> > > >I'll try to put it in more quantitative form. I assume I can give a > >"measure" of the set of possible Universes and separate it into three > >classes: > >A : the subset of universes without conscious beings > >B : the subset of universes containing SAS apparently observing a > >environment without physical laws. > >C : the subset of universes containing SAS apparently observing a > >environment with physical laws. > > > >It seems that we live in a C-Universe. Why? > > > >I guess (I may be wrong) that if you POSTULATE the existence of a reality > >obeying physical laws, you could hope to demonstrate > >m(A)>>m(C)>>m(B), > >because it is very improbable that conscious beings doing repeated physical > >experiments would be unable to unveil the existence of physical laws (for > >example by finding systematically very improbable results where the > >statistical distributions predicted by QM are never recovered). > >The observation of A is excluded by the (generalized) anthropic principle, > >so we explain satisfactorily why we see "C". > > > >However, I think that the "everything computable is realized" hypothesis > >would predict m(A)>>m(B)>>m(C), and so the reason why we are in C is much > >more mysterious with this hypothesis. Of course if you think you can > >justify also m(C)>>m(B) with comp, it would have the bonus to explain why > >physical laws exist (which must be postulated in the first stage), but I am > >really not convinced of that. > > My feeling, Gilles, is that you have an excellent understanding of my > point. Now, for some reason you don't believe in comp, and for that > reason, you take my counter-intuitive result as an opportunity to throw > away > the comp hypothesis. > Honestly that is a little too premature for me. > But I'm very glad you realise the bonus: an explanation of the origin of > physical laws. > But indeed, with comp (which is admitted by numerous people including > Schmidhuber, Deutsch, all cognitive scientist, etc.) we must justify > why m(C) >> m(B). > I don't pretend it is easy. I feel it worthwhile. > > You can try to prove that comp => m(C) << m(B). In that case, comp > will be refuted, once and for all. > You can try to prove that comp => m(C) >> m(B). In that case, you > will solve the mind body problem and the problem of the origin of the > physical laws. > > BTW, is it clear that with the quantum MWI we have prove that m(C) >> > m(B). > I guess the decoherent approach has put some light on that problem. But > here too, it is still not clear how far we are from a clearcut solution... > > Bruno. >
I believe that the statement m(C) >> m(B) is related to the problem of why we should believe we have evolved by Darwinian evolution rather than just created "ex-nihilo" as Creation Scientists would have us believe. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, University of NSW Phone 9385 6967 Sydney 2052 Fax 9385 7123 Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centre http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
