On 23 July 2014 17:49, Jesse Mazer <[email protected]> wrote: > So, why not adopt a Tegmark-like view where a "physical universe" is > *nothing more* than a particular abstract computation, and that can give us > a well-defined notion of which sub-computations are performed within it by > various "physical" processes?
Essentially because of the argument of Step 7 of the UDA. The assumption here is that consciousness (i.e. the logic of the first-person) is derived from computation. It then follows that we cannot ignore the possibility in principle of "building a computer" that not only implements a UD but also runs it for long enough to generate its infinite trace, UD* (incorporating, by the way, a "fractal-like" infinity of such dovetailing). If denying such a possibility on grounds of a lack of "primitively-physical" resources is evasive, to deny it on grounds of a lack of "mathematical" resources is surely merely incoherent. But if we do not deny it, but rather embrace it, we can see that such a structure would inevitably dominate any "observational reality". We would then see "physical" processes in the first place as the logic of what is *manifested* in observation, as distinct from a more fundamental logic of observation itself. IOW the logic of physical manifestation is (assumed to be) a consequence of a radical asymmetry of measure inherent in the computational infinity of the UD*, as filtered through a deeper "logic of observation" implemented in its "universally" self-referential sub-class. Here the natural analogy is with The Library of Babel, with the crucial difference of the self-filtering characteristic of universal self-reference. This is the first step in filtering out the Vast regions of gibberish that make the alphabetical version of the library so unusable. We must also assume that canonical physical law emerges as a consequence of intrinsic statistical asymmetries, in order to justify the observed "probabilistic" distribution (i.e. the prevalence of "normal" over "white rabbit" experiences). David -- 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.
