compatibility - of all information - whether known or unknown. You could say this about my proof, or about Emil Post's one, or about some simplified version of it. But it is 99% unfair to say Godel made those presumptions. You could argue like that a little bit by invoking its use of the omega-consistency notion, but then that case is closed after Rosser's amelioration of Godel's proof. The Godel-Rosser proof does not rely in any way on any semantical notion, not even AR. Godel's proof is even constructive and completely acceptable, even for an intuitionist. > > It is through this process of "add then re-evaluate" that new > paradigms are achieved. But, it is dependent on the compatibility > of the -whole- scope of all the information present at that moment of > evaluation; and the eventual capacity to coordinate statements with > all content addressable by statements. That is a little vague for me. > > So, his thesis that at any given moment in time, The only paper where Godel mentionned time is his general relativity paper about its rotating universes. Its goal was to convince Einstein that "time" could not be a serious primary concept of physics. > not all information > is present or gathered, and that this makes for limited statement > making, where some evaluation statements in the data-set may instead > be reliant on future/other yet-to-be-included information .. is a > worthy logical notion. A closed system may not completely evaluate > itself -- some evaluations are indeterminant. In that vague sense I could agree with you, but we are lingering on many ambiguities. It is no more clear why you say you challenge Godel, at this stage. > > > But, instead of focusing on the random evaluation moment, think > about what that presumption of 'eventual includability' dictates: > > It heavily defines that we -can- (right now) state -something specific > and projective- about the qualia and nature of knowledge and > information > -- currently -beyond- the bounds of actual experience and encounter and > access. You jump from mathematical logic into the cognitive field. For this you need to say exactly how you do that. What are your bridges? (I show comp makes such an endeavor possible, but I agree that in the literature such a step is most of the time made in an wrong way ... We need to be very careful here. > > It also asserts: information 'unknown' is compatible with and > eventually relatable with information 'known'. Godel just says that: IF a proposition p is undecidable in a theory T, then you can add p, or add ~p, as possible new axioms for T without making the new theory inconsistent. > > The first foundation of Godel's '"I can't decide about that" Theorems' > is the contrary moot statement: 'I -can- decide about -everything- and > here's why'; -- which is a contradiction of logic. The negation of ~Bp is Bp (not B~p). (Bp abbreviating I can prove p). > That is: > > The "limited" set can make true-false statement about the -totality- > of e
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno, I reviewed the archive and found no reply. I will repeat it again, hoping for your thoughts: from July 2, 2006 (lightly amended and then addended) Bruno, I have found myself in this lifetime to be a staunch OP-ponent and challenger to Godel's incompleteness theorems. In the way that they are structured - with the premises Godel preset: of initial boundaries for what he was about to design by 'proof' - his theorems -are- both sufficiently closed and constituently -accurate- in their conclusion and notions. _But_ what I find disturbing about them is that they are RELIANT on a more formative -presumption-, which presumption enables an analyst to draw quite a -contrary result- to what Godel announced. A self-discontinuity _within_ his theorems, as it were. Clearly, this: He tacitly identifies any information resident -outside- any that current/known, as -eventually accessible, connectible, relatable-; even if it means restructuring known-information in regard to alternative/new criteria and standards definitions, descriptions, statements. A presumption/definition of universal information compatibility - of all information - whether known or unknown. It is through this process of "add then re-evaluate" that new paradigms are achieved. But, it is dependent on the compatibility of the -whole- scope of all the information present at that moment of evaluation; and the eventual capacity to coordinate statements with all content addressable by statements. So, his thesis that at any given moment in time, not all information is present or gathered, and that this makes for limited statement making, where some evaluation statements in the data-set may instead be reliant on future/other yet-to-be-included information .. is a worthy logical notion. A closed system may not completely evaluate itself -- some evaluations are indeterminant. But, instead of focusing on the random evaluation moment, think about what that presumption of 'eventual includability' dictates: It heavily defines that we -can- (right now) state -something specific and projective- about the qualia and nature of knowledge and information -- currently -beyond- the bounds of actual experience and encounter and access. It also asserts: information 'unknown' is compatible with and eventually relatable with information 'known'. The first foundation of Godel's '"I can't decide about that" Theorems' is the contrary moot statement: 'I -can- decide about -everything- and here's why'; -- which is a contradiction of logic. That is: The "limited" set can make true-false statement about the -totality- of existence (internal and external to its bounded known-ness); but, it cannot guarantee it's own true-false statements (without some added 'external' information, made eventually internal to a boundary). At which point, some/all old non-decidables would be rendered decidable, and, -new- undecidables would arise, apparently. I would say, the logic of future science and knowledge is -incorrectly- contrained and defined by current interpretion of Godel's Incompleteness Theorems. Rather, the logic of future science and knowledge is premised in Information and Performance Holism. The unitary interactional and information accessible quality of Existence. Which fundamental notion is what Godel ignores and rejects and tries to discredit. Where, we CAN in fact make DECISIVE STATEMENTS -about that which- the incompleteness theorems 'conclude': we should not be able to say -anything- at all. You can absolutely place me in the community of thinkers who do not "swallow the incompleteness phenomena". Because my statements/logic are not incorrect and they do identify the flaw/weakness/incorrectness in Godel. He used not a tautology but a self-contradictory tautology logic. If A then not-A ; if not-A, then never an inclusive (A & not A) as long as not-A exists; and since not-A always exists then A is not accessible to evaluate not-A, or perfectly assess itself, (A); HOWEVER, A -can- assert (A¬A) and assess (A¬A) which includes (not-A). All Godel did was give a validation for information hiding and manipulation -- something useful to politicians and economic manipulators and spiritual advocates: You can keep people trapped and powerless by limiting their access to added (ostensibly important) information, that would otherwise allow them to make decisions, which an outer-heirarchy might not want them to make. Godel's Incompleteness Theorems didn't do Science or Math or Logic any favors. Nor the societal future for that matter. The first order rule of 'universality' is requisite non-excludable compatibility and consistency. Even if subset incompatibilities are conditionally allowed, (say matter and anti-matter mutual anihilation) the fact that they interact at all indicates they -share- 'reaction' parameters; they may not survive interaction but they are 'interactionable
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 09-juil.-06, à 06:50, James N Rose a écrit : > My email has not gotten through accurately this week. > Just wondering if you had replied to my post of July 2nd > or just let it go? I think I did. Perhaps you could find it on the archive. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 08-juil.-06, à 18:26, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : It's as well that this is just an online forum, because I think that if my clone could make me vanish, he probably would do it rather than face life sharing my possessions, my secrets, and so on. Would that be suicide or homicide? Suicide if you make the decision *before* the duplication. Homicide if you (or your doppelganger) makes the decision *after* the duplication. I would say. Grosso modo. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno, My email has not gotten through accurately this week. Just wondering if you had replied to my post of July 2nd or just let it go? Jamie --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis writes > If [a] species believed that 2+2=5, or that their kidneys were the organs of > respiration, > they would be wrong. But if they believe that they wake up a different person > every day, > and live their lives based on this belief, they would *not* be wrong; they > could hold > this belief quite consistently even if they knew all there was to know about > their biology. I claim that there is an important sense in which they *would* be wrong, that is, nature endowed us with a strong prejudice that we are the same creature from moment to moment for a reason. A creature exhibits a great deal of fear if a threat arises not to "it" itself in the sense of the creature this moment, but "it" in the extended sense. It acts consistently to ensure that itself of a few moments hence does not come to harm, and we, of course, understand quite well why nature did this. Creatures who do not identify with themselves a few moments hence are "punished". They undergo pain or discomfort that is linked by their intelligence to what the other creature (i.e. its self of a few moments ago) actually did. Again, in this way they become fearful of future pain, and, on the other hand, eager to ravish future gain. Suppose on the other hand that this is incorrect. Suppose that identity does not extend in time past one Planck constant (whatever that is). Then no object or person "survives". But then the term "survival" is also lost. (Words don't have absolute meanings; only meanings that convey relative utility and which correspond to actual structure in the world. An object and even a person *does* persist in time as is revealed by a close examination of structure. It simply isn't very different from moment to moment, and if it is, then the entity has not survived. For example, a rock that is crushed into dust no longer exists as a rock.) Each person reading this would act in the following way if he suddenly heard a loud animal roar behind him. If he then looked around a saw a large tiger, all thoughts about the futility of survival past one Planck constant would vanish. If the person takes a flying leap, and just manages to get on the other side of a door, and is able to slam it shut in the tiger's face, the person will rightfully be relieved. Why shouldn't we say that the person has survived, at least for the nonce until the tiger figures out that it may be able to burst through the closed door? Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Re: A calculus of personal identity
Lee Corbin writes: > > Brent writes> > > >>Given that just after the cloning, the clones would quickly diverge, becoming different people; it > >>seems you could be happy contemplating the fuller, richer life of all the people you know just as > >>much as if they were clones of yourself.> > > > So I suppose that day by day you become someone different?> > > > If you were to get an unexpected call during the next hour,> > would that make you a different person than you would have> > become without the call?> > > > Lee> > Sure - a little different, even if it were expected.> > Brent Meeker Brent's answer is obviously literally correct. In fact, between two copies of a person separated by even a moderate length of time, there may be *nothing* exactly preserved: different matter, different configuration of matter, different memories. It might look the same on the outside and feel the same on the inside, so by convention we say it is the "same" person. That convention/belief/feeling underpins the normative usage of the words "person", "I" etc., and your preference is that we should keep to this usage so that we all know what we're talking about. That's fine, as long as it is understood that we are just talking about matters of convention, not matters of fact. We could imagine individuals of a species who consider that they are born a new person every day they wake up, regarding the memories and other mental attributes they inherit from their predecessor in much the same way as we regard the genetic and cultural inheritance we get from our parents. If this species believed that 2+2=5, or that their kidneys were the organs of respiration, they would be wrong. But if they believe that they wake up a different person every day, and live their lives based on this belief, they would *not* be wrong; they could hold this belief quite consistently even if they knew all there was to know about their biology. Stathis PapaioannouBe one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Re: A calculus of personal identity
Brent Meeker writes: > Lee Corbin wrote:> > Stathis writes and Brent evidently is not one to resist a good pun> > > > > >>Stathis Papaioannou wrote:> >>> >>>Indeed, I would personally find the idea of clones of myself> >>>that I could run into quite disturbing, and the more like me> >>>they were, the worse it would be.> >>> >>A sobering reflection. ;-)> > > > > > An interesting psychological difference. About 35 years ago, I asked> > my long since deceased father what would be his reaction to a duplicate.> > He was very quick to assert that they would not get along at all. I> > have always wondered at that: why exactly would someone not like> > himself?> > > > (Of course, the joke would be on me if I found out that all my duplicates> > had very annoying personal mannerisms, and that the very sounds of their> > squeeky high pitched voices irritated the hell out of me.)> > > > I have always imagined that my duplicates and I would embrace with a> > love truer than long-lost brothers. I fancy that I would like myself> > a great deal :-)> > > > Lee> > I agree - I'd like my clone. I once found some old lab reports and as I was reading through them I > found one that struck me as unusually well written and insightful - and then I realized it was one I > had written.> > But we don't know Stathis. ;-) It's as well that this is just an online forum, because I think that if my clone could make me vanish, he probably would do it rather than face life sharing my possessions, my secrets, and so on. Would that be suicide or homicide? Stathis PapaioannouBe one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Dear Lee and Bruno, - Original Message - From: "Lee Corbin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 12:45 AM Subject: RE: A calculus of personal identity > > Bruno writes > >> Actually I was about to say that nominal question are suggestive >> (anybody can answer by principle of a mailing list), and nominal >> question when thread interferes makes possible to send less >> mails. But I agree here I miss miserably ... > > Not sure what mistake you think you made :-) but whatever, it > could not have been very important. > >> I take the opportunity to ask you Lee what is your expectation in front >> of the running of a Universal Dovetailer? > > Well, I once got fairly up to speed on the subject of the UD (i.e., > I understood it about half as well as you, Hal, Schmidhuber, and > the rest of the gang here), but it just didn't grab my enthusiasm. > > So I will take the liberty of imagining a scenario that may have > a (small) chance of answering your question. > > I find out that some aliens have set up a colony on the moon. > Worse, they've subscribed to the everything list, and having > never had had the notion before on their home planet, are > designing---AND INTENDING TO CUT LOOSE---a Universal Dovetailer > made from some weird computronium substance! > > This will either be very good news, or very bad news, because the > compute speed of their substance is utterly incredible. If they > turn the damned thing on for even one whole second, it's easy to > calculate that any given human being will have most of his solar > system OMs generated by it, all his life on Earth relegated to > relative insignificance. [SPK] You might like to know that there is a specific quantity that is the upper bound on the number of computations that can be implemented within a given hyper-volume of Space-time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_Bound Given this value, it should be easy to calculate the amount of computational processing available (in principle) to those aliens with which to run a UD program... I seem to recall that Stephen Wolfram had a thing or two to say that relates to this: From: http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/articles/physics/85-undecidability/2/text.html "The behavior of a physical system may always be calculated by simulating explicitly each step in its evolution. Much of theoretical physics has, however, been concerned with devising shorter methods of calculation that reproduce the outcome without tracing each step. Such shortcuts can be made if the computations used in the calculation are more sophisticated than those that the physical system can itself perform. Any computations must, however, be carried out on a computer. But the computer is itself an example of a physical system. And it can determine the outcome of its own evolution only by explicitly following it through: No shortcut is possible. Such computational irreducibility occurs whenever a physical system can act as a computer. The behavior of the system can be found only by direct simulation or observation: No general predictive procedure is possible. Computational irreducibility is common among the systems investigated in mathematics and computation theory.[2] This paper suggests that it is also common in theoretical physics. Computational reducibility may well be the exception rather than the rule: Most physical questions may be answerable only through irreducible amounts of computation. Those that concern idealized limits of infinite time, volume, or numerical precision can require arbitrarily long computations, and so be formally undecidable." ... "This paper has suggested that many physical systems are computationally irreducible, so that their own evolution is effectively the most efficient procedure for determining their future. As a consequence, many questions about these systems can be answered only by very lengthy or potentially infinite computations. But some questions answerable by simpler computations may still be formulated. " end quote Given this argument, it follows that the world we collectively experience can *not* be the the result of a computation that is run *inside* the universe. If it is a grand computation, ala Schmidthuber, Fredkin, etc. then the computer hardware exists, somehow, *outside" the Universe! > > I think that I would be in favor. Because I am having a good life > (i.e. better than one-percent worth living), and believe than > human happiness derives mostly from chemicals in the brain > produced by genetic settings. So most of the copies of Lee > Corbin that are generated by the UD should, on the average, > also have good lives. > > (It's possible that even miserable people reading this can find &g
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Hi Lee, I am reminded of the old saw from the Westerns: "This town is too small for the both of us!" ;-) Could it be that consciousness is statistically Fermionic? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi-Dirac_statistics Stephen - Original Message - From: "Lee Corbin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 12:30 AM Subject: RE: A calculus of personal identity > > Stathis writes and Brent evidently is not one to resist a good pun > >> Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> > Indeed, I would personally find the idea of clones of myself >> > that I could run into quite disturbing, and the more like me >> > they were, the worse it would be. >> >> A sobering reflection. ;-) > > An interesting psychological difference. About 35 years ago, I asked > my long since deceased father what would be his reaction to a duplicate. > He was very quick to assert that they would not get along at all. I > have always wondered at that: why exactly would someone not like > himself? > > (Of course, the joke would be on me if I found out that all my duplicates > had very annoying personal mannerisms, and that the very sounds of their > squeeky high pitched voices irritated the hell out of me.) > > I have always imagined that my duplicates and I would embrace with a > love truer than long-lost brothers. I fancy that I would like myself > a great deal :-) > > Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 07-juil.-06, à 06:45, Lee Corbin a écrit : > > Bruno writes > >> Actually I was about to say that nominal question are suggestive >> (anybody can answer by principle of a mailing list), and nominal >> question when thread interferes makes possible to send less >> mails. But I agree here I miss miserably ... > > Not sure what mistake you think you made :-) I see what you mean :) > but whatever, it > could not have been very important. Well thanks :) > >> I take the opportunity to ask you Lee what is your expectation in >> front >> of the running of a Universal Dovetailer? > > Well, I once got fairly up to speed on the subject of the UD (i.e., > I understood it about half as well as you, Hal, Schmidhuber, and > the rest of the gang here), but it just didn't grab my enthusiasm. Given that Plato School has been closed for more than 1500 years, and that Aristotelian Naturalism is still the common dogma of most scientist, I do not expect so much *enthusiasm*. Just trying to share plausible *understanding*. As for some practical possible consequences I am not such much enthusiast myself, but then I don't put QM in the trash, despite the A bomb. > > So I will take the liberty of imagining a scenario that may have > a (small) chance of answering your question. Fair enough. > > I find out that some aliens have set up a colony on the moon. > Worse, they've subscribed to the everything list, and having > never had had the notion before on their home planet, are > designing---AND INTENDING TO CUT LOOSE---a Universal Dovetailer > made from some weird computronium substance! > > This will either be very good news, or very bad news, because the > compute speed of their substance is utterly incredible. If they > turn the damned thing on for even one whole second, it's easy to > calculate that any given human being will have most of his solar > system OMs generated by it, all his life on Earth relegated to > relative insignificance. > > I think that I would be in favor. Because I am having a good life > (i.e. better than one-percent worth living), and believe than > human happiness derives mostly from chemicals in the brain > produced by genetic settings. So most of the copies of Lee > Corbin that are generated by the UD should, on the average, > also have good lives. > > (It's possible that even miserable people reading this can find > solace in supposing that their genetic setting are not an > intrinsic part of their identity, and that in most instantiations > in most universes, their lives are rather good.) > > But alas, that's the limit of my knowledge about the UD. Mmmhhh... Given that you told me your lack of enthusiasm for the UD, it will be hard for me to give a detailed comment. But don't hesitate to ask me any explanation for the following statements: 1) the UD needs to run forever to get any interfering probabilistic influence of first person destiny. (Actually, IF Hal Finney UDIST (universal distribution based on Kolmogorov complexity was correct in eliminating both the third person rabbits *and* the first person rabbits, a case could be made that a sufficiently large portion of the UD's trace would be enough, but this needs more work to be make precise ...). 2) You did agree (don't ask me to find the post :) that the proposition "W or M" was the correct *first person* bet on the most close immediate future personal sensation in the destructive self-duplication experiment, where you are destroyed in Brussels and reconstituted in both Washington and Moscou (with our without delays ?). W is for "I will feel to be in Washington", and W = "I will feel to be in Moscow". "W or M" is always correct. "W & M" is always false (with that protocol). 3) If you get the first sixth step of UDA, which means basically that you would understand that the way of quantifying that first person indeterminacy cannot depend on the real/virtual/(arithmetical) nature of the reconstitution, and, most importantly, that it does not change when arbitrary delays of reconstitution are introduced. 4) and the UD is a program which reconstitutes you in your present state(s) (for all your present states, the pasts one, the futures one and all the intermediates and parallels) through all computational histories. You met *the* comp first person indeterminacy. To predict exactly the observable trajectory of the observed (as well as possible) moon, you need ... some first person (plural) computation statistic. If grandmother's physics or quantum field theory gives correct approximate results, it means both should emerge from that 1-computation statistic. > > And my eyes glaze over every time I come to extended discussions > about "1st person", considering as I do those to be a linguistic > mistake/death-spiral almost as bad as discussions about qualia. I guess the trouble is exactly there. Thanks for your frankness. But note that in the UDA reasoning (like in Everett QM
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Brent writes > >>Given that just after the cloning, the clones would quickly diverge, > >>becoming different people; it > >>seems you could be happy contemplating the fuller, richer life of all the > >>people you know just as > >>much as if they were clones of yourself. > > > > So I suppose that day by day you become someone different? > > > > If you were to get an unexpected call during the next hour, > > would that make you a different person than you would have > > become without the call? > > Sure - a little different, even if it were expected. Well, the whole point, is *how* different. For example, we imagine that if you were suddenly absconded from your residence a few moments from now, conscripted into Al Qaeda and forced to learn Muslim fundamentalist slogans and to enjoy killing unbelievers working for the Satanic powers of the west, (I am sure that this would require quite a bit of brainwashing), then it's safe to say that after a few years of that you become someone else. Even if some atom bombs fell, and you were forced into a horrible struggle for survival along the lines of Mad Max, you'd probably become someone else. But in all *practical* matters, you do sacrifice in the hear-and-now so that the Brent (say, of next year) does not have tooth pain, right? Or are you so good-hearted, that you would gladly go to the dentist just so that someone else's teeth won't hurt next year? I mean to say that there really is no use denying that you are the same person from day to day under normal conditions, and it tells us something that only philosophers would ever conceive of, let alone believe for an instant, that they were not the same person from day to day. Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Brent writes > I agree - I'd like my clone. I once found some old lab reports and as I was > reading through them I > found one that struck me as unusually well written and insightful - and then > I realized it was one I > had written. > > But we don't know Stathis. ;-) Okay---that makes three of us: you, me, and Norman. Everybody else is probably like G. H. Hardy, who, the first thing upon entering a new hotel room, would put towels over all the mirrors so that he wouldn't have to see himself. Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Lee Corbin wrote: > Stathis writes and Brent evidently is not one to resist a good pun > > >>Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >>>Indeed, I would personally find the idea of clones of myself >>>that I could run into quite disturbing, and the more like me >>>they were, the worse it would be. >> >>A sobering reflection. ;-) > > > An interesting psychological difference. About 35 years ago, I asked > my long since deceased father what would be his reaction to a duplicate. > He was very quick to assert that they would not get along at all. I > have always wondered at that: why exactly would someone not like > himself? > > (Of course, the joke would be on me if I found out that all my duplicates > had very annoying personal mannerisms, and that the very sounds of their > squeeky high pitched voices irritated the hell out of me.) > > I have always imagined that my duplicates and I would embrace with a > love truer than long-lost brothers. I fancy that I would like myself > a great deal :-) > > Lee I agree - I'd like my clone. I once found some old lab reports and as I was reading through them I found one that struck me as unusually well written and insightful - and then I realized it was one I had written. But we don't know Stathis. ;-) Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno writes > Actually I was about to say that nominal question are suggestive > (anybody can answer by principle of a mailing list), and nominal > question when thread interferes makes possible to send less > mails. But I agree here I miss miserably ... Not sure what mistake you think you made :-) but whatever, it could not have been very important. > I take the opportunity to ask you Lee what is your expectation in front > of the running of a Universal Dovetailer? Well, I once got fairly up to speed on the subject of the UD (i.e., I understood it about half as well as you, Hal, Schmidhuber, and the rest of the gang here), but it just didn't grab my enthusiasm. So I will take the liberty of imagining a scenario that may have a (small) chance of answering your question. I find out that some aliens have set up a colony on the moon. Worse, they've subscribed to the everything list, and having never had had the notion before on their home planet, are designing---AND INTENDING TO CUT LOOSE---a Universal Dovetailer made from some weird computronium substance! This will either be very good news, or very bad news, because the compute speed of their substance is utterly incredible. If they turn the damned thing on for even one whole second, it's easy to calculate that any given human being will have most of his solar system OMs generated by it, all his life on Earth relegated to relative insignificance. I think that I would be in favor. Because I am having a good life (i.e. better than one-percent worth living), and believe than human happiness derives mostly from chemicals in the brain produced by genetic settings. So most of the copies of Lee Corbin that are generated by the UD should, on the average, also have good lives. (It's possible that even miserable people reading this can find solace in supposing that their genetic setting are not an intrinsic part of their identity, and that in most instantiations in most universes, their lives are rather good.) But alas, that's the limit of my knowledge about the UD. And my eyes glaze over every time I come to extended discussions about "1st person", considering as I do those to be a linguistic mistake/death-spiral almost as bad as discussions about qualia. Lee > Like with Stathis (and with some other a longer time ago) I feel like > you understand the six first steps of UDA, including the 1-person > indeterminacy (which is independent on the identity question as we have > already agreed sometimes ago); so I am very interested if you get the > seventh one, that is the reversal (with the extravagant hypothesis that > there is a physical universe). > (Step eight will eliminate that "extravagant" hypothesis from the > reasoning, but is not the current main point, if I can say). > > PS I take the opportunity to repeat that I do not pretend that Hal > Finney or even Schmidhuber and others are wrong in their "complexity > based" approach to the measure problem, just that they does not provide > explanations how their approaches make the first person white rabbit > disappearing (but I' sure Kolmogorov complexity could play some key > role, and I encourage those interested to dig deeper. Wei Dai has > already mentionned the remarkable book by Li and Vitanyi (Springer > Verlag 1993). We tackle an hard problem: it is not a luxe to approach > it in different ways. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Lee Corbin wrote: > Brent writes > > >>Given that just after the cloning, the clones would quickly diverge, becoming >>different people; it >>seems you could be happy contemplating the fuller, richer life of all the >>people you know just as >>much as if they were clones of yourself. > > > So I suppose that day by day you become someone different? > > If you were to get an unexpected call during the next hour, > would that make you a different person than you would have > become without the call? > > Lee Sure - a little different, even it were expected. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Lee Corbin wrote: > Brent writes > > >>Given that just after the cloning, the clones would quickly diverge, becoming >>different people; it >>seems you could be happy contemplating the fuller, richer life of all the >>people you know just as >>much as if they were clones of yourself. > > > So I suppose that day by day you become someone different? > > If you were to get an unexpected call during the next hour, > would that make you a different person than you would have > become without the call? > > Lee Sure - a little different, even if it were expected. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis writes and Brent evidently is not one to resist a good pun > Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > Indeed, I would personally find the idea of clones of myself > > that I could run into quite disturbing, and the more like me > > they were, the worse it would be. > > A sobering reflection. ;-) An interesting psychological difference. About 35 years ago, I asked my long since deceased father what would be his reaction to a duplicate. He was very quick to assert that they would not get along at all. I have always wondered at that: why exactly would someone not like himself? (Of course, the joke would be on me if I found out that all my duplicates had very annoying personal mannerisms, and that the very sounds of their squeeky high pitched voices irritated the hell out of me.) I have always imagined that my duplicates and I would embrace with a love truer than long-lost brothers. I fancy that I would like myself a great deal :-) Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Brent writes > Given that just after the cloning, the clones would quickly diverge, becoming > different people; it > seems you could be happy contemplating the fuller, richer life of all the > people you know just as > much as if they were clones of yourself. So I suppose that day by day you become someone different? If you were to get an unexpected call during the next hour, would that make you a different person than you would have become without the call? Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 06-juil.-06, à 17:02, Bruno Marchal a écrit : > > > Le 04-juil.-06, à 23:37, Lee Corbin a écrit : > >> Bruno had written >> >>> [Lee wrote] >>> What do you think of your survival chances if you happen to know >>> that after you fall asleep tonight, you will be disintegrated, >>> but the information will be used to create two exact duplicates, >>> and then one of the duplicates is vaporized and the other >>> returned to your bed completely unaware? >>> >>> Zero? (I.e., you don't survive the "teleportation" aspect at all.) >>> >>> One-half? (I.e., your soul goes into one at random, and if that's >>> the one that dies, then your number is up.) >>> >>> One? (I.e., Stathis will wake up in bed for sure tomorrow, and >>> resume his life just as he has done everyday (since our >>> fiendish experiments began when he was five years old)) >> >> and then Bruno said: "Interesting question. I am interested in your >> own answer. I let Stathis answer (to see if he will give the comp >> one). >> Note that the comp answer here is not needed in the UDA argument where >> overlapping reconstitution (like in duplications) are never followed >> by >> somethings which looks (at least) like a murder." >> >> >> Well, in the first place, I assume that when a question is asked of >> anyone on this list, EVERYONE is invited to answer. Certainly when >> I ask any question, it is for everyone, even if it's true that at >> the moment I seem more interested in some particular person's answer. > > Me too. Now when threads interferes I ask ... then I realize I could only say tautologies here, and that I didn't need to send a post, but apparently my computer takes the initiative to send the message. Sorry for that everything-spam. Actually I was about to say that nominal question are suggestive (anybody can answer by principle of a mailing list), and nominal question when thread interferes makes possible to send less mails. But I agree here I miss miserably ... I take the opportunity to ask you Lee what is your expectation in front of the running of a Universal Dovetailer? Like with Stathis (and with some other a longer time ago) I feel like you understand the six first steps of UDA, including the 1-person indeterminacy (which is independent on the identity question as we have already agreed sometimes ago); so I am very interested if you get the seventh one, that is the reversal (with the extravagant hypothesis that there is a physical universe). (Step eight will eliminate that "extravagant" hypothesis from the reasoning, but is not the current main point, if I can say). Bruno PS I take the opportunity to repeat that I do not pretend that Hal Finney or even Schmidhuber and others are wrong in their "complexity based" approach to the measure problem, just that they does not provide explanations how their approaches make the first person white rabbit disappearing (but I' sure Kolmogorov complexity could play some key role, and I encourage those interested to dig deeper. Wei Dai has already mentionned the remarkable book by Li and Vitanyi (Springer Verlag 1993). We tackle an hard problem: it is not a luxe to approach it in different ways. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 04-juil.-06, à 23:37, Lee Corbin a écrit : > Bruno had written > >> [Lee wrote] >> What do you think of your survival chances if you happen to know >> that after you fall asleep tonight, you will be disintegrated, >> but the information will be used to create two exact duplicates, >> and then one of the duplicates is vaporized and the other >> returned to your bed completely unaware? >> >> Zero? (I.e., you don't survive the "teleportation" aspect at all.) >> >> One-half? (I.e., your soul goes into one at random, and if that's >> the one that dies, then your number is up.) >> >> One? (I.e., Stathis will wake up in bed for sure tomorrow, and >> resume his life just as he has done everyday (since our >> fiendish experiments began when he was five years old)) > > and then Bruno said: "Interesting question. I am interested in your > own answer. I let Stathis answer (to see if he will give the comp one). > Note that the comp answer here is not needed in the UDA argument where > overlapping reconstitution (like in duplications) are never followed by > somethings which looks (at least) like a murder." > > > Well, in the first place, I assume that when a question is asked of > anyone on this list, EVERYONE is invited to answer. Certainly when > I ask any question, it is for everyone, even if it's true that at > the moment I seem more interested in some particular person's answer. Me too. Now when threads interferes I ask http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Interesting notion. I recently read a science fiction story set in the distant future where people could be replicated at will. In the story, it was not uncommon to meet one's clone. The clones were treated as separate individuals- perhaps analogous to how identical twins are treated in our society. This seemed reasonable to me. In this context I think I would NOT be especially disturbed to meet my clone. Norman ~~~ - Original Message - From: "Brent Meeker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <everything-list@googlegroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 4:18 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity > > Stathis Papaioannou wrote:>>Indeed, I would personally find the idea of clones of myself that I could run into quite>> disturbing, and the more like me they were, the worse it would be.> > A sobering reflection. ;-)> > Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >Indeed, I would personally find the idea of clones of myself that I could run >into quite > disturbing, and the more like me they were, the worse it would be. A sobering reflection. ;-) Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Brent: to your 2nd question: > The question is, have you ever formed any conclusions or >had any thoughts > that were *not* model based.< I have to go back to (my) 'model' vs. your remark: >The very point of using the word "model" is to remind us >that they are >not reality itself, but only a map of reality.< Our mind (not yet identified) 'thinks' using a materially restricted tool, the neuronic brain. At this point we are still unable to encompass in our mentality the wholeness with all its interconnective impredicativity - so we formulate topically or functionally (or else...) limited (reduced) models. This is what I call reductionism, the possibility of human thinking. Wholistic ideas (now in a birth-stage) widened the scope of such model-restriction and - although we cannot DO it, we THINK of it, calling such unlimited (vague) targets "natural systems" or "maximum models" (Robert Rosen). Conventional science works in well defined (reduced) model - thinking within set boundaries of topical/functional restrictions. There is nothing wrong in the model-view science - except for the trend to draw conclusions from within-boundary observation and apply them to a wider - beyond model - applicability. Human ingenuity made the within-model application most efficient and a basis for our technology - in spite of the uncertainty stemming from a neglect of the effects from outside the boundaries, not recognized in the (applied) math equations set between interlaced model-values. Answering your above question: for more than a decade or so, I am thinking in terms how to widen the limited model ways of science (I learned) into 'maximum model' terms. It is still "model". since all we can use in our mentality is the partial impact from the wholeness and our 'mind's interpretation of it, eo ipso all we know is I(in my terms) "model". I am not omniscient so I cannot 'think in wholeness' with all its impredicative interramifications. * Your first question, however - > So you have replaced "narrow models" with "mystic-religious" ones? < shows a complete misunderstanding of what I tried to explain twice already in this encounter. I give up. I do not try for the 3rd time to find better understandable ways for explaining my ideas. I have my limitations. Please, consider my initiation for this exchange "unsent". I still will read your posts which I find most interesting. John Mikes - Original Message - From: "Brent Meeker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 2:49 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity > > John M wrote: >> >> >> --- Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> .skip >> I'm sure your professors will be disappointed to hear >> that their hard won theories are inconsistent >> with thought. >> JM: >> and so would be all who's 'working' paradigm changed >> in the continuation of the epistemic enrichment - and: >> >> not 'inconsistent' and not 'thought', I referred just >> to consider deemable as a belief based on the science >> mindset rather than on the mystic-religious one. I did >> not even refer to obsolescence, only to a parallel >> between the workings of different belief-systems. > > So you have replaced "narrow models" with "mystic-religious" ones? I have > difficult parsing " > referred just to consider deemable as a belief". > >> >> Inconsistent those ideas became only in due course >> when a newer paradigm changed the ways of speculation. >> And I am speaking here about the boundary-limited, >> (topically etc. 'identified') conventional - >> reductionist sciences (the only one our mind can work >> in including mine of course). >> >> (Earlier-JM:) >> >>>If I give in now to the quark, there >>>is no stop all the way to back to physics 101. >> >> BM: >> Forget quarks. How about giant sea squids? I've >> never seen one of those either and no one has seen >> one alive. Or a DNA molecule? Or Plato? If your >> thought has led you to discard all "narrow >> models", what do you think about? >> >> Brent Meeker >> >> JM: >> Of course I do not discard the cognitive inventory - >> collected over the past millennia, all according to >> the observational skills of the time and explained >> (reductionistically) at the 'then' level of knowledge. >> >> The fact that our ongoing explanations about >> (sub)atomic or molecular models go out from any >>
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Brent Meeker writes (quoting Stathis Papaioannou and Lee Corbin, respectively): > >>Yet another thought experiment for your consideration. You are > >>offered the option of 10 years of normal life, or being cloned > >>20 times with each clone living one year. I would choose the > >>10 years; if I chose the 20 clones, each one of those clones > >>would be kicking themselves for their stupidity. I take it you > >>would choose the 20 clones, and each of your clones would be > >>smug in the knowledge that they have doubled their effective > >>runtime? > > > > > > That's right. Math grabs me by the throat and says "the bridge > > will hold" oops, that's another time you have to believe the > > math, sorry, it says "you will live twice as long and derive > > twice the benefit in 20 copies as 10, just as if a single one > > were to live 20 years instead of 10, he would acquire twice the > > benefit." > > > > (For other readers, Stathis and I of course are controlling for > > irrelevant aspects of this, such as nonlinearities that might follow, > > for example, from considering that twenty successive years may be > > a lot more meaningful, or something, than just ten years.) > > > > Yes, as each clone was about to die, they'd feel bad of course, > > since the death of any human being is a sort of lie, an unfulfilled > > promise. But they'd feel better than the 10 year version when his > > time is nearly up. He'd say "I should have gone with the 20 duplicates > > and had a fuller, richer life." > > I think he might say, "I've had such a short life, maybe I should have chosen > the 10yrs - but then > I'd have high probability of not having existed." > > Given that just after the cloning, the clones would quickly diverge, becoming > different people; it > seems you could be happy contemplating the fuller, richer life of all the > people you know just as > much as if they were clones of yourself. "I've had such a short life, maybe I should have chosen the 10yrs - but then I'd have high probability of not having existed." That's an interesting take on the question that I didn't see initially. But consider the following: suppose you are inadvertently exposed today to some toxic chemical which will kill you in a year. You are aware of this fact, and will remain physically well until the end. As a result, your life diverges somewhat from what it would have been had you not been poisoned. As the end approaches, you might reflect, "I've had a short life, but had I not been poisoned, there is a high probability that the person I've been in the past year would not have existed". I think the above situation from a first person perspective is exactly analogous to the cloning. In both cases, you can expect that whatever happens after the cloning/poisoning, you will experience a year of life. In both cases, you can be confident that the year of life experience after the cloning/poisoning would probably not have occurred in its absence. In both cases, had the cloning/poisoning not occurred, you could have looked forward to a somewhat different, but hopefully no worse and probably much longer life. There is a difference, of course, but this is only from a third person perspective: the cloning would give rise to more person-years than the poisoning. But as Brent says, if this third person knowledge were consolation, you could as well be happy contemplating the lives of people you know just as much as if they were your clones. (Indeed, I would personally find the idea of clones of myself that I could run into quite disturbing, and the more like me they were, the worse it would be. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Lee Corbin wrote: > Stathis asks > > >>Yet another thought experiment for your consideration. You are >>offered the option of 10 years of normal life, or being cloned >>20 times with each clone living one year. I would choose the >>10 years; if I chose the 20 clones, each one of those clones >>would be kicking themselves for their stupidity. I take it you >>would choose the 20 clones, and each of your clones would be >>smug in the knowledge that they have doubled their effective >>runtime? > > > That's right. Math grabs me by the throat and says "the bridge > will hold" oops, that's another time you have to believe the > math, sorry, it says "you will live twice as long and derive > twice the benefit in 20 copies as 10, just as if a single one > were to live 20 years instead of 10, he would acquire twice the > benefit." > > (For other readers, Stathis and I of course are controlling for > irrelevant aspects of this, such as nonlinearities that might follow, > for example, from considering that twenty successive years may be > a lot more meaningful, or something, than just ten years.) > > Yes, as each clone was about to die, they'd feel bad of course, > since the death of any human being is a sort of lie, an unfulfilled > promise. But they'd feel better than the 10 year version when his > time is nearly up. He'd say "I should have gone with the 20 duplicates > and had a fuller, richer life." I think he might say, "I've had such a short life, maybe I should have chosen the 10yrs - but then I'd have high probability of not having existed." Given that just after the cloning, the clones would quickly diverge, becoming different people; it seems you could be happy contemplating the fuller, richer life of all the people you know just as much as if they were clones of yourself. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
(offlist) RE: A calculus of personal identity
Oh, I see you wrote more about that long letter of mine. Thanks for breaking it up! It's really a separate idea. I'll respond today if time. Lee -Original Message-From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Stathis PapaioannouSent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 4:46 AMTo: everything-list@googlegroups.comSubject: RE: A calculus of personal identityLee Corbin writes: > So if I understand you right, this is where the difference between> a book and a person arises. When a book's letters are scattered over> the cosmos, the information is lost, but when the observer moments> are so scattered, the subjective experience still remains.>> Now we suppose from quantum mechanics that the Bekenstein bound> on the number of states a human can be in is less than 10^10^45.> (Tipler, 1993, "The Physics of Immortality".) So each state of> your life is a very special small subset of all those states.> Let's do something special with just *one* life that you've> led (will lead) in the universe, one life, that is, in a particular> spacetime.> > I propose to take something quite a bit like observer-moments and> ask some questions about it. Suppose that an exact frozen replica> of your brain is made corresponding to each 10^-42 seconds of your> life. This gives us about 10^42 * 10^7 * 70years, or about 10^50> states (a far cry from all those possible for humans, 10^10^45).> > We place those 10^50 states in a long row, and then, for an audience,> we round up all the billions of observers in the visible universe> to watch the show. First the spotlight is on your brain the second> after you were born. Then one 10^-42 seconds later the spotlight> moves to the next frozen brain, and so forth. > > The audience is placed in the same frame of reference as the moving> light, and so they see an apparently continuous evolution of your> brain.> > How is this any different from what happened to you actually? From> an external scientific point of view, it seems remarkably identical.> (I am ultimately to claim that something essential---but not > "consciousness" or anything like that is missing, but rather> *causality* is missing.)Well, it depends on what you believe about how brains work. Let's go to the other extreme and make the observer moments very long - minutes, say. If I have a minute of conscious experience here, then I am annihilated, and either by accident or by design a copy of my brain just as it was at the moment of annihilation is made a trillion years later, which goes on to have another minute of conscious experience as if nothing remarkable had happened, would *that* qualify as two minutes of continuous conscious experience in my life? If so, where does causation enter into it to link the two minutes? Sure, the second minute is unlikely to come about unless some information is saved from the first minute and deliberate work put into making the copy, but *how* it comes about can't make any difference *once* it comes about. The mere fact that these two physical processes occur somewhere in the universe is enough to bring about two continuous minutes of consciousness. In fact, I don't see how the experiment I have described could possibly not give this result. You don't even need to be a computationalist or a functionalist: as long as the second copy has the right sort of mental experiences, whether due to God providing a replacement soul or the right sort of tiny black holes in the microtubules or whatever, then ipso facto, I will have two minutes of apparently continuous conscious experience. > I suppose that you would assert that a first person experience was> attached to this performance, a performance moving against a background> of stars as the stage. Is that correct? The question you are asking is in principle answerable by experiment: how finely can you divide up the physical processes which give rise to thought and still have continuous thought? You could teleport a subject nanometres to the left, then the same distance back to the right, repeating this at varying frequencies. We assume that the teleportation is as close as doesn't matter to instantaneous and that the resultant "vibration" in situ is not in itself noticeable to the subject. You have agreed in previous posts that the "regular" sort of teleportation we frequently discuss would not have much impact on the subject. If you performed this sort of vibrational teleportation in the kilohertz or megahertz range, would he notice anything strange happening to him? Would you notice anything strange talking to him? > Next we begin a process of deconstruction. First, on one century's> performance, there is trouble with the spotlight, and it's very dim> although the audience can still see the show. But
