On Feb 14, 7:24 am, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 12:52 AM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com>wrote: > > > > > On 2/13/2011 10:13 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 10:46 AM, Brent Meeker > > <meeke...@dslextreme.com>wrote: > > >> On 2/13/2011 5:21 AM, 1Z wrote: > > >>> On Feb 12, 3:18 am, Brent Meeker<meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote: > > >>>> What do you think the chances are that any random object in > >>>>>>> Plato's heaven, or any random Turing machine will support intelligent > >>>>>>> life? > >>>>>>> 1 in 10, 1 in 1000, 1 in a billion? > > >>>>>> Zero. > > >>> Does that allow us to argue: > > >>> 1) A universe selected from an uncountably infinite number of > >>> possibilities has measure > >>> 0 > >>> 2) Our universe exists so it has measure>0 > >>> 3) Our universe is not selected from uncountably infinite > >>> possibilities > >>> 4) MUH indicates any universe must be selected from uncountable > >>> infinite possibilities (since all > >>> of maths includes the real line, etc) > >>> 5) MUH is false. > > >> Hmmm. I think we argue that objects in Plato's heaven and Turing > >> machines are not the right kind of things to support life. > > > I am very puzzled by this statement. You could help me understand by > > answering the following questions: > > > Why couldn't there be an accurate simulation of life on a Turing machine? > > > Because a Turing machine is an abstraction. If you mean a realization of a > > Turing machine, then I suppose there could be a simulation of life on it. > > > How can entities within a universe that exists in Plato's heaven > > distinguish it from a universe that does not? > > > I doubt that Plato's heaven exists. So no universes would exist in it. > > > Brent > > Exists is a funny word. It seems to embody knowledge and opinion from one > observer's viewpoint based on their own limited experiences and interactions > within their local portion of reality. If Plato's heaven is such a thing > that contains all possible structures, does the fact that it contains all > possible structures hold true whether or not it exists?
It's a correct definition whether or not it exists. > If there are > universes existing abstractly inside Plato's heaven, and some of those > universes contain conscious observers, does ascribing the property of > non-existence to Plato's heaven or to those universes make those observers > not conscious, or is the abstraction enough? Thing that aren't real can't have real properties, but hypothetical things have hypothetical properties > What properties can something > which is non-existent have? > > It seems there are two choices: 1. Things which are non-existent can have > other properties besides non-existence. E.g., a non-existent universe has > atoms, stars, worlds, and people on some of those worlds. Or 2. > Non-existent things cannot have any other properties besides non-existence. > It sounds like you belong to this second camp. 3. Hypothetical things have hypothetical properties. > However, this seems to lead immediately to mathematical realism. As there > are objects with definite objectively explorable properties in math. Hypothetical properties can be reasoned about. If I said you had 3 stakes and 5 phials of holy water, you could tell me how many vampires you could kill. But vampires don't exist. Defnitiness is epistemological and descriptive, not ontological. > 7's > primality and parity are properties of 7. But how can 7 have properties if > it does not exist? In the way that vampires have the property of not liking garlic. > If non-existent things can have properties, why can't > consciousness be one of those properties? The consciousness of a hypothetical conscious being is only a hypothetical consciousness. >What is the difference between a > non-existent brain experiencing a sunset and an existent brain experiencing > a sunset? Please explain as precisely as possible what it means for > something to not exist. That's not what needs explaining. What needs explaining is that people tend to use the word "property" interchangably for a) a characteristic predicated of something as a matter of theory or definition b) a characteristic of something that is a discoverable part of the fabric of the world. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
