pengvado comments on Open Thread: February 2010 - Less Wrong

1 Post author: wedrifid 01 February 2010 06:09AM

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Comment author: pengvado 14 February 2010 02:13:11AM *  1 point [-]

Why would determinism have anything to say about indexicals? There aren't any Turing-complete models that forbid indexical uncertainty; you can always copy a program and put the copies in different environments. So I don't see what use such a concept of "determinism" would have.

Comment author: Jack 14 February 2010 03:55:26AM -1 points [-]

Thinking about this it isn't a concern about indexicals but a concern about reference in general. When we refer to an object we're not referring to it's extension throughout all Everett branches but we're also referring to an object extended in time. So take a sentence like "The table moved from the center of the room to the corner." If determinism is true we usually think that all sentences like this are necessary truths and sentences like "The table could have stayed in the center" are false. But I'm not sure what the right way to evaluate these sentences is given MWI.

Comment author: Jack 15 February 2010 10:24:23PM 0 points [-]

Voted down because my writing is confusing or because I said something stupid?