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis asks > Yet another thought experiment for your consideration. You are > offered the option of 10 years of normal life, or being cloned > 20 times with each clone living one year. I would choose the > 10 years; if I chose the 20 clones, each one of those clones > would be kicking themselves for their stupidity. I take it you > would choose the 20 clones, and each of your clones would be > smug in the knowledge that they have doubled their effective > runtime? That's right. Math grabs me by the throat and says "the bridge will hold" oops, that's another time you have to believe the math, sorry, it says "you will live twice as long and derive twice the benefit in 20 copies as 10, just as if a single one were to live 20 years instead of 10, he would acquire twice the benefit." (For other readers, Stathis and I of course are controlling for irrelevant aspects of this, such as nonlinearities that might follow, for example, from considering that twenty successive years may be a lot more meaningful, or something, than just ten years.) Yes, as each clone was about to die, they'd feel bad of course, since the death of any human being is a sort of lie, an unfulfilled promise. But they'd feel better than the 10 year version when his time is nearly up. He'd say "I should have gone with the 20 duplicates and had a fuller, richer life." Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno had written > [Lee wrote] > What do you think of your survival chances if you happen to know > that after you fall asleep tonight, you will be disintegrated, > but the information will be used to create two exact duplicates, > and then one of the duplicates is vaporized and the other > returned to your bed completely unaware? > > Zero? (I.e., you don't survive the "teleportation" aspect at all.) > > One-half? (I.e., your soul goes into one at random, and if that's > the one that dies, then your number is up.) > > One? (I.e., Stathis will wake up in bed for sure tomorrow, and > resume his life just as he has done everyday (since our > fiendish experiments began when he was five years old)) and then Bruno said: "Interesting question. I am interested in your own answer. I let Stathis answer (to see if he will give the comp one). Note that the comp answer here is not needed in the UDA argument where overlapping reconstitution (like in duplications) are never followed by somethings which looks (at least) like a murder." Well, in the first place, I assume that when a question is asked of anyone on this list, EVERYONE is invited to answer. Certainly when I ask any question, it is for everyone, even if it's true that at the moment I seem more interested in some particular person's answer. Stathis now answers my question: > One. That's how it will *seem* and that is what is important to me. > As discussed previously, I like to say that the actual objective > reality is that I die in any case every moment, and that the > appearance/sensation of continuity is just that. This is a non- > normative use of the terms "I" and "die", I know, but what I want > to capture is that there is in fact no soul that flies from one > instantiation to another instantiation of me, making sure that > it really is me and not just some guy who thinks he is me. It > certainly *feels* that there is such a persisting soul, > occupying only one body at any one time, but there isn't. Well, I am sure that "probability=one" is as close to being a "correct" answer as there can be. So I'm glad to see that several people agree with me (Bruno didn't actually say yet, nor did anyone else). For the record, it is still curious to me that you persist in using non-normative terms, even though they invite confusion. (Honestly, I am not sure that I do not sometimes do the same :-) > While you may agree that the answer to your question above is "one", > we may differ in another thought experiment. Now you're talking! The terms we use, phooey. The philosophical ramblings we emit, phooey. True philosophy should be about prescriptions for action! > Suppose you were offered two choices for tomorrow: you will be > disintegrated tonight and a single copy made tomorrow, or you > would be disintegrated tonight and one copy as per usual made > tomorrow plus an extra copy made with a mild headache. I would choose the two copies, because I will get over my headache when I am in the 2nd location. (The 2nd location conceivably could be 10^10^20 light years from here, and it really is a case of whether I want to execute in some volume of spacetime, or if instead I would prefer to be dead there. You clearly prefer to be dead almost everywhere, or at least to not care much.) > I feel that if I choose the two copies, my soul might end up in > the one with a headache, whereas if I choose the single copy, my > soul is guaranteed to end up in the headache-free copy. So I would > choose the single copy option, even though I would much rather have > a mild headache than be dead. I know that you might call this > irrational, Actually, it's not only irrational, but in my opinion it is inconsistent. Because in the above experiment that I formulated, you readily agree that you survive no matter which duplicate is destroyed. Therefore, it is logical and necessary that you survive (a) in the headachey duplicate and (b) in the ordinary duplicate. Mathematical symmetry grabs to by the throat and FORCES you to admit it! (To borrow a phrase from Lewis Carroll.) > and it is irrational if we are talking about the objective reality. > But wanting to be alive at all is not rational or irrational: it > is not inconsistent to imagine an intelligent being completely > indifferent to its continuing survival, or even actively suicidal > on a faint whim. Yes, that is right. You have a point there. > It is just my evolutionary programming which makes me want to > survive, and it is that same evolutionary programming which > tells me my soul can only occupy one body at a time. But you as a free being :-) do not have to actually *believe* what your evolutionary programming suggests. You *can* simply practice saying "I know that the objective truth is that I will be in two places at the same time. I know that I will have a headache and I know that I will not have a headache. I suggest that if you practice it then it w
Re: A calculus of personal identity
John M wrote: > > > --- Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > .skip > I'm sure your professors will be disappointed to hear > that their hard won theories are inconsistent > with thought. > JM: > and so would be all who's 'working' paradigm changed > in the continuation of the epistemic enrichment - and: > > not 'inconsistent' and not 'thought', I referred just > to consider deemable as a belief based on the science > mindset rather than on the mystic-religious one. I did > not even refer to obsolescence, only to a parallel > between the workings of different belief-systems. So you have replaced "narrow models" with "mystic-religious" ones? I have difficult parsing " referred just to consider deemable as a belief". > > Inconsistent those ideas became only in due course > when a newer paradigm changed the ways of speculation. > And I am speaking here about the boundary-limited, > (topically etc. 'identified') conventional - > reductionist sciences (the only one our mind can work > in including mine of course). > > (Earlier-JM:) > >>If I give in now to the quark, there >>is no stop all the way to back to physics 101. > > BM: > Forget quarks. How about giant sea squids? I've > never seen one of those either and no one has seen > one alive. Or a DNA molecule? Or Plato? If your > thought has led you to discard all "narrow > models", what do you think about? > > Brent Meeker > > JM: > Of course I do not discard the cognitive inventory - > collected over the past millennia, all according to > the observational skills of the time and explained > (reductionistically) at the 'then' level of knowledge. > > The fact that our ongoing explanations about > (sub)atomic or molecular models go out from any > 'matterly' concept does not mean that if I bounce into > a stone it does not hurt. We just reached a point with > starting to consider more interconnectedness and > involvement beyond the 'boundaries' of convention. > Isn't this list aiming at such thinking (in a (IMO) > specialized domain? > Your question is a good one, I wish I had already a > well defined answer "WHAT" I am thinking about. Ask > Armstrong, who walked on the Moon, how it would feel > on a planet in another galaxy. "Different!" for sure. > I am not denying the 'existence' of unseeable etc. > features only the firm explanations based on our > (insufficient) knowkedge for the unknown. They are "firm" on in the sense of being definite. The very point of using the word "model" is to remind us that they are not reality itself, but only a map of reality. >Modelbased > conclusions for beyond the model. > I have examples: I formulated model-based conclusions > over a half century R&D work. - Successfully. The question is, have you ever formed any conclusions or had any thoughts that were *not* model based. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 04-juil.-06, à 04:53, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Lee Corbin writes: > > which is why in symmetrical duplication experiments I anticipate > > that I will become one of the duplicates with equal probability. > > What do you think of your survival chances if you happen to know > that after you fall asleep tonight, you will be disintegrated, > but the information will be used to create two exact duplicates, > and then one of the duplicates is vaporized and the other > returned to your bed completely unaware? > > Zero? (I.e., you don't survive the "teleportation" aspect at all.) > > One-half? (I.e., your soul goes into one at random, and if that's > the one that dies, then your number is up.) > > One? (I.e., Stathis will wake up in bed for sure tomorrow, and > resume his life just as he has done everyday (since our > fiendish experiments began when he was five years old)) One. That's how it will *seem* and that is what is important to me. In case someone doubt it, it is the comp answer. But then, what happens to you in front of a universal dovetailing ? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
--- Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: .skip I'm sure your professors will be disappointed to hear that their hard won theories are inconsistent with thought. JM: and so would be all who's 'working' paradigm changed in the continuation of the epistemic enrichment - and: not 'inconsistent' and not 'thought', I referred just to consider deemable as a belief based on the science mindset rather than on the mystic-religious one. I did not even refer to obsolescence, only to a parallel between the workings of different belief-systems. Inconsistent those ideas became only in due course when a newer paradigm changed the ways of speculation. And I am speaking here about the boundary-limited, (topically etc. 'identified') conventional - reductionist sciences (the only one our mind can work in including mine of course). (Earlier-JM:) >If I give in now to the quark, there > is no stop all the way to back to physics 101. BM: Forget quarks. How about giant sea squids? I've never seen one of those either and no one has seen one alive. Or a DNA molecule? Or Plato? If your thought has led you to discard all "narrow models", what do you think about? Brent Meeker JM: Of course I do not discard the cognitive inventory - collected over the past millennia, all according to the observational skills of the time and explained (reductionistically) at the 'then' level of knowledge. The fact that our ongoing explanations about (sub)atomic or molecular models go out from any 'matterly' concept does not mean that if I bounce into a stone it does not hurt. We just reached a point with starting to consider more interconnectedness and involvement beyond the 'boundaries' of convention. Isn't this list aiming at such thinking (in a (IMO) specialized domain? Your question is a good one, I wish I had already a well defined answer "WHAT" I am thinking about. Ask Armstrong, who walked on the Moon, how it would feel on a planet in another galaxy. "Different!" for sure. I am not denying the 'existence' of unseeable etc. features only the firm explanations based on our (insufficient) knowkedge for the unknown. Modelbased conclusions for beyond the model. I have examples: I formulated model-based conclusions over a half century R&D work. - Successfully. Best regards John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Lee Corbin writes: > So if I understand you right, this is where the difference between> a book and a person arises. When a book's letters are scattered over> the cosmos, the information is lost, but when the observer moments> are so scattered, the subjective experience still remains. >> Now we suppose from quantum mechanics that the Bekenstein bound> on the number of states a human can be in is less than 10^10^45.> (Tipler, 1993, "The Physics of Immortality".) So each state of> your life is a very special small subset of all those states.> Let's do something special with just *one* life that you've> led (will lead) in the universe, one life, that is, in a particular> spacetime.> > I propose to take something quite a bit like observer-moments and> ask some questions about it. Suppose that an exact frozen replica> of your brain is made corresponding to each 10^-42 seconds of your> life. This gives us about 10^42 * 10^7 * 70years, or about 10^50> states (a far cry from all those possible for humans, 10^10^45).> > We place those 10^50 states in a long row, and then, for an audience,> we round up all the billions of observers in the visible universe> to watch the show. First the spotlight is on your brain the second> after you were born. Then one 10^-42 seconds later the spotlight> moves to the next frozen brain, and so forth. > > The audience is placed in the same frame of reference as the moving> light, and so they see an apparently continuous evolution of your> brain.> > How is this any different from what happened to you actually? From> an external scientific point of view, it seems remarkably identical.> (I am ultimately to claim that something essential---but not > "consciousness" or anything like that is missing, but rather> *causality* is missing.) Well, it depends on what you believe about how brains work. Let's go to the other extreme and make the observer moments very long - minutes, say. If I have a minute of conscious experience here, then I am annihilated, and either by accident or by design a copy of my brain just as it was at the moment of annihilation is made a trillion years later, which goes on to have another minute of conscious experience as if nothing remarkable had happened, would *that* qualify as two minutes of continuous conscious experience in my life? If so, where does causation enter into it to link the two minutes? Sure, the second minute is unlikely to come about unless some information is saved from the first minute and deliberate work put into making the copy, but *how* it comes about can't make any difference *once* it comes about. The mere fact that these two physical processes occur somewhere in the universe is enough to bring about two continuous minutes of consciousness. In fact, I don't see how the experiment I have described could possibly not give this result. You don't even need to be a computationalist or a functionalist: as long as the second copy has the right sort of mental experiences, whether due to God providing a replacement soul or the right sort of tiny black holes in the microtubules or whatever, then ipso facto, I will have two minutes of apparently continuous conscious experience. > I suppose that you would assert that a first person experience was> attached to this performance, a performance moving against a background> of stars as the stage. Is that correct? The question you are asking is in principle answerable by experiment: how finely can you divide up the physical processes which give rise to thought and still have continuous thought? You could teleport a subject nanometres to the left, then the same distance back to the right, repeating this at varying frequencies. We assume that the teleportation is as close as doesn't matter to instantaneous and that the resultant "vibration" in situ is not in itself noticeable to the subject. You have agreed in previous posts that the "regular" sort of teleportation we frequently discuss would not have much impact on the subject. If you performed this sort of vibrational teleportation in the kilohertz or megahertz range, would he notice anything strange happening to him? Would you notice anything strange talking to him? > Next we begin a process of deconstruction. First, on one century's> performance, there is trouble with the spotlight, and it's very dim> although the audience can still see the show. But a few performances> (centuries) later, the spotlight goes out altogether. Still, the> audience knows from the notes passed out exactly what is happening.> On another night, the audience fails to show up. Do these things> really affect whether or not a first person experience attends the> brain? No, provided that the audience did not interact with the brain on the basis of what they saw. > In other performances, the spotlight dances all around, from a> trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a hundred trillionth> of a second (about 10^-50 seconds) from your brain in midlife to> your brain as an a
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Yet another thought experiment for your consideration. You are offered the option of 10 years of normal life, or being cloned 20 times with each clone living one year. I would choose the 10 years; if I chose the 20 clones, each one of those clones would be kicking themselves for their stupidity. I take it you would choose the 20 clones, and each of your clones would be smug in the knowledge that they have doubled their effective runtime? Stathis Papaioannou > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: everything-list@googlegroups.com> Subject: RE: A calculus of personal identity> Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 22:52:07 -0700> > > Stathis wrote> > > Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 5:53 AM> > > which is why in symmetrical duplication experiments I anticipate> > that I will become one of the duplicates with equal probability.> > What do you think of your survival chances if you happen to know> that after you fall asleep tonight, you will be disintegrated,> but the information will be used to create two exact duplicates,> and then one of the duplicates is vaporized and the other > returned to your bed completely unaware?> > Zero? (I.e., you don't survive the "teleportation" aspect at all.)> > One-half? (I.e., your soul goes into one at random, and if that's> the one that dies, then your number is up.)> > One? (I.e., Stathis will wake up in bed for sure tomorrow, and> resume his life just as he has done everyday (since our> fiendish experiments began when he was five years old))> > Lee> > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
John M wrote: > > > --- Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >>>- Original Message - >>>From: "Brent Meeker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>>To: >>>Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 2:54 PM >>>Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity >>> >>> >>> >>>Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:54, Brent Meeker a écrit : >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>>Sure it is. Just because something cannot be >> >>directly experienced >> >>>>>doesn't rule it out of a >>>>>scienctific model: quarks can't be observed, but >> >>their effects can. >> >>>Brent: >>>what gives you the right to "assume" a non >> >>experienceable quark as >> >>>described, >>>and 'assign' some observation (rather: math. >> >>conclusion) to "IT"? >> >>>Only after eliminating ALL (possible and >> >>impossible in our view) other cases >> >>>that might have led to the effect assigned to >> >>"quarks" quae non sunt. >> >>>This is the very method by which conventional >> >>science arrives at paradoxes. >> >>>Sorry for the outburst, please read it in a mild >> >>tune of voice. >> >>>Thank you >>> >>>John M >> >>I, or more accurately Murray Gell-Mann, didn't >>"assume" a non-experiencable quark; he created a >>model of nuclear constituents and called them >>quarks. Frank Wilcez showed why they would not be >>observable individually. But this model correctly >>predicted (not "assigned") the results found in >>many subsequent experiments. So it is a model in >>which I place some credence. >> >>You gotta problem with that!? >> >>Brent Meeker >> > > YES, Brent, 'I gotta problem with that'. (It seems yoU > > did not read my post in 'mild' enough tune) I shoulda put a smiley on that. ;-) >Gell- Mann > > created a model to carry those assumptions (oops! math > predictions) which resulted in the 10^nth level > assumption from the caveman's first observation of > nature, adjusted continually by the ongoing epistemic > enrichment of human thinking. This limited model was > reduced to serve that ONE purpose and was cut off from > the 'rest of the world and its unlimited functions'. > I heard Gell-Mann in 1997 about 'complex models' and > found him excellent in the reductionist science. Some > people raised such points and he became impatient. I > liked his book and the quark story. If there is no > such thing as 'atom' or 'matter' for that matter, why > should I 'believe' a narrow nodel of its ingredient? > (I did not find any 'matterly' in the (sub)atomic > physical particles that could justify the hardess of a > tabletop. I was a 'belever' in physics 101 in college, > where reputable professors (books) recited the > 'experiments' of others from the past and calculated > those models so drawn up with the topical limitatins > in beautiful equations. I got rid of all that when I > started to think. I'm sure your professors will be disappointed to hear that their hard won theories are inconsistent with thought. >If I give in now to the quark, there > is no stop all the way to back to physics 101. Forget quarks. How about giant sea squids? I've never seen one of those either and no one has seen one alive. Or a DNA molecule? Or Plato? If your thought has led you to discard all "narrow models", what do you think about? Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Lee Corbin writes: > > which is why in symmetrical duplication experiments I anticipate> > that I will become one of the duplicates with equal probability.> > What do you think of your survival chances if you happen to know> that after you fall asleep tonight, you will be disintegrated,> but the information will be used to create two exact duplicates,> and then one of the duplicates is vaporized and the other > returned to your bed completely unaware?> > Zero? (I.e., you don't survive the "teleportation" aspect at all.)> > One-half? (I.e., your soul goes into one at random, and if that's> the one that dies, then your number is up.)> > One? (I.e., Stathis will wake up in bed for sure tomorrow, and> resume his life just as he has done everyday (since our> fiendish experiments began when he was five years old)) One. That's how it will *seem* and that is what is important to me. As discussed previously, I like to say that the actual objective reality is that I die in any case every moment, and that the appearance/sensation of continuity is just that. This is a non-normative use of the terms "I" and "die", I know, but what I want to capture is that there is in fact no soul that flies from one instantiation to another instantiation of me, making sure that it really is me and not just some guy who thinks he is me. It certainly *feels* that there is such a persisting soul, occupying only one body at any one time, but there isn't. While you may agree that the answer to your question above is "one", we may differ in another thought experiment. Suppose you were offered two choices for tomorrow: you will be disintegrated tonight and a single copy made tomorrow, or you would be disintegrated tonight and one copy as per usual made tomorrow plus an extra copy made with a mild headache. I feel that if I choose the two copies, my soul might end up in the one with a headache, whereas if I choose the single copy, my soul is guaranteed to end up in the headache-free copy. So I would choose the single copy option, even though I would much rather have a mild headache than be dead. I know that you might call this irrational, and it is irrational if we are talking about the objective reality. But wanting to be alive at all is not rational or irrational: it is not inconsistent to imagine an intelligent being completely indifferent to its continuing survival, or even actively suicidal on a faint whim. It is just my evolutionary programming which makes me want to survive, and it is that same evolutionary programming which tells me my soul can only occupy one body at a time. I *know* that there is no such thing as a soul, that I die every moment, was dead before birth, will be dead for most of eternity, am dead almost everywhere, death doesn't necessarily hurt, but I still don't want to die. Similarly, I *know* that each of the copies tomorrow has equal claim to being me, but I still feel that only one of them is going to me, and I worry about which one it's going to be. There is, on the one hand, logic and empirical truth, and on the other hand the way I feel, and the two do not necessarily coincide. I would be *wrong* if I made an empirical claim about the world on the basis of a feeling; for example, that I must have an immaterial soul which persists in a single version of my body throughout life. But I am *not* wrong if I simply report that I have the strong feeling of a persistent soul, that I don't want to die, and that I can only feel that I am one person at a time. Stathis PapaioannouBe one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
--- Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > - Original Message - > > From: "Brent Meeker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: > > Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 2:54 PM > > Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity > > > > > > > > Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > >>Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:54, Brent Meeker a écrit : > >> > >> > >> > >>>Sure it is. Just because something cannot be > directly experienced > >>>doesn't rule it out of a > >>>scienctific model: quarks can't be observed, but > their effects can. > >> > > Brent: > > what gives you the right to "assume" a non > experienceable quark as > > described, > > and 'assign' some observation (rather: math. > conclusion) to "IT"? > > Only after eliminating ALL (possible and > impossible in our view) other cases > > that might have led to the effect assigned to > "quarks" quae non sunt. > > This is the very method by which conventional > science arrives at paradoxes. > > Sorry for the outburst, please read it in a mild > tune of voice. > > Thank you > > > > John M > > I, or more accurately Murray Gell-Mann, didn't > "assume" a non-experiencable quark; he created a > model of nuclear constituents and called them > quarks. Frank Wilcez showed why they would not be > observable individually. But this model correctly > predicted (not "assigned") the results found in > many subsequent experiments. So it is a model in > which I place some credence. > > You gotta problem with that!? > > Brent Meeker > YES, Brent, 'I gotta problem with that'. (It seems yoU did not read my post in 'mild' enough tune) Gell- Mann created a model to carry those assumptions (oops! math predictions) which resulted in the 10^nth level assumption from the caveman's first observation of nature, adjusted continually by the ongoing epistemic enrichment of human thinking. This limited model was reduced to serve that ONE purpose and was cut off from the 'rest of the world and its unlimited functions'. I heard Gell-Mann in 1997 about 'complex models' and found him excellent in the reductionist science. Some people raised such points and he became impatient. I liked his book and the quark story. If there is no such thing as 'atom' or 'matter' for that matter, why should I 'believe' a narrow nodel of its ingredient? (I did not find any 'matterly' in the (sub)atomic physical particles that could justify the hardess of a tabletop. I was a 'belever' in physics 101 in college, where reputable professors (books) recited the 'experiments' of others from the past and calculated those models so drawn up with the topical limitatins in beautiful equations. I got rid of all that when I started to think. If I give in now to the quark, there is no stop all the way to back to physics 101. I leave that to the engineers and the technical inventors, who created our fabulous technology and I use it happily. Not as tools for some in-debth understanding (including the 38 patents to my name either). Toothbrush vs Debussy. I claim my ignorance in a scientific agnosticism and live with it. I am searching for words not too much anchored in unwanted semantics to express what I feel is right. It needs a "mother tongue". Unfortunately I stopped using my mother tongue when I was still sitting in my reductionist model (natural) science and English is the 5th... I could use 2-300 more years for the search. Maybe there IS a Q-suicide with teleportation to some other universe although THAT I consider not an assumption but an illusion or an exaggerated sci-fi. Sorry if I annoyed you John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > - Original Message - > From: "Brent Meeker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: > Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 2:54 PM > Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity > > > > Bruno Marchal wrote: > >>Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:54, Brent Meeker a écrit : >> >> >> >>>Sure it is. Just because something cannot be directly experienced >>>doesn't rule it out of a >>>scienctific model: quarks can't be observed, but their effects can. >> > Brent: > what gives you the right to "assume" a non experienceable quark as > described, > and 'assign' some observation (rather: math. conclusion) to "IT"? > Only after eliminating ALL (possible and impossible in our view) other cases > that might have led to the effect assigned to "quarks" quae non sunt. > This is the very method by which conventional science arrives at paradoxes. > Sorry for the outburst, please read it in a mild tune of voice. > Thank you > > John M I, or more accurately Murray Gell-Mann, didn't "assume" a non-experiencable quark; he created a model of nuclear constituents and called them quarks. Frank Wilcez showed why they would not be observable individually. But this model correctly predicted (not "assigned") the results found in many subsequent experiments. So it is a model in which I place some credence. You gotta problem with that!? Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
- Original Message - From: "Brent Meeker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 2:54 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:54, Brent Meeker a écrit : > > >>Sure it is. Just because something cannot be directly experienced >>doesn't rule it out of a >>scienctific model: quarks can't be observed, but their effects can. > Brent: what gives you the right to "assume" a non experienceable quark as described, and 'assign' some observation (rather: math. conclusion) to "IT"? Only after eliminating ALL (possible and impossible in our view) other cases that might have led to the effect assigned to "quarks" quae non sunt. This is the very method by which conventional science arrives at paradoxes. Sorry for the outburst, please read it in a mild tune of voice. Thank you John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Re: A calculus of personal identity
Quentin Anciaux writes: > Hi John,> > Le Vendredi 30 Juin 2006 21:06, John M a écrit :> > An interesting observation from Saibal that increasing> > the info-input to one's brain kills person(ality?).> > I would not say "dead", rather 'changed' as into some> > different one. (It is a gradual change, death is being> > thought of as something more abrupt and> > comprehensive.)> > For me death means to never be conscious again... never. That's why death is > meaningless in a 1st person point of view, because it is impossible by > definition to feel being dead, because if you could feel being dead, it means > you're not (dead), if you were by definition you couldn't feel/experience it. OK, that's a reasonable working definition of death... > So "the you" at 3 years old could not be dead, because you remember being it > (in your "bones"). You remember being 3, but it's probably nothing like being 3. It is possible that your brain has changed so much in the interim that even though you now remember being 3 "in your bones", almost no aspect of this memory is anything quite like the original experience. In fact, people might completely forget things that happened to them in early childhood, or might "remember" things that didn't happen to them at all, or happened to someone else. Imagine what would happen if we did not have continuous conscious experience in the one body, if we could edit our memories at will, if we could download other peoples' memories or other mental attributes - including that bone-deep sense of identity, which whatever else it is must also be somehow physically imprinted in our brains. > > In spite of that, knowing that when as a 5-yo I had> > different person-ality and ideas, brainfunction and> > emotions, I still feel NOW identity with THAT PERSON.> > I totally agree with this. And I think speaking (bis repetita) of 1st person > experience/continuous identity through time as being an illusion can not > explain the feeling of being "a self" every day till ... ? ;) Why not? If you were killed every night in your sleep and the next day a close copy reconstructed complete with memories (to the same extent as they are preserved "naturally" from day to day as our brain falls apart and is rebuilt by the neuronal nanomachinery), how would you know the difference? Unless you answer this question by saying that if your brain structure were preserved in the copying from day to day then continuity of identity is not an illusion, by definition... but then what if the copying after you are killed is delayed, or 1% more degradation than naturally occurs is allowed every cycle, or zero degradation is allowed but 1% false memories are added every cycle: would the strong feeling that you were the same person from day to day (which would still be present) then qualify as an illusion? Stathis PapaioannouBe one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis and Bruno: I am still perlexed (aren't we all?) about the use of the 1 vs 3. There is no 3rd person 'reality', only the 1st person memory of somebody else communicated to me when it becomes acknowledged as MY 1st person interpretation of it. I feel we rub too close to the solipsist quagmire of its unprovable and undeniable lunacy. John M --- Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Bruno Marchal writes: > > > > It could be, for example, that I have been > brainwashed and my memories > > of the past are > partly or completely false memories. > > > > There > is no false 1-memories. Only an association between > some 1-memory > and some 3-reality can be false. If > someone succeeds in implementing > correctly (more > than just coherently) false beliefs (like I am > Napoleon > just after Waterloo), then I will > believe correctly that I am Napoleon > and that I > have just lose a battle, almost by definition. I > will have > to go in an asylum, sure, but my> > 1-memory of the past is correct given that they have > been correctly > implemented. > This is just what I meant, though my terminology > seems to differ from yours. As a result, I have a > belief in a persisting 1st person through time, in > this example the belief that I was and still am > Napoleon. Now while I can't be wrong about having > this memory/belief, I could be wrong in asserting > that it reflects some 3rd person reality, such as > that I am over 300 years old. In the same way, I > think I am wrong in asserting that I believed I was > Napoleon yesterday, and the day before, and the day > before that, and so on, which is what a persisting > 1st person through time is as commonly understood; > it is true that I *believe* I believed that, but the > best I could do to verify it would be to examine my > current memory or other evidence, such as my diary. > And while my assertion that my present body is over > 300 years old could be verified in principle by some > medical test, my assertion that I have continuously > experienced the mental states of Napoleon during > this time period runs up against the problem of > other minds - even when the "other mind" is a past > version of my own (putative) mind. > > I'll respond to the rest of your post on the UDA at > a later time, I need to read it more closely than I > have time to do today... > > --Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > I agree if you mean by "future" and "past" > 3-future and 3-past. 1- > > past > > > > > and > 1-future is not extrapolation thy are feelings > continuously lived > > > > > in a lasting present. > I can no more doubt of my feeling of past than I > > > > > > can doubt of a headache (say). Even if time > by itself does not exist at > > > > > > > all > (which is the case with comp). The extrapolation > would reside only > > > in some third person > projection of that time, space, ... (I think we > > > > agree, the problem could just be the term > "illusion").> >> > I'm not sure if you're saying > what I was saying above by > > distinguishing > between 1-future/past and 3-future/past.> > > I > think so.> > > > The relationship between different > stages in a person's life - how > > far apart two > different experiences can be and still belong to the > > > same person - is complicated and necessarily > vague. If we allow that > > in principle anyone can > change into anyone else, how can you pin down > > > this relationship with any rigour? > > > To > understand the consequence of UDA, I try to no put > more rigor than > needed. Eventually those > relationship will appear in mathematical form > > with the lobian interview. Self-reference through > diagonalization will > do the work, but this is > needed to extract physics from numbers, not to > > understand we have to extract physics from numbers > once we assume comp.> > > > > > > > > > > such > as believing themselves to be moments in the life of > a single > > > > individual, having memories or > quasi-memories in common, and so on.> > > > > > If > I split into two that presents no problem for the > 3rd person POV > > > > > > (there are two > instantiations of Stathis extant where before there > wa > > s > > > > one) nor for the 1st person POV > (each instantiation knows it is > > > > experiencing > what it is experiencing as it is experiencing it).> > > >> > >> > > OK.> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > A > problem does arise when I anticipate the split > (which one will I > > > > > > become?) or look back > at the split (*I* was the original!); there is > > > > > no correct answer in these cases because it is > based on 3rd person > > > > > > extrapolation of > the 1st person POV, which in addition to its other > > > > > > > failings assumes only a single entity can > be extant at any one time > > > > (only a single 1st > person exists by definition, but multiple 3rd > > > > > persons can exist at the one time).> > >> > >> > > > This is a little weird. You say there
RE: Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno Marchal writes: > > It could be, for example, that I have been brainwashed and my memories > > of the past are partly or completely false memories. > > > > There is no false 1-memories. Only an association between some 1-memory > and some 3-reality can be false. If someone succeeds in implementing > correctly (more than just coherently) false beliefs (like I am Napoleon > just after Waterloo), then I will believe correctly that I am Napoleon > and that I have just lose a battle, almost by definition. I will have > to go in an asylum, sure, but my> 1-memory of the past is correct given that they have been correctly > implemented. This is just what I meant, though my terminology seems to differ from yours. As a result, I have a belief in a persisting 1st person through time, in this example the belief that I was and still am Napoleon. Now while I can't be wrong about having this memory/belief, I could be wrong in asserting that it reflects some 3rd person reality, such as that I am over 300 years old. In the same way, I think I am wrong in asserting that I believed I was Napoleon yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and so on, which is what a persisting 1st person through time is as commonly understood; it is true that I *believe* I believed that, but the best I could do to verify it would be to examine my current memory or other evidence, such as my diary. And while my assertion that my present body is over 300 years old could be verified in principle by some medical test, my assertion that I have continuously experienced the mental states of Napoleon during this time period runs up against the problem of other minds - even when the "other mind" is a past version of my own (putative) mind. I'll respond to the rest of your post on the UDA at a later time, I need to read it more closely than I have time to do today... --Stathis Papaioannou > > I agree if you mean by "future" and "past" 3-future and 3-past. 1- > > past > > > > > and 1-future is not extrapolation thy are feelings continuously lived > > > > > in a lasting present. I can no more doubt of my feeling of past than I > > > > > can doubt of a headache (say). Even if time by itself does not exist at > > > > > > > all (which is the case with comp). The extrapolation would reside only > > > in some third person projection of that time, space, ... (I think we > > > agree, the problem could just be the term "illusion").> >> > I'm not sure if you're saying what I was saying above by > > distinguishing between 1-future/past and 3-future/past.> > > I think so.> > > > The relationship between different stages in a person's life - how > > far apart two different experiences can be and still belong to the > > same person - is complicated and necessarily vague. If we allow that > > in principle anyone can change into anyone else, how can you pin down > > this relationship with any rigour? > > > To understand the consequence of UDA, I try to no put more rigor than > needed. Eventually those relationship will appear in mathematical form > with the lobian interview. Self-reference through diagonalization will > do the work, but this is needed to extract physics from numbers, not to > understand we have to extract physics from numbers once we assume comp.> > > > > > > > > > > such as believing themselves to be moments in the life of a single > > > > individual, having memories or quasi-memories in common, and so on.> > > > > > If I split into two that presents no problem for the 3rd person POV > > > > > > (there are two instantiations of Stathis extant where before there wa > > s > > > > one) nor for the 1st person POV (each instantiation knows it is > > > > experiencing what it is experiencing as it is experiencing it).> > >> > >> > > OK.> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > A problem does arise when I anticipate the split (which one will I > > > > > > become?) or look back at the split (*I* was the original!); there is > > > > no correct answer in these cases because it is based on 3rd person > > > > > > extrapolation of the 1st person POV, which in addition to its other > > > > > > failings assumes only a single entity can be extant at any one time > > > > (only a single 1st person exists by definition, but multiple 3rd > > > > persons can exist at the one time).> > >> > >> > > This is a little weird. You say there is no correct answer, and then > > > you give the comp-correct answer.> > > The first person is indeed just NOT first person-duplicable (unless > > > > > some added artificial telepathic trick, but in general I talk only on > > > the usual simple teleportation or duplication).> >> > There is an unambiguous 3rd person descriptive answer, but no such > > unambiguous 1st person answer.> > > I think there is, once assuming comp.> > > > > We can still talk about 1st person expectations, which I agree is the > > important thing for the subject.> > > Yes, physics will arise from that.> > >
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno, I have found myself in this lifetime to be a staunch OP-ponent and challenger to Godel's incompleteness theorems. In the way that they are structured - with the premises Godel preset, of initial boundaries for what he was about to design by 'proof' - his theorems are both sufficiently closed and constituently -accurate- in their conclusion and notions. _But_, what I find disturbing about them is that they are RELIANT on a more formative -presumption-, which presumption enables an analyst to draw quite a -contradiction aspect- to what Godel announced. A self-discontinuity _within_ his theorems, as it were. Clearly, this: He tacitly identifies any information resident -outside- any current/known, as -eventually accessible, connectible, relatable-, even if it means restructuring known-information in regard to alternative/new criteria and standards definitions, descriptions, statements. It is through this process of "add then rerevaluate" that new paradigms are achieved. But, it is dependent on the compatibility of the whole scope of all the information -then- present; and the eventual capacity to coordinate statements with all content addressable by statements. So, his thesis that at any given moment in time, not all information is present or gathered, and that this makes for limited statement making, where some evaluation statements in the data-set may instead be reliant on future/other yet-to-be-included information .. is a worthy logical notion. A closed system may not completely evaluate itself -- some evaluations are indeterminant. But, think for a moment about what that presumption of eventual includability dictates: That we -can- (right now) state something specific and projective about the qualia and nature of knowledge and information -- currently -beyond- the bounds of actual experience and encounter and access. It also aserts: information 'unknown' is compatible with and eventually relatable with information 'known'. The first foundation of Godel's '"I can't decide about that" Theorems' is the moot statement: 'I -can- decide about -everything- and here's why'; --which is a contradiction of logic. The "limited" set can make true-false statement about the totality of existence (internal and external to known-ness), but it cannot guarantee it's own true-false statements without added 'external' information made internal. Therefore, the logic of future science and knowledge, I assert, is -incorrectly- contrained and defined by this - by Godel and his Incompleteness Theorems. Rather, the logic of future science and knowledge is premised in Information and Performance Holism. The unitary interactional and information accessible quality of Existence. Which fundamental notion is what Godel ignores and rejects and tries to discredit. Where, we CAN in fact make VALID STATEMENTS -about that which- the incompleteness theorems 'conclude': we should not be able to say -anything- at all. You can absolutely place me in the community of thinkers who do not "swallow the incompleteness phenomena". Because my statements/logic are not incorrect and they do identify flaw/weakness/incorrectness in Godel. He used not a tautology but a strange negative tautology. If A then not-A ; if not-A, then never(A) as long as not-A exists; and since not-A always exists then A is not accessible to evaluate not-A; but not-A can assert A and assess A. All Godel did was give a validation for information hiding and manipulation -- something useful to politicians and economic manipulators and spiritual advocates. He didn't do science or logic or math any favors. Or the future for that matter. James N Rose Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:59, James N Rose a écrit : > > > > > Math and reductive science ignore and dis-consider collateral > > co-extancy. > > The comp assumption leads to the less reductive possible account of the > person and person POVs. > For example, comp does not guaranties *any* survival, but it guaranties > that no such survival-guaranties are possible. It guaranties > eventually that personal identity can only be a matter of ... > *personal* matter. > > Perhaps are you confusing math before and after > Post-Turing-Church-Godel-Lob ... > > ... or you refer to those mathematicians who have not yet swallow the > incompleteness phenomena... > > Actually I believe that the incompleteness theorem (especially with > comp or weaker) makes it impossible for science, or better, for the > scientific attitude, to be reductive. With comp the diagonalization > tale is before all a lesson of modesty. > > Despite this, Goel's incompleteness theorem is a constructive theorem, > and it leads to the discovery that "machine ignorance" is wonderfully > structured, rich, productive ... > And UDA justifies why the laws of physics comes from there, in a > testable way. > > To assume our finiteness, what comp really is about, enlarge
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:54, Brent Meeker a écrit : > > >>Sure it is. Just because something cannot be directly experienced >>doesn't rule it out of a >>scienctific model: quarks can't be observed, but their effects can. > > > > OK, but we were discussing about theories. general relativity, as a > theory does not assume the existence of readers of "relativity > journal". The quantum theory *with collapse* is already less clear on > that ... > > > >>So I believe in other people's >>first person experience because that is a good way to predict their >>behavoir. > > > Except the same theory would predict the behavior of zombie. We are > arguing on a fundamental level. All what I argue for is that once you > *assume* comp, then there is no aristotelian primary matter, and > eventually physics is branch of number's bio/psych/theo/logy. As I understand it, assuming comp is assuming that there are no zombies. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis also wrote in the same email, Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 12:24 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity > Brent wrote > > That's why I suggest that OMs are not an adequate ontological basis for a > > world model. On the other > > hand, if we include brain processes, or more abstractly, subconscious > > thoughts, then we would have > > enough information to string them together. > > I know some people on this list have attempted world-building > with OMs, but my starting point is the less ambitious idea that > consciousness can in principle extend across time and space > without being specially linked. If a person's stream of consciousness > were chopped up into seconds, minutes, days or whatever, using > whatever vehicle it takes to run a human mind, and these moments > of consciousness randomly dispersed throughout the multiverse, > they would all connect up by virtue of their information content. > Do you disagree that it would in principle be possible? So if I understand you right, this is where the difference between a book and a person arises. When a book's letters are scattered over the cosmos, the information is lost, but when the observer moments are so scattered, the subjective experience still remains. Now we suppose from quantum mechanics that the Bekenstein bound on the number of states a human can be in is less than 10^10^45. (Tipler, 1993, "The Physics of Immortality".) So each state of your life is a very special small subset of all those states. Let's do something special with just *one* life that you've led (will lead) in the universe, one life, that is, in a particular spacetime. I propose to take something quite a bit like observer-moments and ask some questions about it. Suppose that an exact frozen replica of your brain is made corresponding to each 10^-42 seconds of your life. This gives us about 10^42 * 10^7 * 70years, or about 10^50 states (a far cry from all those possible for humans, 10^10^45). We place those 10^50 states in a long row, and then, for an audience, we round up all the billions of observers in the visible universe to watch the show. First the spotlight is on your brain the second after you were born. Then one 10^-42 seconds later the spotlight moves to the next frozen brain, and so forth. The audience is placed in the same frame of reference as the moving light, and so they see an apparently continuous evolution of your brain. How is this any different from what happened to you actually? From an external scientific point of view, it seems remarkably identical. (I am ultimately to claim that something essential---but not "consciousness" or anything like that is missing, but rather *causality* is missing.) I suppose that you would assert that a first person experience was attached to this performance, a performance moving against a background of stars as the stage. Is that correct? Next we begin a process of deconstruction. First, on one century's performance, there is trouble with the spotlight, and it's very dim although the audience can still see the show. But a few performances (centuries) later, the spotlight goes out altogether. Still, the audience knows from the notes passed out exactly what is happening. On another night, the audience fails to show up. Do these things really affect whether or not a first person experience attends the brain? In other performances, the spotlight dances all around, from a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a hundred trillionth of a second (about 10^-50 seconds) from your brain in midlife to your brain as an adolescent, then to your brain as a young adult, then to the geezer Stathis brain, and so on, completely wrecking the order. Now from what you wrote above about > it takes to run a human mind, and these moments > of consciousness randomly dispersed throughout the multiverse, > they would all connect up by virtue of their information content. one might surmise that you believe that the order that these frozen brains appear is irrelevant. (I happen to agree---my own view is that as soon as there was no longer causality connecting each frozen brain with another brain---that is, that no real computation was taking place---the first person experience no longer occurred.) But if I have surmised correctly, then you wouldn't care that the frozen brains were not only shown sometimes out of sequence, but that there did not have to be an audience, nor was the spatial relative locations of the brains relevant. They could be jumbled all over the cosmos. But next, what about the neurons making up the brains? What would be lost if they too were dispersed through time and space? Finally, just when, if any time, would anything be lost: what if the neurons are themselves separated into atoms and dispersed? We
Re: A calculus of personal identity
- Original Message - From: "Brent Meeker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 3:34 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity > > John M wrote: > > > > ... > > >Stathis wrote: > > >... > > > "I agree. Other people are part of the model of the > world we form. And in the same way the existence of > myself, as a durable entity, is also a part of that > model. > Brent Meeker" > > * > > Does this agreed double(?) statement not rub too close > > on solipsism? > > Not if you accept that *all* our ideas of reality are models. The fact that they work well and are > coherent makes me believe they are models of an external reality - not a personal illusion - but I > can still doubt that they *are reality* itself. In other words I take them to be like scientific > theories: provisionally accepted, but subject to refutation. > Provided that your solipsism does not 'illusion' similarly thinking persons and phenomena that all match closely he one you imagined as the 'original' one. 'Scientific theories' ditto. Solipsism is an irrefutable quagmire of lunacy. > > > > Then again: >... > I have memories from when I was 5yrs old, but the source of identity I feel in those memories arises > only from the fact that I remember a personal viewpoint in spactime and I remember emotions. Those > are the same aspects of memories of last week that make them coherent with >my model of myself as a being who persists over time. > > Brent Meeker > I would love to go a bit further than that. I am working on it without firmly believing to arrive at a "good" solution soon. (I.e. during the time I have left). John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Hello, Quentin: we agree in spite of a different formulation: "death" - I wrote about it as a process in a concept, while I feel you refer to the 'death' of a 'person' or whatever, as a state. The person (or whatever) is a complex entity of its (his?) interconnected and self-reflective (yes, even 'lifeless' features) components - in connection with "the rest of the world" and when "death" (my semantics) steps in - such complex entity starts ;losing connection and accordingly ceases to exist altogether (as in its entirety). Portions of it do not qualify for the (entire) complex entity subjected to the 'death' (your semantics) process. It may continue to be something partially similar, but not anymore the entire complex. I have to differentiate in this respect between "essential" and "non essential" ingredients: a limb does not seem to be essential to a person, so the loss of a leg does not destroy the 'person' complexity into death. Even a (larger) part of the neuronic brain is not necessarily 'death-inducing', nor the partial loss of mentality. I have yet to find the criteria for identifying the kinds of 'ingredients' the loss (destruction, paralysis, dysfunction) of which we may qualify for 'death-inducing' - I do not rely on the ongoing medical terms which allow 'near-death' and reversible 'clinical' death (coma?) and consider the medically pronounceable death in a physiological restriction. I have no acceptable (for me) identification for "life". For sure I consider it wider than the churning of C-H-O-N based molecules in the Terrestrial biosphere. Feeling identical with that kid of 5 is a funny notion: emotionally it is memory of that early "I" in my present terms, mentality is the present one, not that 5 year old (logic, experience, cognitive inventory, even use of memes) and - allegedly none of my present 'atoms' in my 'body' is the same anymore. So what is what I feel as "MYSELF"? In spite of Saibal's 'killing of a person by adding too much new information to his experience'??? I am still 'alive'(?) and feel identical to that (Saibal-killed) infant. And when I die, that kid also dies (with/in me). This question of the two of us is real, within common sense normalcy, no teleportation or duplication involved. Regards John M - Original Message - From: "Quentin Anciaux" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 6:51 PM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity Hi John, Le Vendredi 30 Juin 2006 21:06, John M a écrit : > An interesting observation from Saibal that increasing > the info-input to one's brain kills person(ality?). > I would not say "dead", rather 'changed' as into some > different one. (It is a gradual change, death is being > thought of as something more abrupt and > comprehensive.) For me death means to never be conscious again... never. That's why death is meaningless in a 1st person point of view, because it is impossible by definition to feel being dead, because if you could feel being dead, it means you're not (dead), if you were by definition you couldn't feel/experience it. So "the you" at 3 years old could not be dead, because you remember being it (in your "bones"). That's why I think speaking of 1st person experience/identity as being illusionary is a bad step for explaining 1st person experience, which is the only thing we ever experience, the only real thing we can be sure of. > In spite of that, knowing that when as a 5-yo I had > different person-ality and ideas, brainfunction and > emotions, I still feel NOW identity with THAT PERSON. I totally agree with this. And I think speaking (bis repetita) of 1st person experience/continuous identity through time as being an illusion can not explain the feeling of being "a self" every day till ... ? ;) > The best > > John M Regards, Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Interesting question. I am interested in your own answer. I let Stathis answer (to see if he will give the comp one). Note that the comp answer here is not needed in the UDA argument where overlapping reconstitution (like in duplications) are never followed by somethings which looks (at least) like a murder. Bruno Le 02-juil.-06, à 07:52, Lee Corbin a écrit : > > Stathis wrote > >> Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 5:53 AM > >> which is why in symmetrical duplication experiments I anticipate >> that I will become one of the duplicates with equal probability. > > What do you think of your survival chances if you happen to know > that after you fall asleep tonight, you will be disintegrated, > but the information will be used to create two exact duplicates, > and then one of the duplicates is vaporized and the other > returned to your bed completely unaware? > > Zero? (I.e., you don't survive the "teleportation" aspect at all.) > > One-half? (I.e., your soul goes into one at random, and if that's > the one that dies, then your number is up.) > > One? (I.e., Stathis will wake up in bed for sure tomorrow, and > resume his life just as he has done everyday (since our > fiendish experiments began when he was five years old)) > > Lee > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:59, James N Rose a écrit : > > Math and reductive science ignore and dis-consider collateral > co-extancy. The comp assumption leads to the less reductive possible account of the person and person POVs. For example, comp does not guaranties *any* survival, but it guaranties that no such survival-guaranties are possible. It guaranties eventually that personal identity can only be a matter of ... *personal* matter. Perhaps are you confusing math before and after Post-Turing-Church-Godel-Lob ... ... or you refer to those mathematicians who have not yet swallow the incompleteness phenomena... Actually I believe that the incompleteness theorem (especially with comp or weaker) makes it impossible for science, or better, for the scientific attitude, to be reductive. With comp the diagonalization tale is before all a lesson of modesty. Despite this, Goel's incompleteness theorem is a constructive theorem, and it leads to the discovery that "machine ignorance" is wonderfully structured, rich, productive ... And UDA justifies why the laws of physics comes from there, in a testable way. To assume our finiteness, what comp really is about, enlarges the range of our possible infinite realms. With comp only the gods can miss the unconceivable freedom. Somehow. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:54, Brent Meeker a écrit : > > Sure it is. Just because something cannot be directly experienced > doesn't rule it out of a > scienctific model: quarks can't be observed, but their effects can. OK, but we were discussing about theories. general relativity, as a theory does not assume the existence of readers of "relativity journal". The quantum theory *with collapse* is already less clear on that ... > So I believe in other people's > first person experience because that is a good way to predict their > behavoir. Except the same theory would predict the behavior of zombie. We are arguing on a fundamental level. All what I argue for is that once you *assume* comp, then there is no aristotelian primary matter, and eventually physics is branch of number's bio/psych/theo/logy. > I consult a model in > which I use my first person experience to perdict how they will behave > - this is called emphathizing > - and I find it works pretty well. You are lucky but then I don't know any other ways. But again, in those threads we are not just interested in prediction (even if they are the ultimate test) but in understanding. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 01-juil.-06, à 19:35, Brent Meeker a écrit : > That's not contrary to my conception at all. I certainly do "bet" on > the existence of others, and > of chairs and tables and stars and electrons and myself, and all for > the essentially the same reasons. OK. > > I don't understand the conjunction of "necessarily" and > "serendipitous". It can be proved that if I am a self-referentially correct machine then I cannot know which machine I am. So if the doctor *guaranties* that I will survive the digital graft at the substitution level he has chosen, then I'l better run ... (if I can). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Hal writes > What I argued was that it would be easier to find the trace of a person's > thoughts in a universe where he had a physically continuous record than > where there were discontinuities (easier in the sense that a smaller > program would suffice). In my framework, this means that the universe > would contribute more measure to people who had continuous lives than > people who teleported. Just out of curiosity, does a person who saw a chance TV show on Chaucer and now reads Chaucer have less measure than if he'd been just as influenced by a TV show about Harry Potter? > Someone whose life ended at the moment of > teleportation would have a higher measure than someone who survived > the event. Therefore, I would view teleportation as reducing measure > similarly to doing something that had a risk of dying. I would try to > avoid it, unless there were compensating benefits That is, you would avoid it more than you avoid crossing the street more often than you have to (*with* the stop lights; far be it from me to accuse you of unlawful behavior)? > If we wanted to create a physical record where this framework would > be compatible with saying that people die often, it would be necessary > to physically teleport people thousands of times a second. Or perhaps > the same thing could be done by freezing people for a substantial time, > reviving them for a thousandth of a second, then re-freezing them again > for a while, etc. > > If we consider the practical implications of such experiments I don't > think it is so implausible to view them as being worse than living a > single, connected, subjective life. It would be quite difficult to > interact in a meaningful way with the world under such circumstances. But it may be that this is a simulation, and the "destruction" amounts to erasure of data from working memory, and the "restoration" the retrieval from a distant part of the network bus. Thus, the interaction of people with people left in working memory would go completely unnoticed. Equivalently, we could find out that the Martians operate millions of times faster than we do, and employ something a little more advanced than superconducting that copies my body information, stores it a few meters away, then disintegrates my body, copies my data back from where they stored it, and fabricates a new copy. This should not be evident to people with such slow senses as us animals. > However, if one were so unfortunate as to be put into such a situation, > then it would no longer be particularly bad to teleport. You're being > broken into pieces all the time anyway, so the event of teleportation > would presumably not make things any worse. Particularly if you were > somehow being teleported thousands of times a second, then adding a > teleportation would basically be meaningless since you're teleporting > anyway at every instant. So I don't agree with Lee's conclusion that > in this situation people would still resist teleportation. I meant it in the way that today many people resist air travel, i.e., a part of them knows that they are not being rational in a way. Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis wrote > Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 5:53 AM > which is why in symmetrical duplication experiments I anticipate > that I will become one of the duplicates with equal probability. What do you think of your survival chances if you happen to know that after you fall asleep tonight, you will be disintegrated, but the information will be used to create two exact duplicates, and then one of the duplicates is vaporized and the other returned to your bed completely unaware? Zero? (I.e., you don't survive the "teleportation" aspect at all.) One-half? (I.e., your soul goes into one at random, and if that's the one that dies, then your number is up.) One? (I.e., Stathis will wake up in bed for sure tomorrow, and resume his life just as he has done everyday (since our fiendish experiments began when he was five years old)) Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Jamie, your highly critical post is worthwhile reading. I like your antithesis for 'reductive operands' and would almost like what you wrote: > "Personal Identity" is a de-fault resultant of the > structure of the universe.< unless I had this idiosyncrasy against axioms, givens, accepted de-faults etc. All as crutches for the not (yet?) understood/explainable necessities to feel comfortable within the theories we embrace. Of course to use "structure of this universe" is selective for THIS universe and to refer to some structure is translatable to "and what may that be?" I mean "structure". Which I may understand as "relations within identifiable components - back and forth", but I do not bank on much acceptence for that. I seek clearness in processes (changes) and effects they exercise on "each other" - as WE think of it, since in the wholeness there are NO separate entities to react. About the 'personal identity': I sense a 'conscious'(?) existence in everything, WE consider separate entities. I am at the immature level of considering internal and self-reflexive "togetherness" factors in functional and interconnected associations (including us, humans) which covers the undivisable wholeness. It is not far from your (de-fault) axiom, but I do not give up to learn more about its details (will I ever?) and not sit back woth a complacent acceptance of the "given". John Mikes --- James N Rose <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The notions of observed/observing, of first vs > third, > and all such round robin banter .. all fall down as > nonsense > conversation because -no one- has in any real sense > specified the new-functions required to make such > concepts ... a "calculus". > > > There are conflated criteria involved - as well as a > total > lack of mathematical symbology that might otherwise > provide > fresh territory and useful new ways to procede. > > The tendency of science and mathematics is to get > rid of > clutter -- and 'reduce' to basic truths and > principles and > operations. The imagined/aspired grail of > 'objective reality'. > > Unfortunately, reductive operands tend to erase > 'distinctions' > that one would otherwise -need- in order to make > sense of > 'identity/ies' and comparative-perception-sets: .. > can V and Z .. > ostensibly 'identical' in construct .. have > -different- 'experiences', > or would they superpositionedly co-mingle and 'be > one/together'? > > General relativity pushed the envelope even -more > shut- to distinctions > by identifying transforms, that do allow for > alternative experiences > -but- by invoking the principle that no frame of > reference is prioritized > over any other. > > BUT, just because transforms are possible and > therefore Universals and > Invariants and Conservants seem to be underscoring > -reliables- that > make the Objectivity grail seem more real and > reachable, it is the > collateral concurrent fact which is as equally - or > more - important: > > MANY 'frames of reference' exist - and - they are > founded on > criteria which make their distinctionness profound. > > The simplest notion being: > > "entities exist embedded in concurrent spaces; > nothing is a pure-isolate" > > Math and reductive science ignore and dis-consider > collateral co-extancy. > > Translated: ... no 'identical' entities could or > would have perfect identical > indistinguishable experience(s) .. unless ALL > internal -and- external parameters > were as-well 'exactly identical' in all aspects, > constructs, -and- relations. > > Since the only way for such total identicality to > exist is such > entities to be perfectly superpositioned .. and > that can't happen > because of the Pauli exclusion principle .. no two > (or more) 'identities' > could or would be ... a single persona .. laying > claim to some > 'true identity' versus others/clones being > replicant/false identities. > > Any clones/replicants -- however "similar/identical" > -- would be their OWN > persona and experiant .. having access to wholly > unique and personal > 'interactions sets', distinct from any other entity. > > "Personal Identity" is a de-fault resultant of the > structure of the universe. > Integrity - of systemic base/performance/entity-ness > is key - for everything. > > > Jamie Rose > Ceptual Institute > > > > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Addendum to my previous: TO make math sensitive to frame of reference distinctions and useful in an expanded way added parameter-dimensions might be useful. Color coding for example. With new translation operators. Equations written in red might indicate that attention be maintained that the values are in regard to frame of reference P and that factors or sub equations displayed in gray make note that those are written representative of an alternative 'perspective' base-frame set. The math may conflate but the perticipating frames of reference can be kept distinct and identified. Jamie --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 30-juin-06, à 20:43, Brent Meeker a écrit : > > >>Bruno Marchal wrote: >>There is no false 1-memories. Only an association between some >>1-memory and some 3-reality can be false. If someone succeeds in >>implementing correctly (more than just coherently) false beliefs (like >>I am Napoleon just after Waterloo), then I will believe correctly that >>I am Napoleon and that I have just lose a battle, almost by >>definition. I will have to go in an asylum, sure, but my >> >>1-memory of the past is correct given that they have been correctly >>implemented. >> >>=== >> >>What does "correctly implemented" mean? Doesn't it reference some 3rd >>person standard of "correct"? > > > > Yes. Like in a plane with an altimeter telling the plane is 1 miles > above the sea, when the plane actually *is* 1 miles above the sea > (with respect to its most probable relative computation history). > > "Correctly implemented" means---assuming comp and thus assuming the > existence of the substitution level---that the doctor has luckily > implemented the "Napoleon's software" at that correct level (or below). This seems circular - "correctly implemented" means a the "correct level (or below)". Suppose the implementation caused Napoleon-2 to believe he had just won the Battle of Waterloo. That is a conflict which seems to imply an incorrect implementation. But is it incorrect because of the historical fact that he lost, or because of the 1st person fact that Napoleon-1 didn't believe he had won. Suppose Napoleon-1 did believe he had won? Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
The notions of observed/observing, of first vs third, and all such round robin banter .. all fall down as nonsense conversation because -no one- has in any real sense specified the new-functions required to make such concepts ... a "calculus". There are conflated criteria involved - as well as a total lack of mathematical symbology that might otherwise provide fresh territory and useful new ways to procede. The tendency of science and mathematics is to get rid of clutter -- and 'reduce' to basic truths and principles and operations. The imagined/aspired grail of 'objective reality'. Unfortunately, reductive operands tend to erase 'distinctions' that one would otherwise -need- in order to make sense of 'identity/ies' and comparative-perception-sets: .. can V and Z .. ostensibly 'identical' in construct .. have -different- 'experiences', or would they superpositionedly co-mingle and 'be one/together'? General relativity pushed the envelope even -more shut- to distinctions by identifying transforms, that do allow for alternative experiences -but- by invoking the principle that no frame of reference is prioritized over any other. BUT, just because transforms are possible and therefore Universals and Invariants and Conservants seem to be underscoring -reliables- that make the Objectivity grail seem more real and reachable, it is the collateral concurrent fact which is as equally - or more - important: MANY 'frames of reference' exist - and - they are founded on criteria which make their distinctionness profound. The simplest notion being: "entities exist embedded in concurrent spaces; nothing is a pure-isolate" Math and reductive science ignore and dis-consider collateral co-extancy. Translated: ... no 'identical' entities could or would have perfect identical indistinguishable experience(s) .. unless ALL internal -and- external parameters were as-well 'exactly identical' in all aspects, constructs, -and- relations. Since the only way for such total identicality to exist is such entities to be perfectly superpositioned .. and that can't happen because of the Pauli exclusion principle .. no two (or more) 'identities' could or would be ... a single persona .. laying claim to some 'true identity' versus others/clones being replicant/false identities. Any clones/replicants -- however "similar/identical" -- would be their OWN persona and experiant .. having access to wholly unique and personal 'interactions sets', distinct from any other entity. "Personal Identity" is a de-fault resultant of the structure of the universe. Integrity - of systemic base/performance/entity-ness is key - for everything. Jamie Rose Ceptual Institute --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 30-juin-06, à 21:34, Brent Meeker a écrit : > > > >>>John M: >>>Does this agreed double(?) statement not rub too close >>>on solipsism? >> >>Not if you accept that *all* our ideas of reality are models. The >>fact that they work well and are >>coherent makes me believe they are models of an external reality - not >>a personal illusion - but I >>can still doubt that they *are reality* itself. In other words I take >>them to be like scientific >>theories: provisionally accepted, but subject to refutation. > > > > You are not answering John, I think, Brent. A scientist who send a > paper to a journal does not assume her aper will be read, he just hope > for. To bet on the other's first person experience is not of the kind > "scientific" and refutable. Sure it is. Just because something cannot be directly experienced doesn't rule it out of a scienctific model: quarks can't be observed, but their effects can. So I believe in other people's first person experience because that is a good way to predict their behavoir. I consult a model in which I use my first person experience to perdict how they will behave - this is called emphathizing - and I find it works pretty well. > > >>I have memories from when I was 5yrs old, but the source of identity I >>feel in those memories arises >>only from the fact that I remember a personal viewpoint in spactime >>and I remember emotions. > > > > I agree. > > > > >>Those >>are the same aspects of memories of last week that make them coherent >>with my model of myself as a >>being who persists over time. > > > > > All right, but at the first person level, there is a point where you > *are* the model/theory/machine, like when you embed a map of Finland > into Finland: as far as you allow "continuous" transformation of the > map (remaining embedded in Finland) there will be a "fixed point": a > point of the map which is exactly and literaly on the corresponding > locality of Finland. I don't understand the application of this analogy. When I say I have a model of the world (which includes myself) I mean I have a set of concepts and rules for manipulating them that allows me to, in a limited and provisional way to interact successfully with what I take to be an external reality. This doesn't necessarily have the same topology as the external reality, so I don't see how the fixed point theorem applies. The same would apply to my computer. It has a map of the United States coded into its memory, but it is in a binary representation distributed across several registers - a different topology than the planar surface of the United States. So while my computer has a location in the U.S. (as I have in my model of reality) there is no point in my computer memory that corresponds to the same point in the U.S. > The diagonalization procedures can be used for finding the similar > fixed point of computable transformations. > Also: when you say "yes" to a "teleporting doctor", you assume the > artificial brain is not just a model of yourself, but that it > implements genuinely, albeit in a relative numerical way, you first > person pasts/futures. No, I only bet that it will have first person experiences as I would have if I had continued in my biological form. I don't know what "implements genuinely" means - it seems to imply some extra ingredient (spirit?) that makes an implementation "genuine". Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 30-juin-06, à 21:06, John M a écrit : > > >>"I agree. Other people are part of the model of the >>world we form. And in the same way the existence of >>myself, as a durable entity, is also a part of that >>model. >>Brent Meeker" >>* >>Does this agreed double(?) statement not rub too close >>on solipsism? > > > I agree, and, with all my respect to Brent, I would say it is an > illustration of a typical "error" of the *first* person. Because she is > unable to convince herself (neither in some personal third person way, > nor in any first person ways) of the existence of another, she forgets > she can correctly bet on that "others". And this even if with comp we > can prove (communicate to oneself in a third person way) that the > *correctness* of that bet is necessarily of the type of serendipitous > correctness. That's not contrary to my conception at all. I certainly do "bet" on the existence of others, and of chairs and tables and stars and electrons and myself, and all for the essentially the same reasons. I don't understand the conjunction of "necessarily" and "serendipitous". Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Hal Finney writes: > > OK, this is the old ASSA versus RSSA distinction. But leaving this> > argument aside, I don't see how teleportation could be analogous to a> > risky, measure reducing activity if it seemed to be a reliable process> > from a third person perspective. If someone plays Russian Roulette, we> > both agree that from a third person perspective, we are likely to observe> > a dead body eventually. But with teleportation (destructive, to one place)> > there is a 1:1 ratio between pre-experiment subjects and post-experiment> > subjects from a third person perspective. Are you suggesting that the> > predicted drop in measure will have no third person observable effect?> > First, I tend to think that the phrase "third person observable" is> something of a contradiction. Observation is a first-person activity.> I would prefer to think of third person effects as simply the physical> record of events.> > In this case, there will definitely be a third person effect. Having> someone teleport is a third-person difference from not having them> teleport. We are talking about two cases here that are third-person> distinguishable, with very different physical histories, hence it is> plausible that there be different subjective first-person effects.> > As far as the comparison with Russian Roulette, if someone only plays it> once, there might not be a third person difference. Yet I would argue> his measure was reduced (in the multiverse).> > Really, when we are talking about third person records, all we have> is the actual sequence of events that occurs. Suppose someone plays> Russian Roulette multiple times. In this universe, perhaps we see them> pull the trigger five times and survive, and on the sixth pull they die.> That subjective history, of playing RR six times, is instantiated in> this universe. This universe contributes measure to that history.> > Other universes, not observable to us, may have him die after different> trials. Each of those contributes measure to subjective histories that> end at different points. The result is that the measure of his lifespan> is reduced at each trigger pull, but that in any single third-person> universe that reduction in measure is unobservable. Instead we see no> change until the final trigger pull.> > Consider this example: someone commits to killing himself if you die, and> now you play Russian Roulette yourself. Each time you pull the trigger> you reduce his measure, that of the other person who will kill himself> if you die. But you will never observe him dying (in the first-person> sense). This is a case of an unobservable measure decrease which you> might nevertheless believe in. OK, I used "third person observable" too loosely. What I meant was this: if a person's measure in the multiverse falls as a result of teleportation compared to, say, taking the train, then there will be fewer copies of that person in the multiverse after teleportation compared to what would have been the case had he taken the train. "Fewer copies in the multiverse" assumes a God's eye view, but a probabilistic analysis will give an indication of the right answer if the experiment can be repeated enough times and if the experimenter can avoid becoming a victim of the effect he is studying. In this case, given that teleportation does not obviously result in a dead subject any more often than the train journey does, the only way I can see that would allow you to say it caused a greater drop in measure would be if the subject entering the teleporter, at least some of the time, were not really the same person as the one exiting the teleporter at the destination. I assumed this is in fact what you were saying, but... > > > As far as Lee's suggestion that people could be dying thousands of> > > times a second, my framework does not allow for arbitrary statements> > > like that. Given a physical circumstance, we can calculate what happens.> > > It's not just arbitrary what we choose to say about life and death.> > > We can calculate the measure of different subjective life experiences,> > > based on the physical record.> > > > > > If we wanted to create a physical record where this framework would> > > be compatible with saying that people die often, it would be necessary> > > to physically teleport people thousands of times a second. Or perhaps> > > the same thing could be done by freezing people for a substantial time,> > > reviving them for a thousandth of a second, then re-freezing them again> > > for a while, etc.> > > > > > If we consider the practical implications of such experiments I don't> > > think it is so implausible to view them as being worse than living a> > > single, connected, subjective life. It would be quite difficult to> > > interact in a meaningful way with the world under such circumstances.> >> > Assuming it could be done seamlessly, how would it make any difference? If> > you believe the important aspect of our consciousness resides in the>
