Well, by the same token “What I experience represents what I think it does / I am not a Boltzmann brain which may dwindle out of existence in an instance” would go right out, just the same. This kind of reasoning reduces to something similar to quantum suicide. The point at which your conscious experience is expected to diverge, even if you take that perspective, does kind of matter. The different paths and their probabilistic weights which govern the divergence alter your expected experience, after all. Or am I misunderstanding?
By virtue of existential quantification in a ZF equivalent set theory, we can have anything.
In an arbitrary encoding format, I now by existential quantfication select a set which is the momentary subjective experience of being me as I write this post, e.g. memory sensations, existential sensations, sensory input, etc.
It is a mathematical object. I can choose it’s representation format independent of any computational medium I might use to implement it.
I just so happens that there is a brain in the universe we are in, which is implementing this matematical object.
Brains are computers that compute conscious experiences.
They no more have bearing on the mathematical objects they implement than a modern computer has on the definition of conways game of life.
I just so happens that there is a brain in the universe we are in, which is implementing this matematical object.
Which is why we’re still highly invested in the question whether (whatever it is that generates our conscious experience) will “stay around” and continue with our pattern in an expected manner.
Let’s say we identify with only the mathematical object, not the representation format at all. That doesn’t excuse us from anthropic reasoning, or from a personal investment in reasoning about the implementing “hardware”. We’d still be highly invested in the question, even as ‘mathematical objects’. We probably still care about being continually instantiated.
The shift in perspective you suggest doesn’t take away from that (and adds what could be construed as a flavor of dualism).
I will have to mull on that, but let me leave with a mote of explanation:
The reasoning strategy I used to arrive at this conclusion was similar to the one used in concluding that “every possible human exists in paralell universes, so we need not make more humans, but more humans feeling good.”
Sure, but I will quote Karkat Vantas on time-travel shenanigans from Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck
CCG: EVERYBODY, DID YOU HEAR THAT?? SUPERFUTURE VRISKA HAS AN IMPORTANT LIFE LESSON FOR US ALL. CCG: WE DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT OUR PRESENT RESPONSIBILIES AND OBLIGATIONS! CCG: BECAUSE AS IT TURNS OUT, IN THE FUTURE ALL THAT STUFF ALREADY HAPPENED. WE’RE OFF THE FUCKING HOOK!
Well, by the same token “What I experience represents what I think it does / I am not a Boltzmann brain which may dwindle out of existence in an instance” would go right out, just the same. This kind of reasoning reduces to something similar to quantum suicide. The point at which your conscious experience is expected to diverge, even if you take that perspective, does kind of matter. The different paths and their probabilistic weights which govern the divergence alter your expected experience, after all. Or am I misunderstanding?
I am not sure.
Let met try to clarify.
By virtue of existential quantification in a ZF equivalent set theory, we can have anything.
In an arbitrary encoding format, I now by existential quantfication select a set which is the momentary subjective experience of being me as I write this post, e.g. memory sensations, existential sensations, sensory input, etc.
It is a mathematical object. I can choose it’s representation format independent of any computational medium I might use to implement it.
I just so happens that there is a brain in the universe we are in, which is implementing this matematical object.
Brains are computers that compute conscious experiences.
They no more have bearing on the mathematical objects they implement than a modern computer has on the definition of conways game of life.
Does that clarify it?
Which is why we’re still highly invested in the question whether (whatever it is that generates our conscious experience) will “stay around” and continue with our pattern in an expected manner.
Let’s say we identify with only the mathematical object, not the representation format at all. That doesn’t excuse us from anthropic reasoning, or from a personal investment in reasoning about the implementing “hardware”. We’d still be highly invested in the question, even as ‘mathematical objects’. We probably still care about being continually instantiated.
The shift in perspective you suggest doesn’t take away from that (and adds what could be construed as a flavor of dualism).
Hmmm.
I will have to mull on that, but let me leave with a mote of explanation:
The reasoning strategy I used to arrive at this conclusion was similar to the one used in concluding that “every possible human exists in paralell universes, so we need not make more humans, but more humans feeling good.”
Doesn’t every possible human-feeling-good also exist in parallel universes?
(And if you argue that although they exist you can increase their measure, that applies to the every-possible-human version as well.)
Sure, but I will quote Karkat Vantas on time-travel shenanigans from Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck