Ben: A conscious mind is not a single, indivisible entity. It is a slippery thingy arising from the interplay of myriad smaller systems and mechanisms. If you want to use the word ‘emergent’ then knock yourself out. With that in mind, why should there be a definite fact of the matter?
Ben,
Knowing that you’re wrong doesn’t always help you. You have to know how you’re wrong, and what the right answer is / how to dissolve the question, in order to get started on repairs.
Lots of people out there are wise enough to believe that, somehow, consciousness is going to end up being incarnated in mere computing matter—but believing this doesn’t make the mystery go away, until you fill in that somehow. Otherwise you’re just saying “Atoms did it!”
There’s a notion of Boltzmann brains—brains that have spontaneously coalesced in vastly improbable reversals of entropy. If the universe is large enough, then under standard physics, it will contain Boltzmann brains. How do I know I’m not one?
“You don’t,” you reply. Then why do I expect my future experiences to be ordered? Why do i think that an orderly universe best explains my current existence, rather than a fluctuation of dust?
“Because an orderly universe is far more likely to give rise to you, than a fluctuation of dust would be.” Ah, now you’re using terms like likely. That requires some measure of probability. After all, if the prior probability of an ordered world were zero, the likelihood ratio wouldn’t matter.
In standard physics in a Big World, the Boltzmann Eliezer, and the Earth Eliezer, both exist. One may have chaotic future experiences, or dissolve back into dust; the other has a legitimate expectation of future order.
Given that both kinds of future experiences will occur to subjectively indistinguishable Eliezers, why do I expect an orderly future more than I expect a future where I sprout wings and fly away?
Well… the fact that Boltzmann Eliezers are exponentially less common in the universe, than ordered Eliezers, might have something to do with it -
if I were allowed to count people, or measure a weight of their existence, or assign a probability to them that was a probability of something. Somehow.
Do you see why, despite knowing the problems, I can’t toss my notion of “number of observer-moments” or “weight of existence” or “measure of probability” out the window, yet? I need some way of saying that, on average, I don’t expect to sprout wings and fly away, even if there’s some very rare / low-weight / improbable Eliezer who experiences such things. If you toss that out, why believe in the science that you’re using to conduct the whole analysis to begin with? Why not just believe that all the order is a chance illusion, once you toss out probability?
That’s not an argument for counting people. That’s explaining why I go on counting people, for now, even though I know that my current method is wrong, somehow.
I don’t see why you need to count the proportional number of Eliezers at all. I’m guessing the reason you expect an ordered future isn’t because of the relation of {number of Boltzmann Eliezers}/{number of Earth Eliezers} to 1. It seems to me you expect an orderly future because you (all instances of you and thus all instances of anything that is similar enough to you to be considered ‘an Eliezer’) have memories of an orderly past. These memories could have sprung into being when you did a moment ago, yes, but that doesn’t give you any other valid way to consider things. Claiming you’re probabilistically not a Boltzmann Eliezer because you can count the Boltzmann Eliezers assumes you have some sort of valid data in the first place, which means you’re already assuming you’re not a Boltzmann Eliezer.
You anticipate experiencing the future of Earth Eliezer because it’s the only future out of unconsiderably-many that has enough definition for ‘anticipation’ to have any meaning. If sprouting wings and flying away, not sprouting wings but still flying away, sprouting wings and crashing, and not sprouting wings and teleporting to the moon are all options with no evidence to recommend one over another, what does it even mean to expect one of them? Then add to that a very large number of others—I don’t know how many different experiences are possible given a human brain (and there’s no reason to assume a Boltzmann brain that perceives itself as you do now necessarily has a human-brain number of experiences) - and you have no meaningful choice but to anticipate Earth Eliezer’s future.
Unless I’m missing some important part of your argument, it doesn’t seem that an absolute count of Eliezers is necessary. Can’t you just assume a future consistent with the memories available to the complex set of thought-threads you call you?
I realise I’m getting to (and thus getting through) this stuff a lot later than most commenters. Having looked, though, I can’t find any information on post-interval etiquette or any better place to attempt discussion of the ideas each post/comment produces and, as far as I can tell, the posts are still relevant. If I’m flaunting site policy or something with my various years-late comments, I’m sorry and please let me know so I know to stop.