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 30-juin-06, à 20:43, Brent Meeker a écrit : > Bruno Marchal wrote: > There is no false 1-memories. Only an association between some > 1-memory and some 3-reality can be false. If someone succeeds in > implementing correctly (more than just coherently) false beliefs (like > I am Napoleon just after Waterloo), then I will believe correctly that > I am Napoleon and that I have just lose a battle, almost by > definition. I will have to go in an asylum, sure, but my > > 1-memory of the past is correct given that they have been correctly > implemented. > > === > > What does "correctly implemented" mean? Doesn't it reference some 3rd > person standard of "correct"? Yes. Like in a plane with an altimeter telling the plane is 1 miles above the sea, when the plane actually *is* 1 miles above the sea (with respect to its most probable relative computation history). "Correctly implemented" means---assuming comp and thus assuming the existence of the substitution level---that the doctor has luckily implemented the "Napoleon's software" at that correct level (or below). I could have said: > 1-memory of the past is correct given that they have been correctly > implemented, *by assumption*. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 30-juin-06, à 21:34, Brent Meeker a écrit : >> John M: >> Does this agreed double(?) statement not rub too close >> on solipsism? > > Not if you accept that *all* our ideas of reality are models. The > fact that they work well and are > coherent makes me believe they are models of an external reality - not > a personal illusion - but I > can still doubt that they *are reality* itself. In other words I take > them to be like scientific > theories: provisionally accepted, but subject to refutation. You are not answering John, I think, Brent. A scientist who send a paper to a journal does not assume her aper will be read, he just hope for. To bet on the other's first person experience is not of the kind "scientific" and refutable. > I have memories from when I was 5yrs old, but the source of identity I > feel in those memories arises > only from the fact that I remember a personal viewpoint in spactime > and I remember emotions. I agree. > Those > are the same aspects of memories of last week that make them coherent > with my model of myself as a > being who persists over time. All right, but at the first person level, there is a point where you *are* the model/theory/machine, like when you embed a map of Finland into Finland: as far as you allow "continuous" transformation of the map (remaining embedded in Finland) there will be a "fixed point": a point of the map which is exactly and literaly on the corresponding locality of Finland. The diagonalization procedures can be used for finding the similar fixed point of computable transformations. Also: when you say "yes" to a "teleporting doctor", you assume the artificial brain is not just a model of yourself, but that it implements genuinely, albeit in a relative numerical way, you first person pasts/futures. Perhaps you are just putting comp into question, (not its consequences) are you? I just try to understand. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 30-juin-06, à 21:06, John M a écrit : > "I agree. Other people are part of the model of the > world we form. And in the same way the existence of > myself, as a durable entity, is also a part of that > model. > Brent Meeker" > * > Does this agreed double(?) statement not rub too close > on solipsism? I agree, and, with all my respect to Brent, I would say it is an illustration of a typical "error" of the *first* person. Because she is unable to convince herself (neither in some personal third person way, nor in any first person ways) of the existence of another, she forgets she can correctly bet on that "others". And this even if with comp we can prove (communicate to oneself in a third person way) that the *correctness* of that bet is necessarily of the type of serendipitous correctness. > An interesting observation from Saibal that increasing > the info-input to one's brain kills person(ality?). > I would not say "dead", rather 'changed' as into some > different one. (It is a gradual change, death is being > thought of as something more abrupt and > comprehensive.) > In spite of that, knowing that when as a 5-yo I had > different person-ality and ideas, brainfunction and > emotions, I still feel NOW identity with THAT PERSON. I understand you. In particular, if some bad even happens, or not, to a child at his third birthday event, whatever computational influence this can have for the personality of that person, its future 1-present will reflect that 1-past event in a probable "1-continuous" way to its 1-present. Somehow, we are, at each instant, partially defined by a "product" of our (possible) 1-past(s), as we are dually partially defined by a "sum" of our 1-futures. (A product like a big "and", a sum like a big "or"). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Hi John, Le Vendredi 30 Juin 2006 21:06, John M a écrit : > An interesting observation from Saibal that increasing > the info-input to one's brain kills person(ality?). > I would not say "dead", rather 'changed' as into some > different one. (It is a gradual change, death is being > thought of as something more abrupt and > comprehensive.) For me death means to never be conscious again... never. That's why death is meaningless in a 1st person point of view, because it is impossible by definition to feel being dead, because if you could feel being dead, it means you're not (dead), if you were by definition you couldn't feel/experience it. So "the you" at 3 years old could not be dead, because you remember being it (in your "bones"). That's why I think speaking of 1st person experience/identity as being illusionary is a bad step for explaining 1st person experience, which is the only thing we ever experience, the only real thing we can be sure of. > In spite of that, knowing that when as a 5-yo I had > different person-ality and ideas, brainfunction and > emotions, I still feel NOW identity with THAT PERSON. I totally agree with this. And I think speaking (bis repetita) of 1st person experience/continuous identity through time as being an illusion can not explain the feeling of being "a self" every day till ... ? ;) > The best > > John M Regards, Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
John M wrote: > > --- Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > (unless the final remark with Saibal/s signature > underneath comes from him): > ... > Stathis wrote: > ... > >>I would say that the 1st person experience is *not* >>an illusion in any sense of the word. It is the very >>opposite, in a >way: the most real thing, which >>cannot be doubted... > > * > "I agree. Other people are part of the model of the > world we form. And in the same way the existence of > myself, as a durable entity, is also a part of that > model. > Brent Meeker" > * > Does this agreed double(?) statement not rub too close > on solipsism? Not if you accept that *all* our ideas of reality are models. The fact that they work well and are coherent makes me believe they are models of an external reality - not a personal illusion - but I can still doubt that they *are reality* itself. In other words I take them to be like scientific theories: provisionally accepted, but subject to refutation. > > Then again: > >>The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He >>died because >>too much new information was added to his brain. >> -- Saibal Mitra > > * > An interesting observation from Saibal that increasing > the info-input to one's brain kills person(ality?). > I would not say "dead", rather 'changed' as into some > different one. (It is a gradual change, death is being > thought of as something more abrupt and > comprehensive.) > In spite of that, knowing that when as a 5-yo I had > different person-ality and ideas, brainfunction and > emotions, I still feel NOW identity with THAT PERSON. I have memories from when I was 5yrs old, but the source of identity I feel in those memories arises only from the fact that I remember a personal viewpoint in spactime and I remember emotions. Those are the same aspects of memories of last week that make them coherent with my model of myself as a being who persists over time. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
--- Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: (unless the final remark with Saibal/s signature underneath comes from him): ... Stathis wrote: ... > I would say that the 1st person experience is *not* > an illusion in any sense of the word. It is the very > opposite, in a >way: the most real thing, which > cannot be doubted... * "I agree. Other people are part of the model of the world we form. And in the same way the existence of myself, as a durable entity, is also a part of that model. Brent Meeker" * Does this agreed double(?) statement not rub too close on solipsism? Then again: > The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He > died because > too much new information was added to his brain. > -- Saibal Mitra * An interesting observation from Saibal that increasing the info-input to one's brain kills person(ality?). I would not say "dead", rather 'changed' as into some different one. (It is a gradual change, death is being thought of as something more abrupt and comprehensive.) In spite of that, knowing that when as a 5-yo I had different person-ality and ideas, brainfunction and emotions, I still feel NOW identity with THAT PERSON. The best John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno Marchal wrote: There is no false 1-memories. Only an association between some 1-memory and some 3-reality can be false. If someone succeeds in implementing correctly (more than just coherently) false beliefs (like I am Napoleon just after Waterloo), then I will believe correctly that I am Napoleon and that I have just lose a battle, almost by definition. I will have to go in an asylum, sure, but my 1-memory of the past is correct given that they have been correctly implemented. === What does "correctly implemented" mean? Doesn't it reference some 3rd person standard of "correct"? Brent Meeker P.S. For some reason I get some of your posts, like the above, as enclosures to an otherwise empty message!? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Bruno Marchal writes: ... > > > This is not to say that my mind can or should overcome [Lee Corbin > > > disagrees on the "should"] the deeply ingrained belief or illusion > > > that I am a unique, one-track individual living my life from start to > > > finish, > > > > > > Here you really talk about the third person extrapolation, so I agree > > with you. But the first person is not deceive by its feeling of living > > uniquely in time and space. It could be dangerous to say so, because it > > leads to (materialism) eliminativism which eventually conclude that the > > whole first person thing is an illusion. This leads to a deeply wrong > > sense of "human"-irresponsibility. Well, it is a negation of the first > > person. I can be sure it is wrong, as I bet you can too. > > I would say that the 1st person experience is *not* an illusion in any > sense of the word. It is the very opposite, in a way: the most real > thing, which cannot be doubted. But extrapolating to other people or > other selves in the past, future, coming out of the teleporter or > whatever, that is another matter. I agree. Other people are part of the model of the world we form. And in the same way the existence of myself, as a durable entity, is also a part of that model. Brent Meeker The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He died because too much new information was added to his brain. -- Saibal Mitra --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Saibal Mitra wrote: > > - Original Message - > From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: > Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 09:23 AM > Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity > > > Brent Meeker writes: > > >>>I think it is one of the most profound things about consciousness > > > > that observer moments don't *need* anything to connect them other than > > > their content. They are linked like the novels in a series, not like the > > > carriages of a train. It is not necessary that the individual novels be > > > lined up specially on a shelf: as long as they have each been written > > > and exist somewhere in the world, the series exists. > > But the series > exists, as a series, by virtue of the information in them. They are like > Barbour's > time-capsules; each contains enough references and characters > from the others to allow them to be > put into order. It's not clear to me > what duration "obserever moments" have - but I don't think > they are novel > length. I imagine them more like sentences (a complete thought as my > English teacher > used to say), and sentences *don't* have enough > information to allow them to be reconstructed into > the novel they came > from. > A book is the analogy that came to mind, but there is an important > difference between this and conscious experience. Books, sentences, words > may not need to be physically collected together to make a coherent larger > structure, but they do need to be somehow sorted in the mind of an observer; > otherwise, we could say that a dictionary contains every book ever written > or yet to be written. Moments of consciousness, on the other hand, by their > nature contain their own observer. > >>That's why I suggest that OMs are not an adequate ontological basis for a > > world model. On the other > hand, if we include brain processes, or more > abstractly, subconscious thoughts, then we would have > enough information > to string them together. > I know some people on this list have attempted world-building with OMs, but > my starting point is the less ambitious idea that consciousness can in > principle extend across time and space without being specially linked. If a > person's stream of consciousness were chopped up into seconds, minutes, days > or whatever, using whatever vehicle it takes to run a human mind, and these > moments of consciousness randomly dispersed throughout the multiverse, they > would all connect up by virtue of their information content. Do you disagree > that it would in principle be possible? > > > You can take time evolution as an example. In both classical physics and > quantum mechanics, information is preserved. All the information about us > was already present in the early universe That is not a consensus theory. The Copenhagen and other intepretations in which the wave-function collapses provide for growing information. Even many of those who assume a strictly unitary evolution, suppose that the net information is zero or very small: the information we see is cancelled by negative information embodied in correlations with particles that inflation has pushed beyond our horizon. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Brent Meeker writes: > >>> I think it is one of the most profound things about consciousness that >>> observer moments don't >>> *need* anything to connect them other than >> >> their content. They are linked like the novels in a series, not like the >> >> carriages of a train. It is not necessary that the individual novels be >>> lined up specially on a shelf: as long as they have each been written and >>> exist somewhere in >>> the world, the series exists. >> >> > But the series exists, as a series, by virtue of the information in them. > They are like > Barbour's >> > time-capsules; each contains enough references and characters from the others > to allow them to be > >> > put into order. It's not clear to me what duration "obserever moments" have > - but I don't think > >> > they are novel length. I imagine them more like sentences (a complete > thought as my English > teacher >> > used to say), and sentences *don't* have enough information to allow them to > be reconstructed > into >> the novel they came from. > > A book is the analogy that came to mind, but there is an important difference > between this and > conscious experience. Books, sentences, words may not need to be physically > collected together to > make a coherent larger structure, but they do need to be somehow sorted in > the mind of an > observer; otherwise, we could say that a dictionary contains every book ever > written or yet to be > written. Moments of consciousness, on the other hand, by their nature contain > their own observer. Even if they are not self-conscious? If they are not reflective, as most aren't, then what is it about the "observer" that makes it *the same observer*? You seem to be postulating a mystic dualism in which otherwise disjoint moments of consciousness are joined by having the same observer...in the Cartesian theater? > > >> > That's why I suggest that OMs are not an adequate ontological basis for a > world model. On the > other >> > hand, if we include brain processes, or more abstractly, subconscious > thoughts, then we would > have >> enough information to string them together. > > I know some people on this list have attempted world-building with OMs, but > my starting point is > the less ambitious idea that consciousness can in principle extend across > time and space without > being specially linked. I'm not sure how to take that - a poetic metaphor? Time and space are our inventions: part of our model of the world. In that model > If a person's stream of consciousness were chopped up into seconds, minutes, > days or whatever, > using whatever vehicle it takes to run a human mind, and these moments of > consciousness randomly > dispersed throughout the multiverse, they would all connect up by virtue of > their information > content. Do you disagree that it would in principle be possible? Yes, I disagree. At the level of minutes it would probably work; at the level of seconds, I'm doubtful; at the level of milliseconds, I don't believe it. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 30-juin-06, à 15:19, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : I have the subjective experience of being a person persisting through time because I feel that I know in a 1st person way what I did in the past. If I really did know in a 1st person way what I did in the past I could not possibly doubt it, just as I cannot possibly doubt that I am having my *present* experience. All right. However, I cannot be sure of my memories of the past just as I cannot be sure about someone else's experiences: I can only have 3rd person knowledge in either case. I would say 3rd belief, reserving knowledge for the first person (may be plural). It could be, for example, that I have been brainwashed and my memories of the past are partly or completely false memories. There is no false 1-memories. Only an association between some 1-memory and some 3-reality can be false. If someone succeeds in implementing correctly (more than just coherently) false beliefs (like I am Napoleon just after Waterloo), then I will believe correctly that I am Napoleon and that I have just lose a battle, almost by definition. I will have to go in an asylum, sure, but my 1-memory of the past is correct given that they have been correctly implemented. > I agree if you mean by "future" and "past" 3-future and 3-past. 1-past > and 1-future is not extrapolation thy are feelings continuously lived > in a lasting present. I can no more doubt of my feeling of past than I > can doubt of a headache (say). Even if time by itself does not exist at > all (which is the case with comp). The extrapolation would reside only > in some third person projection of that time, space, ... (I think we > agree, the problem could just be the term "illusion"). I'm not sure if you're saying what I was saying above by distinguishing between 1-future/past and 3-future/past. I think so. The relationship between different stages in a person's life - how far apart two different experiences can be and still belong to the same person - is complicated and necessarily vague. If we allow that in principle anyone can change into anyone else, how can you pin down this relationship with any rigour? To understand the consequence of UDA, I try to no put more rigor than needed. Eventually those relationship will appear in mathematical form with the lobian interview. Self-reference through diagonalization will do the work, but this is needed to extract physics from numbers, not to understand we have to extract physics from numbers once we assume comp. > > such as believing themselves to be moments in the life of a single > > individual, having memories or quasi-memories in common, and so on. > > If I split into two that presents no problem for the 3rd person POV > > (there are two instantiations of Stathis extant where before there was > > one) nor for the 1st person POV (each instantiation knows it is > > experiencing what it is experiencing as it is experiencing it). > > > OK. > > > > > A problem does arise when I anticipate the split (which one will I > > become?) or look back at the split (*I* was the original!); there is > > no correct answer in these cases because it is based on 3rd person > > extrapolation of the 1st person POV, which in addition to its other > > failings assumes only a single entity can be extant at any one time > > (only a single 1st person exists by definition, but multiple 3rd > > persons can exist at the one time). > > > This is a little weird. You say there is no correct answer, and then > you give the comp-correct answer. > The first person is indeed just NOT first person-duplicable (unless > some added artificial telepathic trick, but in general I talk only on > the usual simple teleportation or duplication). There is an unambiguous 3rd person descriptive answer, but no such unambiguous 1st person answer. I think there is, once assuming comp. We can still talk about 1st person expectations, which I agree is the important thing for the subject. Yes, physics will arise from that. > > This is not to say that my mind can or should overcome [Lee Corbin > > disagrees on the "should"] the deeply ingrained belief or illusion > > that I am a unique, one-track individual living my life from start to > > finish, > > > Here you really talk about the third person extrapolation, so I agree > with you. But the first person is not deceive by its feeling of living > uniquely in time and space. It could be dangerous to say so, because it > leads to (materialism) eliminativism which eventually conclude that the > whole first person thing is an illusion. This leads to a deeply wrong > sense of "human"-irresponsibility. Well, it is a negation of the first > person. I can be sure it is wrong, as I bet you can too. I would say that the 1st person experience is *not* an illusion in any sense of the word. All right. It is the very opposite, in a way: the most real thing, which cannot
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno Marchal writes: > > Yes, sharing the memory is *not* the same as having the original > > experience, but this applies to recalling one's own past as well.> > > Are you really sure? When two people share memories, they can only > share third person information, which will trigger their respective > unsharable first person identities/memories.> When recollecting our own memories, we do recollect (approximations) of > our unsharable first person memories, which *does*, in the present, > participate into our present first person identity.> > > > > You may argue that recalling our past is different because we have > > just the right brain structure, other associated memories and so on to > > put it all in context, but in principle all of these might be lacking > > due to illness or the passage of time, or might be duplicated in a > > very good simulation made for someone else to experience.> > > Yes. Note that from a first person memory POV, perfect quasi memories > are not distinguishable from "real memories" (if that means anythings: > assuming comp "real" memories and artificial quasi memories are just > equivalent).> > > > > > The only way to unambiguously define a first person experience is to > > make it once only; perfect recollection would be indistinguishable > > from the original experience, and it would be impossible for the > > experiencer to either know that he was recalling a memory or to know > > how close to the original the recollection was.> > > I agree.> > > > > > The postulate of a first person entity persisting through time > > violates the 1st person/ 3rd person distinction,> > > I am not sure, although it makes sense, but only because eventually it > is the whole idea of objective time which is "illusory". Subjective > time, I would say, cannot be illusory, nor can subjective pain be.> > > > > > since it assumes that I-now can have 1st person knowledge of > > I-yesterday or I-tomorrow, when in fact such knowledge is impossible > > except in a 3rd person way.> > > I disagree. I do have a first person account of I-yesterday, and some > first person feelings about possible first person feelings of myself > tomorrow, all of which are non describable in any third person way. > Again we could be in agreement here. If you want I have no doubt about > my "I-yesterday", even if I don't believe at all in some absolute third > person describable notion of "yesterday". But I do "feel" I-yesterday: > I cannot separate it from "I-now" and "I-tomorrow". This is completely > independent of the fact that I may well die in a second. My recollection of what I did yesterday is itself a first person experience, which is not shareable. If I imagine what you did yesterday, that - meaning my imagining - is also a first person experience, also not shareable. Of course, I am more confident that I can "capture" the experience of what I was doing yesterday better than I can "capture" the experience of what you were doing yesterday, but the difference between the two is one of degree, not kind. Whether I think about my own past or about someone else's experiences, I am making an extrapolation: the only thing I can know in a first person way is my own *present* experience. This is also shown by the idea that any person might become any other person by gradual mental change over a sufficiently long period of time, in which case any imagining of someone else's experiences would be a recollection of one's own experiences from the distant past. I can only know about my own past in a 3rd person way, albeit in a more intimate 3rd person way than I can know about someone else's experiences. > > I believe it is this confusion which leads to the apparent anomaly of > > 1st person indeterminacy in the face of 3rd person determinacy in > > duplication experiments.> > > I don't see any anomaly, to be sure. Only weirdness, relative to > probable prejudices.> > > > > Let us assume as little as possible and make our theories as simple as > > possible. I *have* to accept that there is something special about my > > experiences at the moment which distinguish them from everyone else's > > experiences: this is the difference between the 1st person POV and the > > 3rd person POV.> > > OK, but just remember that in the UDA thought experiment, the first > person is almost defined by the content of a personal diary/memory. And > what makes those experiences personal here is that they are destroyed > together with the body during destructive teleportation or duplication. > But the memories refers, in the present, to subjective (first person) > past and future. We cannot have illusions about that, only about third > person extrapolation *from* that. Yes, but when the subject reads his own diary or examines his own memory of events, that is also third person extrapolation. Do you remember what your third birthday was like? Even if you have some memory of what happened on the day, it is likely that your brain has changed so much
Re: A calculus of personal identity
- Original Message - From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 09:23 AM Subject: Re: A calculus of personal identity Brent Meeker writes: > > I think it is one of the most profound things about consciousness > > that observer moments don't *need* anything to connect them other than > > their content. They are linked like the novels in a series, not like the > > carriages of a train. It is not necessary that the individual novels be > > lined up specially on a shelf: as long as they have each been written > > and exist somewhere in the world, the series exists. > > But the series exists, as a series, by virtue of the information in them. They are like Barbour's > time-capsules; each contains enough references and characters from the others to allow them to be > put into order. It's not clear to me what duration "obserever moments" have - but I don't think > they are novel length. I imagine them more like sentences (a complete thought as my English teacher > used to say), and sentences *don't* have enough information to allow them to be reconstructed into > the novel they came from. A book is the analogy that came to mind, but there is an important difference between this and conscious experience. Books, sentences, words may not need to be physically collected together to make a coherent larger structure, but they do need to be somehow sorted in the mind of an observer; otherwise, we could say that a dictionary contains every book ever written or yet to be written. Moments of consciousness, on the other hand, by their nature contain their own observer. > That's why I suggest that OMs are not an adequate ontological basis for a world model. On the other > hand, if we include brain processes, or more abstractly, subconscious thoughts, then we would have > enough information to string them together. I know some people on this list have attempted world-building with OMs, but my starting point is the less ambitious idea that consciousness can in principle extend across time and space without being specially linked. If a person's stream of consciousness were chopped up into seconds, minutes, days or whatever, using whatever vehicle it takes to run a human mind, and these moments of consciousness randomly dispersed throughout the multiverse, they would all connect up by virtue of their information content. Do you disagree that it would in principle be possible? You can take time evolution as an example. In both classical physics and quantum mechanics, information is preserved. All the information about us was already present in the early universe Saibal --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Brent Meeker writes: > > I think it is one of the most profound things about consciousness > > that observer moments don't *need* anything to connect them other than > > their content. They are linked like the novels in a series, not like the > > carriages of a train. It is not necessary that the individual novels be > > lined up specially on a shelf: as long as they have each been written > > and exist somewhere in the world, the series exists. > > But the series exists, as a series, by virtue of the information in them. They are like Barbour's > time-capsules; each contains enough references and characters from the others to allow them to be > put into order. It's not clear to me what duration "obserever moments" have - but I don't think > they are novel length. I imagine them more like sentences (a complete thought as my English teacher > used to say), and sentences *don't* have enough information to allow them to be reconstructed into > the novel they came from. A book is the analogy that came to mind, but there is an important difference between this and conscious experience. Books, sentences, words may not need to be physically collected together to make a coherent larger structure, but they do need to be somehow sorted in the mind of an observer; otherwise, we could say that a dictionary contains every book ever written or yet to be written. Moments of consciousness, on the other hand, by their nature contain their own observer. > That's why I suggest that OMs are not an adequate ontological basis for a world model. On the other > hand, if we include brain processes, or more abstractly, subconscious thoughts, then we would have > enough information to string them together. I know some people on this list have attempted world-building with OMs, but my starting point is the less ambitious idea that consciousness can in principle extend across time and space without being specially linked. If a person's stream of consciousness were chopped up into seconds, minutes, days or whatever, using whatever vehicle it takes to run a human mind, and these moments of consciousness randomly dispersed throughout the multiverse, they would all connect up by virtue of their information content. Do you disagree that it would in principle be possible? Stathis PapaioannouWith MSN Spaces email straight to your blog. Upload jokes, photos and more. It's free! It's free! --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Brent Meeker writes (quoting SP): > > > > > Yes, sharing the memory is *not* the same as having the original > experience, but this applies to > > > > recalling one's own past as well. You may argue that recalling our past is > different because we > > > > have just the right brain structure, other associated memories and so on > to put it all in > > > > context, but in principle all of these might be lacking due to illness or > the passage of time, or > > > > might be duplicated in a very good simulation made for someone else to > experience. The only way > > > > to unambiguously define a first person experience is to make it once only; > perfect recollection > > > > would be indistinguishable from the original experience, and it would be > impossible for the > > > > experiencer to either know that he was recalling a memory or to know how > close to the original > > > > the recollection was. The postulate of a first person entity persisting > through time violates the > > > > 1st person/ 3rd person distinction, since it assumes that I-now can have > 1st person knowledge of > > > > I-yesterday or I-tomorrow, when in fact such knowledge is impossible > except in a 3rd person way. > > > > I believe it is this confusion which leads to the apparent anomaly of 1st > person indeterminacy in > > > > the face of 3rd person determinacy in duplication experiments. Let us > assume as little as > > > > possible and make our theories as simple as possible. I *have* to accept > that there is something > > > > special about my experiences at the moment which distinguish them from > everyone else's > > > > experiences: this is the difference between the 1st person POV and the 3rd > person POV. It is > > > > tempting to say that my 1st person POV extends into the future and the > past as well, explaining > > > > why I think of myself as a person persisting through time. However, this > latter hypothesis is > > > > unnecessary. It is enough to say that the 1st person POV is valid only in > the present, and when I > > > consider my future and past that is only 3rd person extrapolation. > > > > Well said! I agree completely. > > Thank-you! > > > >What I consider myself to be > > > > as a person is then explained as the set of 1st person experiences related > in a particular way, > > > > such as believing themselves to be moments in the life of a single > individual, having memories or > > > quasi-memories in common, and so on. > > > > > > > But what can that "related in a particular way" be? It is certainly not the > case that I, at every > > > moment am experiencing a belief that I'm a single individual. I cannot think > of any 1st person > > > experience that is connecting my 1st person moments. Rather it is something > unconscious which I > > "experience" only on reflection, i.e. in a 3rd person way. > > Yes. > > > > I think this poses a difficulty for a world model consisting only of > "observer moments". There's > > > nothing to connect them. A model in which there is an external substrate, > either the physical world > > > or a computer simulation, avoids this problem by providing the unexperienced > connection. Julian > > > Barbour proposes a similar model in which the world consists of "time > capsules"; each capsule is a > > > moment in time. But these capsules contain much more than a conscious > thought; they contain > > > something like a state of the world and so they provide enough information to > be well ordered. > > I think it is one of the most profound things about consciousness > that observer moments don't *need* anything to connect them other than > their content. They are linked like the novels in a series, not like the > carriages of a train. It is not necessary that the individual novels be > lined up specially on a shelf: as long as they have each been written > and exist somewhere in the world, the series exists. But the series exists, as a series, by virtue of the information in them. They are like Barbour's time-capsules; each contains enough references and characters from the others to allow them to be put into order. It's not clear to me what duration "obserever moments" have - but I don't think they are novel length. I imagine them more like sentences (a complete thought as my English teacher used to say), and sentences *don't* have enough information to allow them to be reconstructed into the novel they came from. That's why I suggest that OMs are not an adequate ontological basis for a world model. On the other hand, if we include brain processes, or more abstractly, subconscious thoughts, then we would have enough information to string them together. Brent Meeker >The carriages of a > train, on the other hand, not only have to be the right sort of physical > structures, they also have to be spec
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis Papaioannou writes: > Hal Finney writes: > > > What I argued was that it would be easier to find the trace of a person's > > thoughts in a universe where he had a physically continuous record than > > where there were discontinuities (easier in the sense that a smaller > > program would suffice). In my framework, this means that the universe > > would contribute more measure to people who had continuous lives than > > people who teleported. Someone whose life ended at the moment of > > teleportation would have a higher measure than someone who survived > > the event. Therefore, I would view teleportation as reducing measure > > similarly to doing something that had a risk of dying. I would try to > > avoid it, unless there were compensating benefits (as indeed might be > > the case, just as people willingly accept the risk of dying by driving > > to work, because of the compensating benefits). > > > > You can say that "by definition" the person survives, but then, you > > can say anything by definition. I guess the question is, what is the > > reasoning behind the definition. > > OK, this is the old ASSA versus RSSA distinction. But leaving this > argument aside, I don't see how teleportation could be analogous to a > risky, measure reducing activity if it seemed to be a reliable process > from a third person perspective. If someone plays Russian Roulette, we > both agree that from a third person perspective, we are likely to observe > a dead body eventually. But with teleportation (destructive, to one place) > there is a 1:1 ratio between pre-experiment subjects and post-experiment > subjects from a third person perspective. Are you suggesting that the > predicted drop in measure will have no third person observable effect? First, I tend to think that the phrase "third person observable" is something of a contradiction. Observation is a first-person activity. I would prefer to think of third person effects as simply the physical record of events. In this case, there will definitely be a third person effect. Having someone teleport is a third-person difference from not having them teleport. We are talking about two cases here that are third-person distinguishable, with very different physical histories, hence it is plausible that there be different subjective first-person effects. As far as the comparison with Russian Roulette, if someone only plays it once, there might not be a third person difference. Yet I would argue his measure was reduced (in the multiverse). Really, when we are talking about third person records, all we have is the actual sequence of events that occurs. Suppose someone plays Russian Roulette multiple times. In this universe, perhaps we see them pull the trigger five times and survive, and on the sixth pull they die. That subjective history, of playing RR six times, is instantiated in this universe. This universe contributes measure to that history. Other universes, not observable to us, may have him die after different trials. Each of those contributes measure to subjective histories that end at different points. The result is that the measure of his lifespan is reduced at each trigger pull, but that in any single third-person universe that reduction in measure is unobservable. Instead we see no change until the final trigger pull. Consider this example: someone commits to killing himself if you die, and now you play Russian Roulette yourself. Each time you pull the trigger you reduce his measure, that of the other person who will kill himself if you die. But you will never observe him dying (in the first-person sense). This is a case of an unobservable measure decrease which you might nevertheless believe in. > > As far as Lee's suggestion that people could be dying thousands of > > times a second, my framework does not allow for arbitrary statements > > like that. Given a physical circumstance, we can calculate what happens. > > It's not just arbitrary what we choose to say about life and death. > > We can calculate the measure of different subjective life experiences, > > based on the physical record. > > > > If we wanted to create a physical record where this framework would > > be compatible with saying that people die often, it would be necessary > > to physically teleport people thousands of times a second. Or perhaps > > the same thing could be done by freezing people for a substantial time, > > reviving them for a thousandth of a second, then re-freezing them again > > for a while, etc. > > > > If we consider the practical implications of such experiments I don't > > think it is so implausible to view them as being worse than living a > > single, connected, subjective life. It would be quite difficult to > > interact in a meaningful way with the world under such circumstances. > > Assuming it could be done seamlessly, how would it make any difference? If > you believe the important aspect of our consciousness resides in the > activ
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Thanks, Stathis, for your words not too distant from where I stand. As I wrote to Bruno, I assign my present memory to my present viewing technology, not to 'my' 5-year old as you refer to. You mention "sense of identity" - I think it is more than just a 'sense': it is a reflective relation of the individual mental processes to the wider relations of its environment (more than ambience) so the impact is fundamental, controlling more than just a 'sense'. Furthermore: I think we 'work up' our sensorial input into 'meaning' - even control (suppress?) them, while the 'identity' (or personality) is pervading - even (controling) - our mentality. This is my lay opinion and I am still speculating on it, not ready to defend. Replies appreciated. John M --- Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: We can't be sure that our memories are accurate. This puts us in a similar position when we consider our own past as when we consider someone else's past: we think that we know what it was like to be five years old, but our brains may have changed so much in the intervening years that this recollection may be little more vivid or accurate than if we were imagining what someone else's childhood was like after reading a book about it. There is no reason why every other mental quality, including the sense of identity, might not also change greatly over decades, with the only reason we think we remain the same person being that this change is gradual. Stathis Papaioannou > > John Mikes writes (quoting Brent Meeker): > > > > Well that's the question isn't it. Is there > > > something besides memories and personality that > > > makes you you... > > - truncated - --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno: This thread is more than I could follow in detail at this time, when I am involved with different areas to speculate on - on other lists. I apologize. Not that I assume you're missing my input (usually marginal), but for not being better informed on the details. I pick from time to time a post and so I saw references to experience - meaning stored in "that thing: memory" My question: do we have a wider agreement what to call 'memory' - as a process? Those fables of physiologists with stored 'codes' in tissue do not make sense to me: one has to remember first the topic to remember then the code applied and recall the stored molecular variations to REMEMBER at all. Then decipher into the 'meaning' it stood for. Those alleged 'codes' are fixed and the tissue-variations do not alter into any faded or even distorted 'remembering'. It pertains to your "naive time-concept" which I go along with strongly: it is in our conscious thinking (as the 'time' of unconsciousness is missing from the 'time'). Not a fundamental parameter as certain physics theoreticians say. (Cf my worldview narrative). We think timelessly, spacelessly, and assign sp/t to it, as coordinating factors. So we can "go back" and take another look at it - what we call - the memories. No two person/alitie/s see the revisited event etc. identically - maybe similarly. 'I' myself also see it differently from the former sight: I changed in the meantime. Memories are stable only in digital form fixed, in mechan. machines. (not us!-machines). You use 'illusion' a lot. I think it is a narrowed pic from ALL 1st pers. content which ALL are "illusions" - as I picked up the distinction here: - as the 'percept' of reality. You narrow the total (illusion) to those domains you find 'unreal' vs other 'unreals' you may consider as 'real'. And I return to my earlier favorite: 3rd pers. info. It is as 'believable' as close its formulation comes to our own (1st pers.) ways. So I see a fine line between solipsism and unsolipsism: we 'illusion' the existence of 3rd persons and accept 'them' just as real as those illusions which you do not call 'illusions'. I am on your side of the fine line. Thoughts like these prevent me from considering the teleportation/duplication topic worthwhile thinking in/ about. To remember (see above) would necessitate a teleportee to teleport back into the environment where a 'second look' is feasible, not resulting in some different event of the remote environment. So in my terms an 'outsourced' (teleported/duplicated) entity lost its background-identity. Regards John M --- Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Le 28-juin-06, � 14:52, Stathis Papaioannou a �crit > : > > > > > Bruno, > > > > I have cut out some of your detailed response to > my post where I think > > we basically agree. > > > Good idea. Of course it will looks like I disagree > with all what you > say, but just remember we are concentrating on those > points where we > disagree, or where we misunderstand each other. A > case will be made > that it could be a question of vocabulary, but > perhaps also I am nearer > to Lee Corbin on those points; we will see. > > > > > There remain some differences, and some failings > on my part to > > understand more technical aspects of your work. > > > OK. > > > > > Yes, sharing the memory is *not* the same as > having the original > > experience, but this applies to recalling one's > own past as well. > > > Are you really sure? When two people share memories, > they can only > share third person information, which will trigger > their respective > unsharable first person identities/memories. > When recollecting our own memories, we do recollect > (approximations) of > our unsharable first person memories, which *does*, > in the present, > participate into our present first person identity. > > > > > You may argue that recalling our past is different > because we have > > just the right brain structure, other associated > memories and so on to > > put it all in context, but in principle all of > these might be lacking > > due to illness or the passage of time, or might be > duplicated in a > > very good simulation made for someone else to > experience. > > > Yes. Note that from a first person memory POV, > perfect quasi memories > are not distinguishable from "real memories" (if > that means anythings: > assuming comp "real" memories and artificial quasi > memories are just > equivalent). > > > > > > The only way to unambiguously define a first > person experience is to > > make it once only; perfect recollection would be > indistinguishable > > from the original experience, and it would be > impossible for the > > experiencer to either know that he was recalling a > memory or to know > > how close to the original the recollection was. > > > I agree. > > > > > > The postulate of a first person entity persisting > through time > > violates the 1st
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 28-juin-06, à 14:52, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno, I have cut out some of your detailed response to my post where I think we basically agree. Good idea. Of course it will looks like I disagree with all what you say, but just remember we are concentrating on those points where we disagree, or where we misunderstand each other. A case will be made that it could be a question of vocabulary, but perhaps also I am nearer to Lee Corbin on those points; we will see. There remain some differences, and some failings on my part to understand more technical aspects of your work. OK. Yes, sharing the memory is *not* the same as having the original experience, but this applies to recalling one's own past as well. Are you really sure? When two people share memories, they can only share third person information, which will trigger their respective unsharable first person identities/memories. When recollecting our own memories, we do recollect (approximations) of our unsharable first person memories, which *does*, in the present, participate into our present first person identity. You may argue that recalling our past is different because we have just the right brain structure, other associated memories and so on to put it all in context, but in principle all of these might be lacking due to illness or the passage of time, or might be duplicated in a very good simulation made for someone else to experience. Yes. Note that from a first person memory POV, perfect quasi memories are not distinguishable from "real memories" (if that means anythings: assuming comp "real" memories and artificial quasi memories are just equivalent). The only way to unambiguously define a first person experience is to make it once only; perfect recollection would be indistinguishable from the original experience, and it would be impossible for the experiencer to either know that he was recalling a memory or to know how close to the original the recollection was. I agree. The postulate of a first person entity persisting through time violates the 1st person/ 3rd person distinction, I am not sure, although it makes sense, but only because eventually it is the whole idea of objective time which is "illusory". Subjective time, I would say, cannot be illusory, nor can subjective pain be. since it assumes that I-now can have 1st person knowledge of I-yesterday or I-tomorrow, when in fact such knowledge is impossible except in a 3rd person way. I disagree. I do have a first person account of I-yesterday, and some first person feelings about possible first person feelings of myself tomorrow, all of which are non describable in any third person way. Again we could be in agreement here. If you want I have no doubt about my "I-yesterday", even if I don't believe at all in some absolute third person describable notion of "yesterday". But I do "feel" I-yesterday: I cannot separate it from "I-now" and "I-tomorrow". This is completely independent of the fact that I may well die in a second. I believe it is this confusion which leads to the apparent anomaly of 1st person indeterminacy in the face of 3rd person determinacy in duplication experiments. I don't see any anomaly, to be sure. Only weirdness, relative to probable prejudices. Let us assume as little as possible and make our theories as simple as possible. I *have* to accept that there is something special about my experiences at the moment which distinguish them from everyone else's experiences: this is the difference between the 1st person POV and the 3rd person POV. OK, but just remember that in the UDA thought experiment, the first person is almost defined by the content of a personal diary/memory. And what makes those experiences personal here is that they are destroyed together with the body during destructive teleportation or duplication. But the memories refers, in the present, to subjective (first person) past and future. We cannot have illusions about that, only about third person extrapolation *from* that. It is tempting to say that my 1st person POV extends into the future and the past as well, explaining why I think of myself as a person persisting through time. I would say it is in the nature of the first person to persist in *subjective* time. I have more problem with (naive?) notion of time and space. So again I would agree it is an "illusion" that "1-I" persists through some notion of 3-time and 3-space, but somehow the first person is inextricably linked to a notion of 1-time and 1-space. The illusion would consist in believing in a sort of describable existence of myself in some describable notion of absolute space-time. However, this latter hypothesis is unnecessary. It is enough to say that the 1st person POV is valid only in the present, But what could that means? Which present? Certainly a lasting present: it is part of my first person identity that I feel a sort of "continuous" time, which gives sense to a
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Brent Meeker writes (quoting SP): > > Yes, sharing the memory is *not* the same as having the original experience, but this applies to> > recalling one's own past as well. You may argue that recalling our past is different because we> > have just the right brain structure, other associated memories and so on to put it all in> > context, but in principle all of these might be lacking due to illness or the passage of time, or> > might be duplicated in a very good simulation made for someone else to experience. The only way> > to unambiguously define a first person experience is to make it once only; perfect recollection> > would be indistinguishable from the original experience, and it would be impossible for the> > experiencer to either know that he was recalling a memory or to know how close to the original> > the recollection was. The postulate of a first person entity persisting through time violates the> > 1st person/ 3rd person distinction, since it assumes that I-now can have 1st person knowledge of> > I-yesterday or I-tomorrow, when in fact such knowledge is impossible except in a 3rd person way.> > I believe it is this confusion which leads to the apparent anomaly of 1st person indeterminacy in> > the face of 3rd person determinacy in duplication experiments. Let us assume as little as> > possible and make our theories as simple as possible. I *have* to accept that there is something> > special about my experiences at the moment which distinguish them from everyone else's> > experiences: this is the difference between the 1st person POV and the 3rd person POV. It is> > tempting to say that my 1st person POV extends into the future and the past as well, explaining> > why I think of myself as a person persisting through time. However, this latter hypothesis is> > unnecessary. It is enough to say that the 1st person POV is valid only in the present, and when I> > consider my future and past that is only 3rd person extrapolation. > > Well said! I agree completely. Thank-you! > >What I consider myself to be> > as a person is then explained as the set of 1st person experiences related in a particular way,> > such as believing themselves to be moments in the life of a single individual, having memories or> > quasi-memories in common, and so on. > > > But what can that "related in a particular way" be? It is certainly not the case that I, at every> moment am experiencing a belief that I'm a single individual. I cannot think of any 1st person> experience that is connecting my 1st person moments. Rather it is something unconscious which I> "experience" only on reflection, i.e. in a 3rd person way. Yes. > I think this poses a difficulty for a world model consisting only of "observer moments". There's> nothing to connect them. A model in which there is an external substrate, either the physical world> or a computer simulation, avoids this problem by providing the unexperienced connection. Julian> Barbour proposes a similar model in which the world consists of "time capsules"; each capsule is a> moment in time. But these capsules contain much more than a conscious thought; they contain> something like a state of the world and so they provide enough information to be well ordered. I think it is one of the most profound things about consciousness that observer moments don't *need* anything to connect them other than their content. They are linked like the novels in a series, not like the carriages of a train. It is not necessary that the individual novels be lined up specially on a shelf: as long as they have each been written and exist somewhere in the world, the series exists. The carriages of a train, on the other hand, not only have to be the right sort of physical structures, they also have to be specially linked in order to make up the train. You might argue that as a matter of technical necessity, the moments in an individual stream of consciousness can only be generated by the activity of a single human brain, but that would just be like saying that only a particular author would have the technical ability to write a particular series of novels. It's tempting to think that within the cranium there is a special glue connecting our thoughts together so that they seem to belong to the one person, but, as Laplace said about God, there is no need for such a hypothesis. > >If I split into two that presents no problem for the 3rd> > person POV (there are two instantiations of Stathis extant where before there was one) nor for> > the 1st person POV (each instantiation knows it is experiencing what it is experiencing as it is> > experiencing it). A problem does arise when I anticipate the split (which one will I become?) or> > look back at the split (*I* was the original!); there is no correct answer in these cases because> > it is based on 3rd person extrapolation of the 1st person POV, which in addition to its other> > failings assumes only a single entity can be extant at any one time (only a singl
