>> An infinite universe (Tegmark type 1) implies that our consciousness flits >> about from one copy of us to another and that as a consequence we are >> immortal, so it does affect us even if there is no physical communication >> between its distant parts.
I don't think it implies that at all. We don't know what consciousness really is but if it turns out to emerge from or supervene on some localized lump of stuff then there would be lots of independent consciousnesses that experienced similar things to me, rather than one consciousness per person-set that flits about faster than light over the set of infinite universes; somehow making time to get back to me per time iteration. But even if your implication stood, it would open up a huge can of philosophical worms. What exactly constitutes a 'me' 10^10^29 meters away from here? In the infinite space there are a fair few mes, all of whom have some differences, differences in history, differences in location, differences in body, differences in vocations, beliefs even wives etc. An infinite spectrum of me. A happy thought for women everywhere but at what point does it become ridiculous to say this or that copy is still me? This is the problem Lewis faces with modal realism and why he gets wishy washy about whether these copies are me or are not me but are just similar to me in so many regards. More importantly, when we are talking about cause and effect we are talking about something other than dodgy metaphysical consequences such as 'immortality'. We're want something that can be measured. From: [email protected] Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 10:12:09 +1100 Subject: Re: Scott Aaronson vs. Max Tegmark To: [email protected] On 25 March 2014 16:58, chris peck <[email protected]> wrote: >>I think you're missing Scott's point. The universe is obviously isomorphic to a mathematical structure, in fact infinitely many different mathematical structures, all of which are in Borges Library of Babel. Almost all of them are just lists of what happens. Scott's point is that this is not very interesting, important, or impressive. It's only some small elegant compression of those lists that's interesting - if it exists. Scott seems to think that it does. I think it does *only* because we're willing to call a lot of stuff "geography" as Bruno puts it, aka boundary conditions, symmetry breaking, randomness... Hmm, I just read Scott as saying that MUH is scientifically empty in the sense that it makes no significant predictions, the emphasis being on the word significant. The predictions it does make are a little wishy washy. Like, MUH predicts that science will continue to uncover mathematically describable regularities in nature. what would a non-mathematically describable law look like? And how is a mathematically describable regularity in this universe evidence of the existence of another mathematical universe? He also takes Tegmark to task on his use of anthropic reasoning because it allows Tegmark to have his cake and to eat it. The extent to which regularities are elegantly described by maths will be taken as evidence for an inherently mathematical ontology. The extent to which they are not will allow him to invoke the anthropic principle and say well it would be absurdly lucky that the one universe that existed just happened to have these wierd constants that supported life. I think in Popperian terminology Tegmark's predictions just are not risky enough. He's guaranteed to hit one or the other every time. I'll be interested in how Tegmark addresses Scott's last point concerning the physicality of universes beyond the cosmic horizon. I can see both points of view. I can appreciate Tegmark's view that a galaxy 1 light year beyond the cosmic horizon is just like Andromeda but just a bit further away. On the other hand I also see Scott's point that if it is just far enough away to prevent any causal interaction then it doesn't satisfy a reasonable definition of physical. To be physical is to be causally relevant. There doesn't seem to be much semantic difference between a non physical universe and one which is so far away that it couldn't ever effect us. An infinite universe (Tegmark type 1) implies that our consciousness flits about from one copy of us to another and that as a consequence we are immortal, so it does affect us even if there is no physical communication between its distant parts. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