Ben: A conscious mind is not a single, indivisible entity. It is a slippery thingy arising from the interplay of myriad smaller systems and mechanisms. If you want to use the word ‘emergent’ then knock yourself out. With that in mind, why should there be a definite fact of the matter?
Ben,
Knowing that you’re wrong doesn’t always help you. You have to know how you’re wrong, and what the right answer is / how to dissolve the question, in order to get started on repairs.
Lots of people out there are wise enough to believe that, somehow, consciousness is going to end up being incarnated in mere computing matter—but believing this doesn’t make the mystery go away, until you fill in that somehow. Otherwise you’re just saying “Atoms did it!”
There’s a notion of Boltzmann brains—brains that have spontaneously coalesced in vastly improbable reversals of entropy. If the universe is large enough, then under standard physics, it will contain Boltzmann brains. How do I know I’m not one?
“You don’t,” you reply. Then why do I expect my future experiences to be ordered? Why do i think that an orderly universe best explains my current existence, rather than a fluctuation of dust?
“Because an orderly universe is far more likely to give rise to you, than a fluctuation of dust would be.” Ah, now you’re using terms like likely. That requires some measure of probability. After all, if the prior probability of an ordered world were zero, the likelihood ratio wouldn’t matter.
In standard physics in a Big World, the Boltzmann Eliezer, and the Earth Eliezer, both exist. One may have chaotic future experiences, or dissolve back into dust; the other has a legitimate expectation of future order.
Given that both kinds of future experiences will occur to subjectively indistinguishable Eliezers, why do I expect an orderly future more than I expect a future where I sprout wings and fly away?
Well… the fact that Boltzmann Eliezers are exponentially less common in the universe, than ordered Eliezers, might have something to do with it -
if I were allowed to count people, or measure a weight of their existence, or assign a probability to them that was a probability of something. Somehow.
Do you see why, despite knowing the problems, I can’t toss my notion of “number of observer-moments” or “weight of existence” or “measure of probability” out the window, yet? I need some way of saying that, on average, I don’t expect to sprout wings and fly away, even if there’s some very rare / low-weight / improbable Eliezer who experiences such things. If you toss that out, why believe in the science that you’re using to conduct the whole analysis to begin with? Why not just believe that all the order is a chance illusion, once you toss out probability?
That’s not an argument for counting people. That’s explaining why I go on counting people, for now, even though I know that my current method is wrong, somehow.
PS: This whole problem blends directly over into “Why does (why do you believe that) anything exists in the first place?”
I don’t see why you need to count the proportional number of Eliezers at all. I’m guessing the reason you expect an ordered future isn’t because of the relation of {number of Boltzmann Eliezers}/{number of Earth Eliezers} to 1. It seems to me you expect an orderly future because you (all instances of you and thus all instances of anything that is similar enough to you to be considered ‘an Eliezer’) have memories of an orderly past. These memories could have sprung into being when you did a moment ago, yes, but that doesn’t give you any other valid way to consider things. Claiming you’re probabilistically not a Boltzmann Eliezer because you can count the Boltzmann Eliezers assumes you have some sort of valid data in the first place, which means you’re already assuming you’re not a Boltzmann Eliezer.
You anticipate experiencing the future of Earth Eliezer because it’s the only future out of unconsiderably-many that has enough definition for ‘anticipation’ to have any meaning. If sprouting wings and flying away, not sprouting wings but still flying away, sprouting wings and crashing, and not sprouting wings and teleporting to the moon are all options with no evidence to recommend one over another, what does it even mean to expect one of them? Then add to that a very large number of others—I don’t know how many different experiences are possible given a human brain (and there’s no reason to assume a Boltzmann brain that perceives itself as you do now necessarily has a human-brain number of experiences) - and you have no meaningful choice but to anticipate Earth Eliezer’s future.
Unless I’m missing some important part of your argument, it doesn’t seem that an absolute count of Eliezers is necessary. Can’t you just assume a future consistent with the memories available to the complex set of thought-threads you call you?
I realise I’m getting to (and thus getting through) this stuff a lot later than most commenters. Having looked, though, I can’t find any information on post-interval etiquette or any better place to attempt discussion of the ideas each post/comment produces and, as far as I can tell, the posts are still relevant. If I’m flaunting site policy or something with my various years-late comments, I’m sorry and please let me know so I know to stop.