Apologies. I accidentally sent this last night to another mailing list. Here it is.
--Tim Begin forwarded message: > > On Monday, July 8, 2002, at 07:43 PM, Stephen Paul King wrote: > >> Dear Tim, >> >> Are you tacitly assuming some kind of communication between >> observers >> when you make the claim of a "convergence"? Adsent said communications, >> could we show that the convergence would still obtain? Have you ever >> seen >> any discussion of the notion of cyclic or periodic gossiping in Comp >> Sci? >> >> > > No, I was arguing that while the future may be multi-worlded, > everything we know about science (evidence, archaeology, > measurements, ...) points to a _single_ past. > > For example, a single past world line for me, for you, for Hal, for > Chaucer, for Einstein. > > Now we may not know what this world line is very accurately, but as we > look at more closely, e.g., by examining the photographs someone may > have taken, or their diaries, or whatever, the more we home in on what > that world line was. We never look closely and see two or three or N > different histories, we just see a higher fidelity view of what we must > assume is the One True Past. > > I don't doubt that Hal gets the sense that many potential Hals could > have resulted in the current Hal...an interesting notion. But > everything does in fact point to a One True Past which various > measurements get closer and closer to, and which no measurements > contradict. > > This is what I meant by "convergence." Homing in, getting closer, > sharpening the image, filling in the details. > > As for "tacitly assuming some kind of communication between observers," > I am _explicitly_ saying that observers get together and compare > notes...and they find no contradictions, if they are honest observers. > > Hal may have meant something different, perhaps. > > > --Tim May > > --Tim May > (.sig for Everything list background) > Corralitos, CA. Born in 1951. Retired from Intel in 1986. > Current main interest: category and topos theory, math, quantum > reality, cosmology. > Background: physics, Intel, crypto, Cypherpunks > >
