[ExI] The Many Dimensional Sculpture, or dont' bother about runtime
Stathis Papaioannou
stathisp at gmail.com
Wed Mar 12 12:38:29 UTC 2008
On 11/03/2008, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
> As I wrote above, each one of us corresponds to only one shape. Individual
> shapes my partially overlap, sharing some parts, and there are gazillions of
> physically distinguishable states in each "I", like very close relatives
> populating the googolplexes of universe-states, but there are no "copies".
> Just like there is only one square, there is only one of me-trees. You can't
> faithfully copy the mathematical being, a square. A square that is located
> in the same place, of the same size, with same relation to other
> mathematical shapes is still the same square. To make a copy you need to
> change its relationship to other structures - but maths is unchangeable.
> Math, the Platonic realm, can be only discovered, not changed. So if you try
> to make an identical copy of me, you can't do it. You can produce new nodes
> on my tree of life by exposing me to new stimuli - to say it timelessly,
> there may be correlations between your actions and the shape of my future
> but you can't copy the whole thing. A million brains running exactly the
> same thought, down to the quantum level or below, is only one brain. A
> million brains that are similar enough to produce the same macroscopic-level
> thoughts, words and actions but differing at the quantum scale may represent
> true copies but personally I don't care about them - they do not differ in
> the higher-order correlations I mentioned above as necessary for
> consciousness. Why bother running them if they don't materially change the
> shape of all my thoughts? I might object to such copies being tortured,
> since they would increase the measure of pain in the me-tree. Timelessly
> said, the preference inherent in my structure (hopefully) correlates with a
> small measure of quantum-level painful states and with a large number of
> interesting, or pleasant macrostates (i.e. groups of microstates
> corresponding to a single thought).
One of the problems with ensemble theories is how to derive
probabilities. If there's one version(s) of you that wins the lottery
and another version(s) that doesn't win the lottery, does that mean
you have a 1/2 chance of winning the lottery, or what? It is here that
considering *relative* measure can be helpful: it makes no difference
to me if the absolute number of instantiations of me increases a
millionfold (in fact, it could have just happened then and I wouldn't
know it), but it does make a difference if the number of copies
holding a winning lottery ticket is increased a millionfold relative
to the other copies.
Now, it's not so straightforward if we accept a form of modal realism,
since as you point out it doesn't make sense to talk about there being
a specific number of abstract squares. (Incidentally, I think of
consciousness as part of the abstract nature of computation, as
squareness is part of the abstract nature of a square. A physical
instantiation of the computation then allows us to interact with the
consciousness, as a physical instantiation of a square allows us to
tile the bathroom.) We therefore have to arrive at a measure via a
different means. One way to look at it would be using Kolmogorov
complexity: those structures that are produced as output of a shorter
program are more likely. The universe we live in could be seen as the
output of a program with some simple starting parameters and physical
laws, whereas a universe where all sorts of weird and arbitrary things
keep happening would need a longer program to specify the weirdness.
Thus, although on the face of it there are many, many more ways for
the universe to suddenly turn weird than remain lawful, the lawful
universe is more likely.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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