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Hal Finney writes: > What I argued was that it would be easier to find the trace of a person's> thoughts in a universe where he had a physically continuous record than> where there were discontinuities (easier in the sense that a smaller> program would suffice). In my framework, this means that the universe> would contribute more measure to people who had continuous lives than> people who teleported. Someone whose life ended at the moment of> teleportation would have a higher measure than someone who survived> the event. Therefore, I would view teleportation as reducing measure> similarly to doing something that had a risk of dying. I would try to> avoid it, unless there were compensating benefits (as indeed might be> the case, just as people willingly accept the risk of dying by driving> to work, because of the compensating benefits).> > You can say that "by definition" the person survives, but then, you> can say anything by definition. I guess the question is, what is the> reasoning behind the definition. OK, this is the old ASSA versus RSSA distinction. But leaving this argument aside, I don't see how teleportation could be analogous to a risky, measure reducing activity if it seemed to be a reliable process from a third person perspective. If someone plays Russian Roulette, we both agree that from a third person perspective, we are likely to observe a dead body eventually. But with teleportation (destructive, to one place) there is a 1:1 ratio between pre-experiment subjects and post-experiment subjects from a third person perspective. Are you suggesting that the predicted drop in measure will have no third person observable effect? > As far as Lee's suggestion that people could be dying thousands of> times a second, my framework does not allow for arbitrary statements> like that. Given a physical circumstance, we can calculate what happens.> It's not just arbitrary what we choose to say about life and death.> We can calculate the measure of different subjective life experiences,> based on the physical record. > > If we wanted to create a physical record where this framework would> be compatible with saying that people die often, it would be necessary> to physically teleport people thousands of times a second. Or perhaps> the same thing could be done by freezing people for a substantial time,> reviving them for a thousandth of a second, then re-freezing them again> for a while, etc.> > If we consider the practical implications of such experiments I don't> think it is so implausible to view them as being worse than living a> single, connected, subjective life. It would be quite difficult to> interact in a meaningful way with the world under such circumstances. Assuming it could be done seamlessly, how would it make any difference? If you believe the important aspect of our consciousness resides in the activity at neural synapses, this is exactly what is happening. They are constantly falling apart and being repaired in an energy-requiring process, such that the matter comprising our synapses completely turns over in a matter of minutes. It's just the basic brain template that is maintained over time, and even that changes as we change. If you could somehow gold plate your neurones so that the normal turnover of matter due to wear and tear stops, and only the turnover due to thinking different thoughts occurs, do you think it would make any subjective difference? What if the turnover increased, or it happened all at once in bursts rather than gradually, all the while maintaining the same basic structure as occurs normally? Stathis PapaioannouWith MSN Spaces email straight to your blog. Upload jokes, photos and more. It's free! It's free! --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Lee Corbin writes: > Stathis writes > > Hal Finney in his recent thread on teleportation thought > > experiments disagrees with the above view. He suggests > > that it is possible for a subject to apparently undergo > > successful teleportation, in that the individual walking > > out of the receiving station has all the appropriate > > mental and physical attributes in common with the individual > > entering the transmitting station, but in reality not survive > > the procedure. I have difficulty understanding this, as it > > seems to me that the subject has survived by definition. > > Well, if you've characterized his views correctly, then he's > not in agreement with you, me, and Derek Parfit. What might > be fun to explore is how desperate some people would have to > be in order to teleport (or perhaps how lucrative the > opportunity?). Also, I suppose that if you confided to them > that this was happening to them all the time thousands of > times per second, they'd still have some unfathomable reason > not to go near a teleporter. Sorry, I have been reading the list somewhat lightly recently and have missed some threads. What I argued was that it would be easier to find the trace of a person's thoughts in a universe where he had a physically continuous record than where there were discontinuities (easier in the sense that a smaller program would suffice). In my framework, this means that the universe would contribute more measure to people who had continuous lives than people who teleported. Someone whose life ended at the moment of teleportation would have a higher measure than someone who survived the event. Therefore, I would view teleportation as reducing measure similarly to doing something that had a risk of dying. I would try to avoid it, unless there were compensating benefits (as indeed might be the case, just as people willingly accept the risk of dying by driving to work, because of the compensating benefits). You can say that "by definition" the person survives, but then, you can say anything by definition. I guess the question is, what is the reasoning behind the definition. As far as Lee's suggestion that people could be dying thousands of times a second, my framework does not allow for arbitrary statements like that. Given a physical circumstance, we can calculate what happens. It's not just arbitrary what we choose to say about life and death. We can calculate the measure of different subjective life experiences, based on the physical record. If we wanted to create a physical record where this framework would be compatible with saying that people die often, it would be necessary to physically teleport people thousands of times a second. Or perhaps the same thing could be done by freezing people for a substantial time, reviving them for a thousandth of a second, then re-freezing them again for a while, etc. If we consider the practical implications of such experiments I don't think it is so implausible to view them as being worse than living a single, connected, subjective life. It would be quite difficult to interact in a meaningful way with the world under such circumstances. However, if one were so unfortunate as to be put into such a situation, then it would no longer be particularly bad to teleport. You're being broken into pieces all the time anyway, so the event of teleportation would presumably not make things any worse. Particularly if you were somehow being teleported thousands of times a second, then adding a teleportation would basically be meaningless since you're teleporting anyway at every instant. So I don't agree with Lee's conclusion that in this situation people would still resist teleportation. Hal Finney --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Bruno, > > I have cut out some of your detailed response to my post where I think we > basically agree. There > remain some differences, and some failings on my part to understand more > technical aspects of > your work. > > >>> Memories of our past are generally more vivid and hold more information >>> than writing, film >>> etc., but there may come a time when people directly share memories with >>> each other as easily >>> as they now share mp3 files. >> >> >> Selling, buying, sharing memories belongs to the future of applied >> bio-information science, I >> guess. But still, despite infinite possible progress in that matter, what >> will always really be >> shared will be numbers and partially similar decoding and interpreting >> procedures. For example, >> the mp3 files contains binary digits, and people share indeed the same first >> level decoding >> machinery (a Mac, a PC, an ipod, etc.). They does not share the personal >> experience (ex: for >> one the music will makes him/she recall nice memories, for someone else: >> only bad memories). >> Now you make one step further and share the good/bad memories. This can only >> partially be done, >> and then it will be similar to number-mp3 sharing. To share the first person >> experience >> completely you will have to erase memories for maintaining enough (self-) >> consistency, and you >> will actually fuse the persons. The quantum analog is quantum erasure of >> information which >> allows interference effects (and thus history-fusion) to (re)appear. The >> first person itself is >> not first person-self-definable (I will come back on this, but those >> following the >> diagonalization post can already smell this phenomenon: the collection of >> all computable >> functions from N to N cannot be enumerated by a computable function). > > > Yes, sharing the memory is *not* the same as having the original experience, > but this applies to > recalling one's own past as well. You may argue that recalling our past is > different because we > have just the right brain structure, other associated memories and so on to > put it all in > context, but in principle all of these might be lacking due to illness or the > passage of time, or > might be duplicated in a very good simulation made for someone else to > experience. The only way > to unambiguously define a first person experience is to make it once only; > perfect recollection > would be indistinguishable from the original experience, and it would be > impossible for the > experiencer to either know that he was recalling a memory or to know how > close to the original > the recollection was. The postulate of a first person entity persisting > through time violates the > 1st person/ 3rd person distinction, since it assumes that I-now can have 1st > person knowledge of > I-yesterday or I-tomorrow, when in fact such knowledge is impossible except > in a 3rd person way. > I believe it is this confusion which leads to the apparent anomaly of 1st > person indeterminacy in > the face of 3rd person determinacy in duplication experiments. Let us assume > as little as > possible and make our theories as simple as possible. I *have* to accept that > there is something > special about my experiences at the moment which distinguish them from > everyone else's > experiences: this is the difference between the 1st person POV and the 3rd > person POV. It is > tempting to say that my 1st person POV extends into the future and the past > as well, explaining > why I think of myself as a person persisting through time. However, this > latter hypothesis is > unnecessary. It is enough to say that the 1st person POV is valid only in the > present, and when I > consider my future and past that is only 3rd person extrapolation. Well said! I agree completely. >What I consider myself to be > as a person is then explained as the set of 1st person experiences related in > a particular way, > such as believing themselves to be moments in the life of a single > individual, having memories or > quasi-memories in common, and so on. But what can that "related in a particular way" be? It is certainly not the case that I, at every moment am experiencing a belief that I'm a single individual. I cannot think of any 1st person experience that is connecting my 1st person moments. Rather it is something unconscious which I "experience" only on reflection, i.e. in a 3rd person way. I think this poses a difficulty for a world model consisting only of "observer moments". There's nothing to connect them. A model in which there is an external substrate, either the physical world or a computer simulation, avoids this problem by providing the unexperienced connection. Julian Barbour proposes a similar model in which the world consists of "time capsules"; each capsule is a moment in time. But these capsules contain much more than a conscious thought; they con
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Bruno, I have cut out some of your detailed response to my post where I think we basically agree. There remain some differences, and some failings on my part to understand more technical aspects of your work. > > Memories of our past are generally more vivid and hold more > > information than writing, film etc., but there may come a time when > > people directly share memories with each other as easily as they now > > share mp3 files. > > > Selling, buying, sharing memories belongs to the future of applied > bio-information science, I guess. But still, despite infinite possible > progress in that matter, what will always really be shared will be > numbers and partially similar decoding and interpreting procedures. For > example, the mp3 files contains binary digits, and people share indeed > the same first level decoding machinery (a Mac, a PC, an ipod, etc.). > They does not share the personal experience (ex: for one the music will > makes him/she recall nice memories, for someone else: only bad > memories). Now you make one step further and share the good/bad > memories. This can only partially be done, and then it will be similar > to number-mp3 sharing. To share the first person experience completely > you will have to erase memories for maintaining enough (self-) > consistency, and you will actually fuse the persons. The quantum analog > is quantum erasure of information which allows interference effects > (and thus history-fusion) to (re)appear. > The first person itself is not first person-self-definable (I will come > back on this, but those following the diagonalization post can already > smell this phenomenon: the collection of all computable functions from > N to N cannot be enumerated by a computable function). Yes, sharing the memory is *not* the same as having the original experience, but this applies to recalling one's own past as well. You may argue that recalling our past is different because we have just the right brain structure, other associated memories and so on to put it all in context, but in principle all of these might be lacking due to illness or the passage of time, or might be duplicated in a very good simulation made for someone else to experience. The only way to unambiguously define a first person experience is to make it once only; perfect recollection would be indistinguishable from the original experience, and it would be impossible for the experiencer to either know that he was recalling a memory or to know how close to the original the recollection was. The postulate of a first person entity persisting through time violates the 1st person/ 3rd person distinction, since it assumes that I-now can have 1st person knowledge of I-yesterday or I-tomorrow, when in fact such knowledge is impossible except in a 3rd person way. I believe it is this confusion which leads to the apparent anomaly of 1st person indeterminacy in the face of 3rd person determinacy in duplication experiments. Let us assume as little as possible and make our theories as simple as possible. I *have* to accept that there is something special about my experiences at the moment which distinguish them from everyone else's experiences: this is the difference between the 1st person POV and the 3rd person POV. It is tempting to say that my 1st person POV extends into the future and the past as well, explaining why I think of myself as a person persisting through time. However, this latter hypothesis is unnecessary. It is enough to say that the 1st person POV is valid only in the present, and when I consider my future and past that is only 3rd person extrapolation. What I consider myself to be as a person is then explained as the set of 1st person experiences related in a particular way, such as believing themselves to be moments in the life of a single individual, having memories or quasi-memories in common, and so on. If I split into two that presents no problem for the 3rd person POV (there are two instantiations of Stathis extant where before there was one) nor for the 1st person POV (each instantiation knows it is experiencing what it is experiencing as it is experiencing it). A problem does arise when I anticipate the split (which one will I become?) or look back at the split (*I* was the original!); there is no correct answer in these cases because it is based on 3rd person extrapolation of the 1st person POV, which in addition to its other failings assumes only a single entity can be extant at any one time (only a single 1st person exists by definition, but multiple 3rd persons can exist at the one time). This is not to say that my mind can or should overcome [Lee Corbin disagrees on the "should"] the deeply ingrained belief or illusion that I am a unique, one-track individual living my life from start to finish, which is why in symmetrical duplication experiments I anticipate that I will become one of the duplicates
Re: A calculus of personal identity
John Mikes writes (quoting Brent Meeker): > > Well that's the question isn't it. Is there > > something besides memories and personality that > > makes you you... > > > But how much do we (already???) know about our > memories > which for sure is a concoction with our personality, > of which we just as well know very little. > Different people have different memories of the same > event (not only the biased eyewitnesses). \ > Never ask a psych-professional because he may be just > as biased in "knowing his profession" as you are with > yours. (Stathis, no hard feelings, please, you have > disclosed a lot of thinking beyond your learned > topics) > We have a crude fractional picture of who we are and > what we know (or don't) and "memory" is a big mystery. > Bigger only is "personality". We can't be sure that our memories are accurate. This puts us in a similar position when we consider our own past as when we consider someone else's past: we think that we know what it was like to be five years old, but our brains may have changed so much in the intervening years that this recollection may be little more vivid or accurate than if we were imagining what someone else's childhood was like after reading a book about it. There is no reason why every other mental quality, including the sense of identity, might not also change greatly over decades, with the only reason we think we remain the same person being that this change is gradual. Stathis Papaioannou _ Try Live.com: where your online world comes together - with news, sports, weather, and much more. http://www.live.com/getstarted --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: A calculus of personal identity
Stathis writes > Lee, > > It’s perhaps unfortunate that we are arguing about this because > I think we basically agree on what Derek Parfit has called a > reductionist theory of personal identity (in his 1984 book > "Reasons and Persons"; Yes, I was very relieved to have read portions of that book. Very few people I knew---and they, only because I had talked them into it---accepted the theory that you and I are espousing. > apparently "reductionist" was not in wide use as a term of > abuse back then). Oh yes it was; I think that it got even worse before it got better. But even today, it may be that you have to come to an "Everything" list, or other forum where the skeptical and well-read hang out. > I like to emphasize the instantaneous or granular nature of > personhood not because we literally die and are resurrected every > moment, as those words are commonly understood, but because it > would make no significant difference to our stream of > consciousness or sense of self if in fact this were the case. Why are you so sure that there is a fact of the matter? Insofar as facts are concerned, there is a lot of agreement that you are the same person you were yesterday. I'm not sure why we need to redefine what is normally meant. > How, where and when the mental states are implemented is > irrelevant and unknowable from a first person perspective, > unless it actually affects the content of the mental states. Oh, well if you mean to be talking about mental states, then I cannot disagree with anything you've said. But if we are trying to talk about "people" or personhood, it's evident that many mental states correspond to one person. > Hal Finney in his recent thread on teleportation thought > experiments disagrees with the above view. He suggests > that it is possible for a subject to apparently undergo > successful teleportation, in that the individual walking > out of the receiving station has all the appropriate > mental and physical attributes in common with the individual > entering the transmitting station, but in reality not survive > the procedure. I have difficulty understanding this, as it > seems to me that the subject has survived by definition. Well, if you've characterized his views correctly, then he's not in agreement with you, me, and Derek Parfit. What might be fun to explore is how desperate some people would have to be in order to teleport (or perhaps how lucrative the opportunity?). Also, I suppose that if you confided to them that this was happening to them all the time thousands of times per second, they'd still have some unfathomable reason not to go near a teleporter. Finally, if we had such devices, soon only the real old fogeys and a few peculiar philosophers wouldn't make steady use of them. Lee --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
--- Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: to Stathis (excerpt): > Well that's the question isn't it. Is there > something besides memories and personality that > makes you you... But how much do we (already???) know about our memories which for sure is a concoction with our personality, of which we just as well know very little. Different people have different memories of the same event (not only the biased eyewitnesses). \ Never ask a psych-professional because he may be just as biased in "knowing his profession" as you are with yours. (Stathis, no hard feelings, please, you have disclosed a lot of thinking beyond your learned topics) We have a crude fractional picture of who we are and what we know (or don't) and "memory" is a big mystery. Bigger only is "personality". John Mikes > Could you feel that your memories belonged > to somebody else? I think that no duplication > is going to be perfect - it's just a question of > whether the difference will be detectable with > reasonable effort. If one remembers having a green > pencil in the first grade and the other > remembers having a blue one, how could anyone know > which is right? > > Brent Meeker > > > > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A calculus of personal identity
Le 26-juin-06, à 14:28, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno Marchal writes (quoting SP): > > Of course, it is not possible for a third person observer to be > > certain about first person mental states, and this would apply to our > > teleportee: he may feel as if he is the same person as he was prior to > > the procedure, but he might be wrong. > > If he is a zombie, by definition he feels nothing. I am assuming here he is not a zombie, that he has a memory of what he felt like pre-teleportation, but that he may be wrong about this. I am not sure any entity can be wrong about a (first) personal feeling. The person can only be wrong relatively to some (personal) interpretation of some (non personal) world (its most probable history/computation). (Actually even a zombie cannot be wrong when he asserts, for example, that he has a headache. But this happens for a different reason: he is *not* interpreting at all its own words. Feelings have to be conscious by definition I would say). When we remember our past, we are doing something analogous to what we do when we look at someone else's account of their first person experience and try to imagine what it must have been like to have that experience. All right, but only partially so. We hardly succeed imagining the real things here, except perhaps twins or doppelgangers, but in both case, only serendipitously. Memories of our past are generally more vivid and hold more information than writing, film etc., but there may come a time when people directly share memories with each other as easily as they now share mp3 files. Selling, buying, sharing memories belongs to the future of applied bio-information science, I guess. But still, despite infinite possible progress in that matter, what will always really be shared will be numbers and partially similar decoding and interpreting procedures. For example, the mp3 files contains binary digits, and people share indeed the same first level decoding machinery (a Mac, a PC, an ipod, etc.). They does not share the personal experience (ex: for one the music will makes him/she recall nice memories, for someone else: only bad memories). Now you make one step further and share the good/bad memories. This can only partially be done, and then it will be similar to number-mp3 sharing. To share the first person experience completely you will have to erase memories for maintaining enough (self-) consistency, and you will actually fuse the persons. The quantum analog is quantum erasure of information which allows interference effects (and thus history-fusion) to (re)appear. The first person itself is not first person-self-definable (I will come back on this, but those following the diagonalization post can already smell this phenomenon: the collection of all computable functions from N to N cannot be enumerated by a computable function). > I would agree if I was believing in Nature. As a scientist I am neutral > about the existence of nature, but assuming comp "Nature", like > "matter" should not be reified. Can you think of any findings in evolutionary biology which count as evidence either for or against the existence of a material world? We must be very careful here. Evolutionary biology assumes a material world, and I would say (just apparently against comp) that evolutionary biology CORRECTLY assumes a material world. Somehow like a chess player assumes some local chessboard and a car driver assumes some local car. It just happen that evolutionary biologists are not so much interested in the very nature and origin of that material world. They either define it as a bunch of interacting fields and particles they heard about, or even more generally just as the object matter of physics, without looking to the conceptual problem of physics at all. For example in "consciousness explained" Dennett explictly asserts that there is no more conceptual problem in physics: only technical problem would remain. (This attitude evolves slightly thanks to quantum computation). Note that this is also the reason why comp cannot threaten evolutionary biology, quite the contrary, it proceeds according to the same basic mechanist philosophy. A case can even been made that comp extends Darwinism by allowing the physical laws to evolve, in some logical or psycho or theo-arithmetical selection process. Of course, most scientists, like most people, assume there is a material world out there, but this is not a premiss on the basis of which scientific theories stand or fall. The science or art of doing good pizza does not depend on atoms, quarks, or waves, still less on the interpretation of those terms. Any irrefutable (non scientific) fuzzy notion of matter will do. Most scientist assume a material world, but none make this explicitly, and matter is just a background decor at least since about 500 after JC. Biologists are almost all materialist, although nuances can already be made when comparing molecular
