Hmm. I think I was working in the right direction, but your procedural analogy let you get closer to the moving parts. But I think "reachability" as you used it and "realizable" as I used it (or was thinking of it) seem to be working along similar lines.

I am "grunching." Responding to the questions posted without reading your answer. Then I'll read your answer and compare. I started reading your post on Friday and had to leave to attend a wedding before I had finished it, so I had a while to think about my answer.

>Can you talk about "could" without using synonyms like "can" and "possible"?

When we speak of "could" we speak of the set of realizable worlds [A'] that follows from an initial starting world A operated on by a set of physical laws f.

So when we say "I could have turned left at the fork in the road." "Could" refers to the set of realizable worlds that follow from an initial starting world A in which we are faced with a fork in the road, given the set of physical laws. We are specifically identifying a sub-set of [A']: that of the worlds in which we turned left.

This does not preclude us from making mistakes in our use of could. One might say "I could have turned left, turned right, or started a nuclear war." The options "started a nuclear war" may simply not be within the set [A']. It wasn't physically realizable given all of the permutations that result from applying our physical laws to our starting world.

If our physical laws contain no method for implementing free will and no randomness, [A'] contains only the single world that results from applying the set of physical laws to A. If there is randomness or free will, [A'] contains a broader collection of worlds that result from applying physical laws to A...where the mechanisms of free will or randomness are built into the physical laws.

I don't mean "worlds" in the quantum mechanics sense, but as a metaphor for resultant states after applying some number of physical permutations to the starting reality.

Why can a machine practice free will? If free will is possible for humans, then it is a set of properties or functions of the physical laws (described by them, contained by them in some way) and a machine might then implement them in whatever fashion a human brain does. Free will would not be a characteristic of A or [A'], but the process applied to A to reach a specific element of [A'].

So...I think I successfully avoided using reference to "might" or "probable" or other synonyms and closely related words.

now I'll read your post to see if I'm going the wrong way.

RI - Aren't Surviving Brian Copies [1-1000] are each their own entity? Brian-like entities? "Who is better off" are any Brian-like entities that managed to survive, any Adam-like entities that managed to survive, and any Carol-like entities that managed to survive. All in various infinite forms of "better off" based on lots of other splits from entirely unrelated circumstances. Saying or implying that Carol-Current-Instant-Prime is better off because more future versions of her survived than Adam-Current-Instant-Prime seems mistaken, because future versions of Adam or Carol are all their own entities. Aren't Adam-Next-Instant-N and Adam-Current-Instant-Prime also different entities?

And isn't multiplying infinities by finite integers to prove values through quantitative comparison an exercise doomed to failure?

All this trying to compare the qualitative values of the fates of infinities of uncountable infinite-infinities seems somewhat pointless. Also: it seems to be an exercise in ignoring probability and causality to make strange points that would be better made in clear statements.

>:(

I might just misunderstand you.

I'm a member of Alcor. I wear my id necklace, but not the bracelet. I sometimes wonder how much my probability of being successfully suspended depends on wearing my id tags and whether I have a significantly higher probability from wearing both. I've assigned a very high (70%+) probability to wearing at least one form of Alcor id, but it seems an additional one doesn't add as much, assuming emergency response personnel are trained to check the neck & wrists for special case ids. In most cases where I could catastrophically lose one form of id (such as dismemberment!) I would probably not be viable for suspension. What do you other members think?

Sorry if I'm getting myself derailed, but is there any particular purpose to metaphor of the "Cooperative Conspiracy"? It seems to be smuggling in some kind of critique of group-think, although because this particular conspiracy isn't fully defined the nature of the critique isn't clear. (Although the team claims he is "rumored" to be a member of this conspiracy, they do not seem to be largely alarmed, indicating some measure of philosophical tolerance.) Is the cooperative conspiracy a metaphor for some behavioral phenomenon well known or apparent among researchers?

Yes, Patrick. I believe that is the intent.

I don't have 480 minutes to commit to the task. Here is a list after only a handful of minutes:

Some possible flaws of Eld science:

- An emphasis on publishing works for personal credit in peer reviewed journals, thereby encouraging one to protect one's research from others working in the same field who might be nearing similar conclusions. - Rewarding success with long term, permanent positions of rank within the establishment that cannot be lost due to a failure to continue to produce insights. - Lethargy in the reframing of materials intended for the education of new researchers. (Specifically, reframing them with new, established insights within a particular field.) - An emphasis on social unity that discourages individuals from defending positions that seem to be too far out of acceptable norms.

I'll think about more during dinner.

Peter, your question doesn't seem to be the right one for illustrating your concern. The qualitative experience of color isn't necessary for explaining how someone can partition colored balls. Ignoring the qualitative experience, these people are going through some process of detecting differences in the reflective properties of the balls (which they subjectively experience as having different colors). We could create a reductive explanation of how the eye detects reflected light, how the brain categorizes reflective intensities into concepts like "bright" "dark" and how the body's mechanics enable picking up and dropping balls. A machine with no apparent subjective experience could sort the balls. However the question of qualitative experience in humans would remain.

We could say "where there is perception, deduce qualitative experience" but this doesn't explain anything. It might help us frame experiments to test for the existence of qualitative experience, but one element of Chalmer's argument is that no such objectively verifiable experiment can be created. It's also hard to come to terms with the idea that our ball sorting robot might be having qualitative experience.

If we are discarding solipsism from our epistemology, on what basis do we do so and is that basis philosophically applicable to discarding the idea that that my qualitative experience might be fundamentally different from someone else's? Just because I can conceive of a world in which what I experience as red is in fact experienced by someone else with no neural/optical flaws as what I would call yellow doesn't make that world logical. I would assume that if the object and lighting conditions are the same and our neural and optical machinery was in good order that we would both experience the same thing that it is to experience red when looking at a red object. To conceive otherwise would be baseless (purely metaphysical with no implications for reality).

Roko - "I don't think that" is not explanation.

brent, if you search for "Bayesian" you'll a fairly tight list of all relevant posts (for the most part). Start at the bottom and work your way up. Either that or you could just go back six months and start working your way through the archives.

Maybe it is time someone wrote a summary page and indexed this work.

Only some US cc processors will deny the transaction. The transaction fall under their category for betting & gambling, same thing that prevents you from pursuing cc transactions with online poker sites. But I've seen cases where these transactions are unblocked with certain banks.*

* Not me, of course.