On 17 Dec 2013, at 01:07, meekerdb wrote:
On 12/16/2013 2:27 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 3:14 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 12/16/2013 12:40 PM, LizR wrote:
On 17 December 2013 08:06, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
JKC makes a big point of the complete separation of quantum
worlds, although Everett didn't write about multiple worlds.
Everett only considered one world and wrote about the "relative
state" of the observer and the observed system. In some ways this
is more fundamental because in principle the "different worlds" of
MWI can interfere with one another. That they usually don't is a
statistical result.
("Many worlds" is just a nice (and roughly accurate) description,
like Big Bang (better than Small Hiss) or Black Hole (better than
Very Faintly Glowing Region of Infinite Gravity :)
I think that's an unfair criticism of Copenhagen. Deterministic
theories just push the problem back in time. Ultimately there is
either an uncaused event or an infinite past. So there is not
great intellectual virtue in rejecting uncaused events. Quantum
mechanics is an interesting intermediate case. It has randomness,
but randomness that is strictly limited and limited in such a way
that it produces the classical world at a statistical level.
The problem is pushed back onto whatever is considered
fundamental. If there is an original event, it is only uncaused if
it doesn't emerge naturally from (for example) the equations that
are believed to describe the universe. One can say the same about
an infinite past.
Your own theory also introduces uncaused events, namely the
computations of a universal dovetailer. The whole idea of
"everythingism" was inspired by QM, but QM itself doesn't entail
that everything happens. If you measure a variable you only get
eigenvalues of that variable - not every possible value. If you
measure it again you get the same eigenvalue again - not any value.
I was given to believe that the computations of the UD aren't
events, and that they simply exist within arithmetic as a
logically necessary consequence of its existence. Did I get that
wrong?
I wouldn't say "wrong". It depends on whether you think "There
exists a successor of 2." implies that 3 exists. Personally I
think it is a confusion to say that a logical formula is satisfied
by X is the same as saying X exists in the ontological sense.
On the contrary, self-duplication explains the appearance of such
indeterminacy, without adding any further assumptions.
Well, the existence of self-duplication, even via Everett, is a
further assumption.
Surely the existence of duplication (rather than self-duplication)
arises from the equations? So one has self-duplication as a
consequence, to the same extent that one has it within ones own
personal past? Or have I misunderstood that too?
(Or are you just talking about the sort of assumptions we have to
make all the time anyway?)
Occam favors it. Your belief in "3)" substitutes a very simple
explanation by a call to a form of built-in-non-explainable magic.
No more magic than a UD.
Why is the UD magic? (Is arithmetic magic?)
It's hypothetically generating all possible worlds, but where is
it? It's in Platonia. It's "the word made flesh." Sounds a lot
more magical than "that atom decayed by potential tunneling just
like the equations say."
In a sense, one can be more certain about arithmetical reality than
the physical reality. An evil demon could be responsible for our
belief in atoms, and stars, and photons, etc., but it is may be
impossible for that same demon to give us the experience of
factoring 7 in to two integers besides 1 and 7.
But that's because we made up 1 and 7 and the defintion of
factoring. Their our language and that's why we have control of them.
That's the case for *all* theories. We have to agree on the axioms and
inference rules.
So while Descartes could doubt physical reality, he could not doubt
the "unreality of arithmetically impossible experiences".
I don't think Descartes could doubt physical reality.
He did. And contrary to what Jason said, Descartes, if I remember
well, did even doubt that "2+2=4".
That makes sense, because we can make weird dream in which we believe
in plain simple false statement. I did dream that the modus ponens
rule was invalidated by the redness of some curtains (!). Descartes
doubted of everything except that he was doubting.
Even Bruno rejects solipism and that's just doubting the reality of
other people. I find it pretty easy to doubt that you can always
add one more to an integer. I think 10^10^10 + 1 may well equal
10^10^10 in most contexts.
1+1 = 1 in some context too, like with clouds. This does not change
the interpretation of Peano or Robinson axioms, it just shows the
trivial facts that elementary arithmetic does not applied to this or
that.
Your critics on arithmetic is like "group theory is ridiculous,
because (N, +) refutes it."
Bruno
In that sense, arithmetic would in-part control possible
experiences, and is harder to doubt than the possibility that
physics is constrains experiences. Indeed, computationalism
suggests this is true. An appropriately programmed computer can
generate any experience that can be possibly experienced in any
universe: our own "laws of physics" do not constrain our possible
experience whatsoever,
?? They seem to constrain my experience of breathing under water and
flying to Mars.
so long as a Turing machine can be built within the laws of some
physical universe.
I know. That's your story and you're sticking to it.
Brent
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