On 16 Dec 2013, at 22:30, LizR wrote:
On 17 December 2013 10:14, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 12/16/2013 12:40 PM, LizR wrote:
On 17 December 2013 08:06, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> 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.
Is that another way of saying you don't think Arithmetical Realism
is correct? (Which is fair enough, of course, it is a supposition.)
OK.
Note that *all* scientist makes that supposition.
Some rare philosophers pretend to doubt it, but they are usually
inconsistent, or too much unclear.
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."
Well if you don't think AR is correct, then of course it sounds
magical (although that leaves the problem of how those equations
which somehow (magically?) control the behaviour of atoms actually
do so.)
Personally, I don't find the "argument from incredulity" works for
me any more towards maths being "less real" than primitive matter.
Maybe I've been in contact with Bruno for too long.
The problem is that "primitive matter" is really like Santa Klaus. It
explains nothing. Iy just add to the difficulties.
Nobody has ever given an evidence for it. It is a gentle simplifying
myth which works well to manage our tasks in the neighborhood, but
explains nothing, and makes the mind-body problem unsolvable. Then
comp explains why it cannot work.
Bruno
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