From: Damien Broderick (thespike@satx.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 12 2004 - 01:38:02 MST
At 12:30 AM 12/12/2004 -0600, Eliezer wrote:
< we find that "worlds" (in a quantum configuration space filled with
swirling clouds of probability amplitude in close mutual causal connection)
"fork" (a cloud of amplitude develops into separate clouds, groups of
points in configuration space interacting with each other but not with
nearby clouds of amplitude), a phenomenon interpreted by embedded observers
as the other clouds "vanishing". >
In an earlier parallel universe, on Tue, 06 Apr 2004, Mitchell Porter wrote:
===========
Eliezer said
>Life is a mist of probability amplitudes.
This is nonsense. "Mist", "probability" - what about REALITY?
The actual nature of things?
===========
and soon added:
===========
If this were just about Bayes, it should be "Life is a mist of
conditional probabilities" - and then it wouldn't be a statement
of physics. A probability amplitude is not a probability. No-one
can say what it is, except "the thing we get the empirical
probabilities from".
I am hammering hard on this because it is dismaying to see
Eliezer latch on to something like this as dogma, and use it to
dismiss "hard problems" as pseudo-questions.
============
How soon they forget, O Lord!
(Or perhaps, of course, they just disagree?)
Damien Broderick
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