[ExI] Problems with Platonia again

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2008/9/26 Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com>:

> This sounds very similar to what I wrote on Sept 16 in QT & SR thread:
> [...] is there any difference in
> Platonia from our observation of moment t1 to moment t2?  is there a
> way to distinguish the moment t'2 ?  How do we know at t3 that some of
> our peers didn't actually experience t'2?  If that's a perfectly valid
> transition of states, why not observer t1, t'1, t3, t'3 ?  Maybe
> people who observe life this way (upconverted from a lower definition)
> have a difficult time understanding those who perceive t1, t2, t3, t4
> (non-interlaced)  Likewise there may be observers capable of
> comfortable perceiving t1, t2+t'2, t3 (even numbered moments
> simultaneously "in stereo" from two universes)  [...]

You need to specify what the content of t1, t'1, t2 etc. are. The
observer is not an entity persisting through time who observes
different states; rather, the observer *is* the different states. So
if t2 and t'2 are both potential successor states to t1, that will
create a branching so that there are two observers, t1-t2 and t1-t'2.
But there is no way t1-t2-t'2 could form unless t'2 contains a memory
of t2, in which case t1-t2-t'2 would *have* to form. The different
observer moments can be shuffled and thrown into the air, and will
naturally associate due to their subjective content.

> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 8:50 AM, Stathis Papaioannou
> <stathisp at gmail.com> continued:
>> The upshot of all this is that in a multiverse, your consciousness can
>> flit about passing through all physical copies with the right sort of
>> subjective content. The only thing that stops you experiencing
>> extremely weird shifts from moment to moment must be that such shifts
>> are of very low measure: there just aren't that many versions of you
>> in the multiverse where you observe a fire-breathing dragon where
>> previously your memory tells you there was a keyboard. If this
>> explanation fails, then I would take that as evidence in favour of a
>> single, finite universe.
>
> I ask why there need need be any detection of shifts at all.  If the
> state of your memory is included in these discrete moments, then you
> can't rely on your belief in a memory for continuity.  Suppose each
> frame of your favorite movie were scattered before you as an
> unsequenced collection.  You may be able to recognize a scene
> 'belonging' near the beginning or end of the movie.  There is no
> reason that collection had to be ordered the way you remember it.  I
> may have watched the whole thing in reverse order.  Perhaps it made
> very little sense to me, or perhaps that's how I always watch movies
> and the relationships between characters was refolding rather than
> unfolding.  Perhaps my attention is split with another project 50% of
> the time and that I only care about 15 of 30 frames per second such
> that I don't even notice their reorganization (or complete
> disappearance) within statistically insignificant series.  How much is
> significant?  If exactly every even frame is perfectly ordered, but
> every odd frame has a possibility of being either missing or swapped
> with it's nearest odd neighbor - do I notice?  Maybe not if the shift
> is equally proportioned throughout the film.  Is it the uniquely
> ordered disturbance that catches our attention, or the uniquely
> disordered disturbance that catches our attention?

If you saw the frames in jumbled up order that would change the
observer moments compared to watching the film in sequence, since you
would have a memory of a later frame when watching an earlier frame,
for example. But if your experience of the frames were shuffled, for
example if you were living in a simulation which is run in
non-sequential order, the observer moments would not change and would
naturally associate in order due to their subjective content, so you
wouldn't be able to notice that anything unusual had happened.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou