I'm just skimming atthe moment, but the idea of " universes
containing SAS apparently observing a environment without physical laws."
seems absurd. How can a process occur, such as the process of observing,
without athe necessary sequence appearing to obey laws?> -----Original Message----- > From: Russell Standish [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, June 11, 1999 3:08 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Why physical laws > > > > > > >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 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > --
