Re: Let There Be Something
To me it's very simple, and I've already laid it out in just a few words below, and in more words in different ways in my previous posts on this thread. Russell, you've even said in your Why Occam's Razor paper that the Plenitude is ontologically to Nothing. To it follows that the following two mappings are the same: Plenitude -- Something Nothing -- Something It's basically a singularity either way. That's why I invoked the word "faith" below. Tom Russell Standish wrote: I don't agree that your original query was left unanswered - it was answered by several people, in possibly contradictory ways (that remains to be seen - I tend to see the commonality). Perhaps you mean the answers were unsatisfactory for you, in which case I'd be interested in hearing from you why they are unsatisfactory.On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 11:41:10AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Perhaps there needs to be a new thread for the new topic (Game of Life, etc.). It seems my original inquiry has been left unanswered, but this is my point. My challenge was that multiverse theory is just pulling things out of thin air just as much as any other metaphysical theory. At each point in the history of science, science needs an external foundation to stand on, and by definition this is extra-science. Cluttering up the picture with "Everything" doesn't solve the problem at all. The multiverse is a tautology. Attributing meaning to it is a statement of faith. Tom-- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, whichis of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not avirus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify thisemail came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, youmay safely ignore this attachment.
Re: Let There Be Something
I wasn't talking about a machine translation, but a machine assisted translation. I would take the machine translated text, and edit it into idomatic English - using my knowledge of the French text and the subject to assist. Diagrams would probably be left unchanged. It will still be a large task, perhaps taking a few months, but as I said I may do it with a little arm twisting. I wouldn't begin to do it without the machine translation to start with though! PS - I have just finished translating a 10,000 line PHP scripted website from Portugese, languages I do not know (neither Portugese nor PHP). Google was a big help, but certainly could not do it by itself. Cheers On Tue, Nov 08, 2005 at 12:26:08PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 06-nov.-05, ? 08:38, Russell Standish a ?crit : On Sat, Nov 05, 2005 at 03:37:52PM -0500, Stephen Paul King wrote: physics. BTW, I am still waiting to read an English version of your Thesis. That, I hope, might help me. Have you considered Google's translation services? With a little arm twisting, I might be tempted into assisting in translating this thesis. I have been poring over it during my book writing episode. With a Google translation of the LaTeX sources as a starting point, I think I could do it reasonably quickly... Thanks. Unfortunately some people have already send me some automated translations and until now I find them rather awful and hard to understand. Also, I think that my paper the origin of physical laws, despite its title, is better than my Lille thesis (except I pass over the graph movie argument). My last paper Theoretical computer science and the natural science is still better. It contains new results based on the use of combinators, and make a very clean summary of the interview of the (lobian) universal machine. But it is still under press, and it is also short and technical. I am thinking about the official paper, but I am stuck by the abyss existing in between physicists and logicians. People interested should really buy some good introductory book on logic, or study the Podnieks page: http://www.ltn.lv/~podnieks/ Podnieks mentions the book by Mendelson which is really good indeed. Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpLHy7HkKOAi.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Let There Be Something
Perhaps there needs to be a new thread for the new topic (Game of Life, etc.). It seems my original inquiry has been left unanswered, but this is my point. My challenge was that multiverse theory is just pulling things out of thin air just as much as any other metaphysical theory. At each point in the history of science, science needs an external foundation to stand on, and by definition this is extra-science. Cluttering up the picture with Everything doesn't solve the problem at all. The multiverse is a tautology. Attributing meaning to it is a statement of faith. Tom
Re: Let There Be Something
Tom wrote: Perhaps there needs to be a new thread for the new topic (Game of Life, etc.). It seems my original inquiry has been left unanswered, but this is my point. My challenge was that multiverse theory is just pulling things out of thin air just as much as any other metaphysical theory. At each point in the history of science, science needs an external foundation to stand on, and by definition this is extra-science. Cluttering up the picture with Everything doesn't solve the problem at all. The multiverse is a tautology. Attributing meaning to it is a statement of faith. Tom What about answering your question in terms of mathematical platonism? It seems to me that even if I try to imagine an absolute nothing, it would still somehow be true that 1+1=2, even if there was nothing to count and no one to be conscious of this fact...the statement 1+1=2 means something like it is true that *if* you had 1 object and added 1 object you would have 2 objects, and that statement is true regardless of whether you actually have any objects. But once we say that mathematical forms have some sort of necessary existence, we can view our universe (or our observer-moment) as just one of many possible platonic mathematical forms, perceived from the inside. But mathematical platonism assumes that all possible mathematical forms exist, and so they should seem just as real to any observers they contain, leading to the Everything view. Jesse
Re: Let There Be Something
I don't agree that your original query was left unanswered - it was answered by several people, in possibly contradictory ways (that remains to be seen - I tend to see the commonality). Perhaps you mean the answers were unsatisfactory for you, in which case I'd be interested in hearing from you why they are unsatisfactory. Cheers On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 11:41:10AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Perhaps there needs to be a new thread for the new topic (Game of Life, etc.). It seems my original inquiry has been left unanswered, but this is my point. My challenge was that multiverse theory is just pulling things out of thin air just as much as any other metaphysical theory. At each point in the history of science, science needs an external foundation to stand on, and by definition this is extra-science. Cluttering up the picture with Everything doesn't solve the problem at all. The multiverse is a tautology. Attributing meaning to it is a statement of faith. Tom -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpP8dZVMbcjG.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Let There Be Something
Yes - that's exactly what I meant. Assuming computationalism, consciousness is implied. I do not always assume computationalism :) ... On Sat, Nov 05, 2005 at 02:51:24PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 05-nov.-05, ? 08:22, Russell Standish a ?crit : Game of Life is an example 2D system capable of universal computation. I'm not sure this implies consciousness is possible in 2D, but it needs to be considered. It is easy, although very tedious, to program a Universal Dovetailer, in the game of life, and in that sense, assuming comp or some stronger alpha-comp, it can generate consciousness, at least as seen from inside. And then it generates the physics too (as seen from inside again). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpsO88N1FVKt.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Let There Be Something
On Sat, Nov 05, 2005 at 09:57:17AM -0500, Bob Hearn wrote: On Nov 5, 2005, at 2:22 AM, Russell Standish wrote: Game of Life is an example 2D system capable of universal computation. I'm not sure this implies consciousness is possible in 2D, but it needs to be considered. It does imply that if the Game of Life is the laws of physics of your universe, then consciousness is possible, because at the very least a 3D physics could be simulated. Whether that should be interpreted as consciousness in 2D may be a subtle issue, because the perceptual world of the conscious entities would be 3D - perhaps that was your point? Yes - assuming some version of comp, then yes, an entire 3D universe can be simulated, including consciousness such as our own. The more interesting question is whether conscious entites can exist the experience a 2D world, and if so what is their relative measure to those experiencing 3D environments. However, one can easily imagine a perceptual 2D world existing for conscious entities. Even if there is no self-consistent 2D physics leading to atoms, planets, etc., one can computationally simulate Flatland (a la Abbott) or a Planiverse (a la Dewdney) in a 3D universe, with no requirement for a consistent micro-physics. (In fact the Planiverse is my simulation domain for my AI work.) Assuming computationalism, I would argue that conscious observers experiencing 2D environment are possible, but perhaps unlikely. Why? Because 2D networks are highly constrained, and so it is difficult to evolve complex structures in 2D. 3D and higher is not so constrained, so evolution is possible. This is, of course, mere speculation at this stage - I'd love someone to develop these ideas further. So, whether it's the base physical reality you care about, or the perceived reality of the conscious entities, I would say 2D consciousness is possible. (Admittedly, in the latter case, one has to consider whether the 2D creatures could at some point develop science sufficient to prove that they must be simulated in some higher-dimensional physics!) I think Turing machines are impossible in 1D, however... No, there are 1D cellular automata that are computation universal. Here's an abstract from a paper showing it; I don't seem to be able to find the paper online. The paper is from 1990. However, there are references to earlier constructions, e.g. here: http:// www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/articles/mathematics/85-twenty/18/ text.html . Again, I can't find the cited paper online. Interesting - I might follow these refs further... The relevant Mathworld page is rather confused and misleading: http:// mathworld.wolfram.com/UniversalCellularAutomaton.html There it seems that by universal they mean that there is a certain class of 1D CA that can simulate any other 1D CA in that class. Hmm, so what? Cute, but hardly surprising. Mathworld is a great site, but it's too bad in some ways it's so tied in with the Wolfram mythos. There's a huge spin put on pages like the one above that you have to try to penetrate. Bob - Robert A. Hearn [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bob/ -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpvmqW2EUv2R.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Let There Be Something
On Nov 6, 2005, at 2:34 AM, Russell Standish wrote:On Sat, Nov 05, 2005 at 09:57:17AM -0500, Bob Hearn wrote:However, one can easily imagine a perceptual 2D world existing for conscious entities. Even if there is no self-consistent 2D physics leading to atoms, planets, etc., one can computationally simulate Flatland (a la Abbott) or a Planiverse (a la Dewdney) in a 3D universe, with no requirement for a consistent micro-physics. (In fact the Planiverse is my simulation domain for my AI work.)Assuming computationalism, I would argue that conscious observersexperiencing 2D environment are possible, but perhaps unlikely. Why?Because 2D networks are highly constrained, and so it is difficult toevolve complex structures in 2D. 3D and higher is not so constrained,so evolution is possible.I wasn't clear... I wasn't suggesting a simulation at the atomic-equivalent level, on the assumption that such might not be consistently possible. Instead I was suggesting designing or evolving intelligent creatures in a computer, in a 3D world, but creatures whose perceptual environment is a 2D world, simulated at some gross physical level. Conceivably even a human brain, suitably modified, could exist in such a perceptual environment, without realizing it was "really" a 3D entity.Bob - Robert A. Hearn [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bob/
Re: Let There Be Something
Hi Russell, Can atoms exist in a 2D universe? AFAIK, physics is very different when constrained to only 2D. My point is that the notion of computation is meaningless if there is no possibility of a stable structure on and in which to implement the computation. Platonic Numbers or bit-strings have no ability to do anything by themselves (by definition!) and thus appeals to their existence are vacuous. Onward! Stephen - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 2:22 AM Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Game of Life is an example 2D system capable of universal computation. I'm not sure this implies consciousness is possible in 2D, but it needs to be considered. I think Turing machines are impossible in 1D, however... Cheers On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 10:52:39PM -0500, Stephen Paul King wrote: Hi George, It seems to me that the notion of storing and communication 1 bit explicitly requires some form of stable structure over multiple queries. Does this not lead to the requirement of some form of physicality, a physicality that is epiphenomena at best in the ideal monism (everything is Numb3rs) theory? As to the question of the smallest dimension that can support life and consciousness; this has been considered by many people. My own ideas consider the smallest dimension that allows for the greatest diversity of forms, forms available to instantiate and represent ideal Forms. We find that in 3 dimensions there exists at least a countable infinity of topologically distinct objects that require non-trivial computational resources to sort and categorize. Onward! Stephen
Re: Let There Be Something
Le 03-nov.-05, à 19:29, Hal Finney a écrit : Bruno Marchal writes: And that illustrates the advantage of the comp theory, it gives by construction the correct physics, without any need, for a comp believer to verify it. Except, of course, that comp need to be postulated and we must be open it is could be false. With comp, you see, physics is approached in a radically different way. Different from the 2300 years of Aristotelian Naturalism: comp makes us to go back to Plato. Updtated by Godel's discoveries (and Church, Turing, etc.). Let me see if I understand how you construct the correct physics from comp. You start with the principle of the Universal Dovetailer, which creates all possible universes. OK. But the word universe can be misleading here. It is probably less misleading to say that the Universal Dovetailer generates all computations. By assuming comp, this generates also all the (first person) observer-moments (states/worlds/...). The physical reality will emerge from that, but there is no a priori reason to believe the UD generates any particular physical reality, although we have empirical reason that some quantum dovetailer will win the measure battle. You then examine those universes for subsystems which are consistent with your own first-person conscious experiences. If that means that my probable future, when I am in a comp state S, is entirely determined by the collection of computations going through S, with intrinsical weight determined by the UD (and thus by theoretical computer science alone), then OK. You set up some kind of measure over this selected subset of universes. ... of relative states or relative consistent extension. I only isolate the logic of the measure 1 from pure comp, and I got a confirmation by showing it to be quantum-like. I did analyse only the propositional physics, but the SOL ° THEAE ° COMP functor gives the whole of physics when you extend it to the quantified (first order) generalization of G. Which unfortunately (but expectedly) is a highly undecidable theory, as the russian logicians have succeed to show (see Boolos 1993). (The Universal Dovetailer perhaps implies the Universal Distribution.) The universal dovetailer implies a *relative* gaussian distribution, from which a quantum-like-distribution is extracted when we distinguish the 1 and 3 person point of views. And based on this measure you arrive at first-person indeterminacy about which laws of physics hold for you. Not really about which laws of physics holds because the unique possible laws of physics emerge from all computations. Suppose you measure the position of an electron and you find x. And then You want to evaluate the probability you will find it at y. In QM you need to take into account all path the electron will (or could) do for going from x to y. With comp you need to take into account all but only the computations going from your comp-states when you see the electron in x to the comp-states when you observe the electron in y. Is that right, is that the mechanical procedure by which someone derives their laws of physics from comp? That was a pretty short description, yes. I would just insist more on the fact that the physical reality is really a first person (plural) emergence from the interference of all third person describable computations. comp makes physics unique (Generalisation: each alpha-comp makes each alpha-physics unique, so that by observation we can have empirical reasons to bet on some alpha and measure some degree (alpha) of non computationality). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Let There Be Something
Le 05-nov.-05, à 08:22, Russell Standish a écrit : Game of Life is an example 2D system capable of universal computation. I'm not sure this implies consciousness is possible in 2D, but it needs to be considered. It is easy, although very tedious, to program a Universal Dovetailer, in the game of life, and in that sense, assuming comp or some stronger alpha-comp, it can generate consciousness, at least as seen from inside. And then it generates the physics too (as seen from inside again). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Let There Be Something
On Nov 5, 2005, at 2:22 AM, Russell Standish wrote:Game of Life is an example 2D system capable of universalcomputation. I'm not sure this implies consciousness is possible in2D, but it needs to be considered.It does imply that if the Game of Life is the laws of physics of your universe, then consciousness is possible, because at the very least a 3D physics could be simulated. Whether that should be interpreted as consciousness in 2D may be a subtle issue, because the perceptual world of the conscious entities would be 3D - perhaps that was your point?However, one can easily imagine a perceptual 2D world existing for conscious entities. Even if there is no self-consistent 2D physics leading to atoms, planets, etc., one can computationally simulate Flatland (a la Abbott) or a Planiverse (a la Dewdney) in a 3D universe, with no requirement for a consistent micro-physics. (In fact the Planiverse is my simulation domain for my AI work.)So, whether it's the base physical reality you care about, or the perceived reality of the conscious entities, I would say 2D consciousness is possible. (Admittedly, in the latter case, one has to consider whether the 2D creatures could at some point develop science sufficient to prove that they must be simulated in some higher-dimensional physics!)I think Turing machines are impossible in 1D, however...No, there are 1D cellular automata that are computation universal. Here's an abstract from a paper showing it; I don't seem to be able to find the paper online. The paper is from 1990. However, there are references to earlier constructions, e.g. here: http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/articles/mathematics/85-twenty/18/text.html . Again, I can't find the cited paper online.The relevant Mathworld page is rather confused and misleading: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/UniversalCellularAutomaton.htmlThere it seems that by "universal" they mean that there is a certain class of 1D CA that can simulate any other 1D CA in that class. Hmm, so what? Cute, but hardly surprising. Mathworld is a great site, but it's too bad in some ways it's so tied in with the Wolfram mythos. There's a huge spin put on pages like the one above that you have to try to penetrate.Bob - Robert A. Hearn [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bob/
Re: Let There Be Something
Hi Bruno, That is a fascinating claim! "...we could argue the UD is 0 dimensional: it computes an undefined function with 0 arguments." What is the quantity of computational resources required for such a computation? A new question is born from your comment: Is your notion of a "dimension" flow from linear independence, like that of vectors? How does one define the notion of a "basis" in this computational dimension? Onward! Stephen - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: Stephen Paul King Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 8:47 AM Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Le 05-nov.-05, à 04:52, Stephen Paul King wrote( to George): It seems to me that the notion of "storing" and communication 1 bit explicitly requires some form of stable structure over multiple queries. Does this not lead to the requirement of some form of physicality, a physicality that is epiphenomena at best in the ideal monism (everything is Numb3rs) theory?George, I agree with Stephen here. As to the question of the smallest dimension that can support life and consciousness; this has been considered by many people. My own ideas consider the smallest dimension that allows for the greatest diversity of forms, forms available to instantiate and represent ideal Forms. We find that in 3 dimensions there exists at least a countable infinity of topologically distinct objects that require non-trivial computational resources to sort and categorize.Hard question. Trivial at the 3-person level description in the sense that we could argue the UD is 0 dimensional: it computes an undefined function with 0 arguments.Brunohttp://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Let There Be Something
Stephen, your notion about Bruno's 0-dimensional reminds me of Isaac Asimov's BEST book (not sci-fi): From Earth To Heaven in which he deposits his scientific (in his own sense, of course) credo of 'Earthly' sciences (bio, geo, chemo related) and the 'Cosmo' related scineces, all in the observable (cf: dimensional) aspects, AND the word in between: to as an abstgract (call it dimensionless?) part of the title: for mathematics. This is of course an Asimovian humor, but very showing I usually object to expressing everything mathematically (number theory et al.) because I consider the world (totatlity) as a delectable varietas of unaccountable 'dimensions' (not meaning here only 'physical' Ds) while math I called a one plane idea indeed: rather a dimensionless imaging of the perceived and not perceived reality. I go here beyond Bruno's '3' (even '4'+) talking about ideational dimensions unrestricted. Which provides me with my habitual vagueness I enjoy. Varietas delectat. John Mikes --- Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Bruno, That is a fascinating claim! ...we could argue the UD is 0 dimensional: it computes an undefined function with 0 arguments. What is the quantity of computational resources required for such a computation? A new question is born from your comment: Is your notion of a dimension flow from linear independence, like that of vectors? How does one define the notion of a basis in this computational dimension? Onward! Stephen - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: Stephen Paul King Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 8:47 AM Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Le 05-nov.-05, à 04:52, Stephen Paul King wrote( to George): It seems to me that the notion of storing and communication 1 bit explicitly requires some form of stable structure over multiple queries. Does this not lead to the requirement of some form of physicality, a physicality that is epiphenomena at best in the ideal monism (everything is Numb3rs) theory? George, I agree with Stephen here. As to the question of the smallest dimension that can support life and consciousness; this has been considered by many people. My own ideas consider the smallest dimension that allows for the greatest diversity of forms, forms available to instantiate and represent ideal Forms. We find that in 3 dimensions there exists at least a countable infinity of topologically distinct objects that require non-trivial computational resources to sort and categorize. Hard question. Trivial at the 3-person level description in the sense that we could argue the UD is 0 dimensional: it computes an undefined function with 0 arguments. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Let There Be Something
I conjecture that if one can design physical laws for a universe capable of 1) supporting the NAND function 2) storing (locally) 1 bit, 3) transmitting 1 bit from one point to another point, then one could also generate a Turing machine in this universe which would then be capable of supporting machine duplication (life) and AI (consciousness.) The basic physical laws (TOE) in such a universe would be very simple. One would need 1) a logical law: NAND; 2) a state law to allow the existence of "states"; and a concept of extension or space such that different states can exist at different locations and be transmitted from one location to another location. A related question is what is the smallest number of dimension for such a universe, that can support life and consciousness. George Russell Standish wrote: On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 12:18:01AM +0100, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Hi Russel, Le Jeudi 03 Novembre 2005 22:11, Russell Standish a ??crit??: Even then, there is still a loophole. I suspect that 3D environment are far more likely to evolve the complex structures needed for consciousness, so that conscious GoL observers are indeed a rare thing. I don't know if this is the case or not, but if true it would make a GoL example irrelevant. More interesting is to look at some 3D CA rules that appear to support universal computation - Andy Wuensche had a paper on this in last year's ALife in Boston. No arXiv ref I'm afraid, but you could perhaps email him for an eprint... Cheers But 3D, 2D CA is of no relevance... the way we see the computation through the gol as nothing in common with how hypothetical living being inside the gol would perceive their environment. Quentin True, but I suspect it does have impact on the likelihood of conscious observers arising in such a system. In a plenitude of CAs of different rules and dimensionality, initialised at random, I suspect that 3D or higher CAs will dominate the measure of those CAs that generate the complex data structures needed for conscious observers. Perhaps 3D is even favoured. This is, of course, a hunch to be proven or disproven by some future mathematical genius. Cheers
Re: Let There Be Something
Hi George, It seems to me that the notion of "storing" and communication 1 bit explicitly requires some form of stable structure over multiple queries. Does this not lead to the requirement of some form of physicality, a physicality that is epiphenomena at best in the ideal monism (everything is Numb3rs) theory? As to the question of the smallest dimension that can support life and consciousness; this has been considered by many people. My own ideas consider the smallest dimension that allows for the greatest diversity of forms, forms available to instantiate and represent ideal Forms. We find that in 3 dimensions there exists at least a countable infinity of topologically distinct objects that require non-trivial computational resources to sort and categorize. Onward! Stephen - Original Message - From: George Levy To: Everything List Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 6:17 PM Subject: Re: Let There Be Something I conjecture that if one can design physical laws for a universe capable of 1) supporting the NAND function 2) storing (locally) 1 bit, 3) transmitting 1 bit from one point to another point, then one could also generate a Turing machine in this universe which would then be capable of supporting machine duplication (life) and AI (consciousness.) The basic physical laws (TOE) in such a universe would be very simple. One would need 1) a logical law: NAND; 2) a state law to allow the existence of "states"; and a concept of extension or space such that different states can exist at different locations and be transmitted from one location to another location.A related question is what is the smallest number of dimension for such a universe, that can support life and consciousness.George
Re: Let There Be Something
Le 02-nov.-05, à 21:23, Quentin Anciaux a écrit : I could'nt imagine what would it be for a human to knows the why and being able to prove it... Then you should like comp (and its generalisation) because it explain the why, and it justifies completely wxhy we cannot and will never been able to prove it. Actually science never proves anything on reality. It proves propositions only relatively to a theory/worl-view which is postulated, and in the waiting of being falsified. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Let There Be Something
Le 03-nov.-05, à 06:03, Hal Finney a écrit : In short, if there really exists a simple mathematical explanation of our universe, which IMO is a prediction of multiverse theories, I don't see our present physical models as being very close to that goal. That doesn't mean that multiverse theories are wrong, but it illustrates an inconsistency between multiverse models and the belief that we are almost there towards a ToE. And that illustrates the advantage of the comp theory, it gives by construction the correct physics, without any need, for a comp believer to verify it. Except, of course, that comp need to be postulated and we must be open it is could be false. With comp, you see, physics is approached in a radically different way. Different from the 2300 years of Aristotelian Naturalism: comp makes us to go back to Plato. Updtated by Godel's discoveries (and Church, Turing, etc.). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Let There Be Something
On Wed, Nov 02, 2005 at 09:03:21PM -0800, Hal Finney wrote: I don't think most of our versions of multiverse theories depend on the assumption that present-day physics is close to being right. It's true that we have some efforts such as those of Russell Standish to derive QM from a multiverse model, but (no offense to Russell) I don't think most of us have found those very convincing. If it should turn out that QM is not right, is only an approximation to a deeper theory, I don't think that would be seen as invalidating any of our models. Lack of convincing is perhaps due to lack of understanding. Even I do not fully understand the true worth of my derivation. It seems to me that I show that any physical theory that takes into account observation must have that Hilbert space structure, with that form of the Born rule. Yet there may well be special conditions that nobody has yet spotted that limit the claims. OTH, it cannot produce something like the classic Schroedinger equation for the hydrogen atom, which as we know must be strictly false as it ignores relativistic effects. I do not know how profound my result is - perhaps it is a trifle, but it seems interesting. AFAIK, none of the proposed quantum gravity theories like string theory, or quantum loops contradict the results I get, but it remains a testable prediction that if some form of physics is found that transcends and contradicts what we presently know of as QM, then some aspect my theory will need to be thrown out. Which of the big ideas would you choose to reject: Multiverse, Algorithmic information, Anthropic selection or Darwinian evolution? Hmm let us see... -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpki9Ae04BYq.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Let There Be Something
Le 03-nov.-05, à 12:12, Quentin Anciaux a écrit : Hi Bruno, Le Jeudi 3 Novembre 2005 11:14, vous avez écrit : Le 02-nov.-05, à 21:23, Quentin Anciaux a écrit : I could'nt imagine what would it be for a human to knows the why and being able to prove it... Then you should like comp (and its generalisation) because it explain the why, and it justifies completely wxhy we cannot and will never been able to prove it. In fact I like comp... your theory is what come closer to what I think about the world (even if what I think is of none importance in front of realities) Actually science never proves anything on reality. It proves propositions only relatively to a theory/worl-view which is postulated, and in the waiting of being falsified. Bruno Yes sure, you always have to have axiom, thing accepted as true without being able to prove them in the framework generated by choosing them. By this, a theory cannot explain its base (fondement). Yes, although in the comp framework (or more generally in the self-reference framework) there is a little subtlety, mainly due to the incompleteness phenomenon. It is true that we cannot prove the axioms of a theory ... from nothing. Once the axioms are chosen, then we can prove the axioms! (Indeed by a one line proof mentioning the axiom and just saying that it is an axiom). But for a sufficiently rich theory (like a TOE!) it could be that we will believe in actually unprovable (in the TOE) statement of the theory. The simplest example being the consistency of the theory, which can be falsified (the day we prove a falsity in the TOE), or only verified (the days we don't get a contradiction in the theory). Those statements (like the consistency) are non provable but, not like the axioms are (in some other natural sense) provable, but for the incompleteness theorem reason. More on this in any textbook of logic going up to the second incompleteness theorem by Godel. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Let There Be Something
Hi Russel, Le Jeudi 03 Novembre 2005 22:11, Russell Standish a écrit : Even then, there is still a loophole. I suspect that 3D environment are far more likely to evolve the complex structures needed for consciousness, so that conscious GoL observers are indeed a rare thing. I don't know if this is the case or not, but if true it would make a GoL example irrelevant. More interesting is to look at some 3D CA rules that appear to support universal computation - Andy Wuensche had a paper on this in last year's ALife in Boston. No arXiv ref I'm afraid, but you could perhaps email him for an eprint... Cheers But 3D, 2D CA is of no relevance... the way we see the computation through the gol as nothing in common with how hypothetical living being inside the gol would perceive their environment. Quentin
Re: Let There Be Something
Russell Standish writes: It predicts that either a) there is no conscious life in a GoL universe (thus contradicting computationalism) or b) the physics as seen by conscious GoL observers will be quantum mechanical in nature. If one could establish that a given GoL structure is conscious, and then if one could demonstrate that its world view is incompatible with QM then we might have a contradiction.=20 Even then, there is still a loophole. I suspect that 3D environment are far more likely to evolve the complex structures needed for consciousness, so that conscious GoL observers are indeed a rare thing. I don't know if this is the case or not, but if true it would make a GoL example irrelevant. More interesting is to look at some 3D CA rules that appear to support universal computation - Andy Wuensche had a paper on this in last year's ALife in Boston. No arXiv ref I'm afraid, but you could perhaps email him for an eprint... That's very interesting. Is it a matter of evolution, or mere existence? I can see that life would be hard to evolve naturally in Life - it's too chaotic. But it might well be possible for us to create a specially-designed Life robot which was able to move around and interact with a sufficiently well-defined and restrictive environment. How much constraint would your theories put on the capabilities of such a robot? Is it just that it could never be truly conscious? Or would your arguments limit its capabilities more strongly? Consciousness is hard to test for; would there be purely functional limitations that you could predict? Hal Finney
Re: Let There Be Something
Hi Tom: One of the goals of my search for a model was to explain why there is an observed dynamic. The Somethings that are launched from my Nothing/All pair include evolving Somethings [due to their incompleteness]. This evolution causes states of universes resident in the All to be given a period of a degree of reality in random sequences - universe evolution. All kinds of universe evolution take place. For example our universe running backwards. Speculation: Such a universe is not observable by internal SAS, it is more like reverse observable. [Perhaps call our type forward observable] This type of universe may be irrational from a forward observers point of view but this does not effect the existence of the backwards running universe. Both may be forward observable by the Something which as I discussed with Russell might be considered a conscious observer by force of its containing conscious observers [forward ones?]. Is our occasional feeling that we are experiencing something for the second time leakage from the reverse observers? Interesting. Hal Ruhl At 11:18 AM 11/3/2005, you wrote: There was more to my post, which I've included below, which was meant to answer questions from multiple contributors here. Thanks, Hal Ruhl, for responding. Somethings coming from All AND Nothing seems just as mysterious as coming from one of them. And if the somethings which are generated are all possible somethings, then we are back at the same problem as something in particular coming from All.
Re: Let There Be Something
On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 12:18:01AM +0100, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Hi Russel, Le Jeudi 03 Novembre 2005 22:11, Russell Standish a ??crit??: Even then, there is still a loophole. I suspect that 3D environment are far more likely to evolve the complex structures needed for consciousness, so that conscious GoL observers are indeed a rare thing. I don't know if this is the case or not, but if true it would make a GoL example irrelevant. More interesting is to look at some 3D CA rules that appear to support universal computation - Andy Wuensche had a paper on this in last year's ALife in Boston. No arXiv ref I'm afraid, but you could perhaps email him for an eprint... Cheers But 3D, 2D CA is of no relevance... the way we see the computation through the gol as nothing in common with how hypothetical living being inside the gol would perceive their environment. Quentin True, but I suspect it does have impact on the likelihood of conscious observers arising in such a system. In a plenitude of CAs of different rules and dimensionality, initialised at random, I suspect that 3D or higher CAs will dominate the measure of those CAs that generate the complex data structures needed for conscious observers. Perhaps 3D is even favoured. This is, of course, a hunch to be proven or disproven by some future mathematical genius. Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgp22Dips3MYC.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Let There Be Something
On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 03:21:50PM -0800, Hal Finney wrote: Russell Standish writes: It predicts that either a) there is no conscious life in a GoL universe (thus contradicting computationalism) or b) the physics as seen by conscious GoL observers will be quantum mechanical in nature. If one could establish that a given GoL structure is conscious, and then if one could demonstrate that its world view is incompatible with QM then we might have a contradiction.=20 Even then, there is still a loophole. I suspect that 3D environment are far more likely to evolve the complex structures needed for consciousness, so that conscious GoL observers are indeed a rare thing. I don't know if this is the case or not, but if true it would make a GoL example irrelevant. More interesting is to look at some 3D CA rules that appear to support universal computation - Andy Wuensche had a paper on this in last year's ALife in Boston. No arXiv ref I'm afraid, but you could perhaps email him for an eprint... That's very interesting. Is it a matter of evolution, or mere existence? I can see that life would be hard to evolve naturally in Life - it's too chaotic. But it might well be possible for us to create a specially-designed Life robot which was able to move around and interact with a sufficiently well-defined and restrictive environment. I think an especially designed conscious GoL observer would be a White Rabbit type situation. Assume computationalism, and assume we have successfully developed evolutionary algorithms to generate conscious observers. Now we take the program representing our evolved observer, and implement it on a Turing machine constructed from GoL components. What is it like to be such an observer? Rather like our white rabbit scenarios I should think. Also if we were constructed ab initio by an intelligent designer, and placed in a GoL implementation, probably much the same thing applies (unless the observer's environment is also simulated on the GoL machine). How much constraint would your theories put on the capabilities of such a robot? Is it just that it could never be truly conscious? Or would your arguments limit its capabilities more strongly? Consciousness is hard to test for; would there be purely functional limitations that you could predict? Hal Finney I have critiqued pure computationalism on the basis of an assumed necessity for random sequences for creative processes (such as evolution, and consciousness). I am aware that my critique doesn't apply to dovetailer implementations of multiverses, however, by Bruno's argument. In such a case, we may all be implemented in a GoL universe, and never know it. My argument is that one should expect to wake up in a quantum mechanics type universe, not that it is impossible to be conscious in a non-QM environment. Its anthropic reasoning. Bruno's argument appears to have more to say on the latter though. Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpjvmRC1JlCu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Let There Be Something
Hal, I disagree. How can the worm apply a probability distribution over things that he knows nothing of, such as trees, people, and evolution? Using the Wormopic Principle, when the worm proclaims that, The universe is just complex enough to produce and sustain such a worm as I, and the inside of an apple, how can he be meaning anything (in his own mind, mind you, since explanatory power refers to being able to explain the universe to him) that even remotely resembles our universe? (As an aside, as much as we know about our universe, we totally cannot rule out the possibility that a worm that understands sufficient mathematics actually exists in our universe!) Instead, even if he developed the in-apple technology to explore quantum mechanics and DNA, he might come up with a quantum theory similar to ours (but who knows the probability of that?!!), but he would likely come up with a very weird theory of how his DNA was formed, having nothing to do with how it actually was formed (according to our theories). You make a good point about the complexity of living things. If you ask biologists and other non-physics scientists about the Theories of Everything, a lot of them would say that we're a long way from it. Roger Trigg, University of Warwick, in his book, Rationality and Science: Can Science Explain Everything?, makes this point. Also, for instance, the premier biologist Carl Woese, in his recent article, A New Biology For A New Century, calls for biologists to get out of their myopic pursuit of genetically breaking things down into the smallest biological quantum, and to step back and look at the big picture, saying that there are whole levels of complexity that we will totally miss if we don't, resulting in being totally disabled in being able to explain everything in biology (to our satisfaction). Tom -Original Message- From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:13:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Tom Caylor writes: To look at this from a different perspective, suppose there was a worm that lived in an apple, and the worm was super-intelligent to the point of being able to grasp all of our mathematical concepts that Tegmark claims are sufficient to describe all of reality. Then the worm asks, Why is it that I'm in this apple? Actually the apple is the whole of observed reality for the worm, so it is equivalent to our observed universe. However the observABLE universe for the worm is the same as our observable universe. Then the worm comes up with a multiverse theory along with a Wormopic Principle, saying that the whole observable universe is just complex enough to sustain the inside of an apple. Surely this must be true, since the worm can grasp all of mathematics? The worm would come up with a multiverse theory that says that everything exists, including universes like ours with people, apple trees, apples and worms, and also including other universes which consist of just a single apple, possibly with a worm in it, and every other possibility besides. Among these possible universes there are a certain fraction which contain worms-in-apples consistent with the experiences, observations and memories that the worm has experienced in his own apple. He knows that he is one of those worms. He applies some kind of measure, such as the Universal Distribution, over all of these worms-in-apples and is able to come up with a probability distribution for which one he is. This results in first-person indeterminacy and uncertainty. It may well be that the simplest and most likely case is not a universe containing a single apple, but a universe like ours. The reason is that apples and worms are actually very complex objects at the cellular level, even more complex at the atomic level, and enormously complex at the sub-atomic Planck scale. The physics going on in the apple is every bit as complex as the physics of our own universe. Our universe has the advantage in that its initial condition was very simple - some say it was completely smooth and uniform in the initial instances of the Big Bang. Then we went along in a very natural and simple way and developed planets, where life evolved into apples and worms. The apple-only universe must create all this by fiat. It must be hard-wired into the initial conditions: everything about the apple, about the worm, and about the physics. It's very plausibly would take a more complex program to run a universe consisting of just an apple and a worm, than our whole universe where apples and worms evolve out of much simpler initial conditions. Hence the worm might well conclude that he is likely to be in a giant universe with billions of other apples and worms, as well as many other forms of life. Even though he has not yet observed any of these things, not yet having come to the surface of the apple, he can
Re: Let There Be Something
I should make another point, that it seems very likely that the worm has no way of developing the in-apple technology to find out about quantum mechanics or DNA. This emphasizes the fact that we, with our quantum theories, M-theories, and loop gravity etc. could be just as far away from explaining the universe as the worm is. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 14:58:30 -0500 Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Hal, I disagree. How can the worm apply a probability distribution over things that he knows nothing of, such as trees, people, and evolution? Using the Wormopic Principle, when the worm proclaims that, The universe is just complex enough to produce and sustain such a worm as I, and the inside of an apple, how can he be meaning anything (in his own mind, mind you, since explanatory power refers to being able to explain the universe to him) that even remotely resembles our universe? (As an aside, as much as we know about our universe, we totally cannot rule out the possibility that a worm that understands sufficient mathematics actually exists in our universe!) Instead, even if he developed the in-apple technology to explore quantum mechanics and DNA, he might come up with a quantum theory similar to ours (but who knows the probability of that?!!), but he would likely come up with a very weird theory of how his DNA was formed, having nothing to do with how it actually was formed (according to our theories). You make a good point about the complexity of living things. If you ask biologists and other non-physics scientists about the Theories of Everything, a lot of them would say that we're a long way from it. Roger Trigg, University of Warwick, in his book, Rationality and Science: Can Science Explain Everything?, makes this point. Also, for instance, the premier biologist Carl Woese, in his recent article, A New Biology For A New Century, calls for biologists to get out of their myopic pursuit of genetically breaking things down into the smallest biological quantum, and to step back and look at the big picture, saying that there are whole levels of complexity that we will totally miss if we don't, resulting in being totally disabled in being able to explain everything in biology (to our satisfaction). Tom -Original Message- From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:13:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Tom Caylor writes: To look at this from a different perspective, suppose there was a worm that lived in an apple, and the worm was super-intelligent to the point of being able to grasp all of our mathematical concepts that Tegmark claims are sufficient to describe all of reality. Then the worm asks, Why is it that I'm in this apple? Actually the apple is the whole of observed reality for the worm, so it is equivalent to our observed universe. However the observABLE universe for the worm is the same as our observable universe. Then the worm comes up with a multiverse theory along with a Wormopic Principle, saying that the whole observable universe is just complex enough to sustain the inside of an apple. Surely this must be true, since the worm can grasp all of mathematics? The worm would come up with a multiverse theory that says that everything exists, including universes like ours with people, apple trees, apples and worms, and also including other universes which consist of just a single apple, possibly with a worm in it, and every other possibility besides. Among these possible universes there are a certain fraction which contain worms-in-apples consistent with the experiences, observations and memories that the worm has experienced in his own apple. He knows that he is one of those worms. He applies some kind of measure, such as the Universal Distribution, over all of these worms-in-apples and is able to come up with a probability distribution for which one he is. This results in first-person indeterminacy and uncertainty. It may well be that the simplest and most likely case is not a universe containing a single apple, but a universe like ours. The reason is that apples and worms are actually very complex objects at the cellular level, even more complex at the atomic level, and enormously complex at the sub-atomic Planck scale. The physics going on in the apple is every bit as complex as the physics of our own universe. Our universe has the advantage in that its initial condition was very simple - some say it was completely smooth and uniform in the initial instances of the Big Bang. Then we went along in a very natural and simple way and developed planets, where life evolved into apples and worms. The apple-only universe must create all this by fiat. It must be hard-wired into the initial conditions: everything
Re: Let There Be Something
Tom Caylor writes: I should make another point, that it seems very likely that the worm has no way of developing the in-apple technology to find out about quantum mechanics or DNA. This emphasizes the fact that we, with our quantum theories, M-theories, and loop gravity etc. could be just as far away from explaining the universe as the worm is. We're very ambitious on this list, aiming for the One True Theory which will explain the universe. It's fair enough to keep this in mind as the ultimate goal, but you have to remember that every generation of scientists has thought this goal was just in reach, no matter how simplistic and just plain wrong their theories have turned out to be. It isn't just scientists who have thought this way either; theologians and philosophers have also regularly come up with Theories of Everything, or Everything Except a Few Minor Details. Given this history, can we really be certain at the start of the 21st century that our present knowledge and theories are somehow fundamentally different to all that has come before? --Stathis Papaioannou _ SEEK: Over 80,000 jobs across all industries at Australia's #1 job site. http://ninemsn.seek.com.au?hotmail
Re: Let There Be Something
Hi Hal, Indeed, if intellectual progress had continued at the rate it had in ancient Athens, for example, and provided that the Greeks overcame their disdain for technology (which promotes as well as feeds off pure science), we would have colonised the stars by now, and who knows where our physical theories would be? But an interesting exercise would have been to ask the best scientists or philosophers in each historical period how close they thought they thought they were to understanding everything about their subject. If this could be somehow expressed as figure - a perceived knowledge index, perhaps - I suspect it would (a) stay remarkably constant over time, and (b) be paradoxically higher during periods where little intellectual progress was being made. Stathis Papaioannou Hi Stathis: As far as I can see knowledge and understanding do not increase monotonically. From what I have been reading lately the ancient Greeks etc. were doing rather well re our quest yet all was virtually forgotten/lost. Hal Ruhl At 10:02 PM 11/2/2005, you wrote: We're very ambitious on this list, aiming for the One True Theory which will explain the universe. It's fair enough to keep this in mind as the ultimate goal, but you have to remember that every generation of scientists has thought this goal was just in reach, no matter how simplistic and just plain wrong their theories have turned out to be. It isn't just scientists who have thought this way either; theologians and philosophers have also regularly come up with Theories of Everything, or Everything Except a Few Minor Details. Given this history, can we really be certain at the start of the 21st century that our present knowledge and theories are somehow fundamentally different to all that has come before? --Stathis Papaioannou _ REALESTATE: biggest buy/rent/share listings http://ninemsn.realestate.com.au
Re: Let There Be Something
Le 29-oct.-05, à 00:57, Hal Finney a écrit : I would suggest that the multiverse concept is better thought of in somewhat different terms. It's goal is not really to explain where the universe comes from. (In fact, that question does not even make sense to me.) I think we should not confuse the problem of the selection of a (apparant) universe/history from the assumption of a multiverse (like the quantum hypothesis) with the question of explaining the appearances of a multiverse itself. Godelian self-reference can explain both from numbers and their nameable and unameable relations. BTW, although I knew this from the beginning I think I got the tools for making this more precise. What? That my reasoning goes though ... without comp! Comp makes it just more simple. But, actually comp is just Sigma_1 comp, and comp can be generalized to any degrees of unsolvability, but also by relativizing it to almost any well chosen mathematical structure. The nice thinks is that the modal logics of self-reference remains sound and complete for many of those alpha-comp, when alpha is not a too much non constructive object. But if alpha is non constructive, G and G* remains sound (and different, so the theaetetic variants THEAE still makes sense!). And G can be apparently extended as Solovay did already show. So my proof does not only give a test for testing comp. It gives a tool for measuring our degree of non-computationality. In case of non-comp. Mathematically it is a functor from some category of consistent alpha-computer sciences (note the plural) into a category of possible physical sciences. Technically remember comp-phys (the physics extracted by comp) is equal to the composition of three modal transformations SOL ° THEAE ° COMP to the logic G. If the real physics (still unknown but probably LOOP GRAVITY or M THEORY, or some other quantum theory) appears only when the functor SOL ° THEAE ° COMP is applied to an extension of G, then we would have an empirical case for non-comp! Hope I'm not to technical. I do think that if QM is the science of our apparent multiverse then Modal Logic is really the sciences of the multiverses in general. A physical theory is a set of rules which remains invariant for the transformations allowed in a multiverse. And comp or its generalization makes our apparent multiverse the result of the interference of the possible (with respect the the comp hyp chosen) multiverses. This is just the Everett move, done in mathematics. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Let There Be Something
My phrase something from nothing was not meant to restrict my inquiry to origins, in the sense of time or causality, but can be viewed in terms of information in general. It seems that the discussion has not contradicted my initial idea that, when it comes to explaining why things are the way they are, the multiverse is on the same level playing field as one universe. Hal Finney simply states that this is not true without supporting it: [The multiverse + AP is] a very different kind of argument than you get with a single universe model. Anthropic reasoning is only explanatory if you assume the actual existence of an ensemble of universes, as multiverse models do. The multiverse therefore elevates anthropic reasoning from something of a tautology, a form of circular reasoning, up to an actual explanatory principle that has real value in helping us understand why the world is as we see it. I believe that my statement before: ...simply bringing in the hypothetical set of all unobservable things doesn't explain rationally in any way (deeper than our direct experience) the existence of observable things. applies to the multiverse as well, since the multiverse = observable things + unobservable things and equivalently the multiverse = this universe + unobservable things I believe my reasoning applies to all selection principles, not just the AP. Also, Bruno wrote: I think we should not confuse the problem of the selection of a (apparant) universe/history from the assumption of a multiverse (like the quantum hypothesis) with the question of explaining the appearances of a multiverse itself. Godelian self-reference can explain both from numbers and their nameable and unameable relations A physical theory is a set of rules which remains invariant for the transformations allowed in a multiverse. And comp or its generalization makes our apparent multiverse the result of the interference of the possible (with respect the the comp hyp chosen) multiverses. I see the problem of explaining what the multiverse is in the first place (Bruno's second problem) as covered by my inquiry. Selecting a smaller initial multiverse from the set of all possible multiverses (or that could be The Multiverse) is equally an unsupportable selection process, outside of the realm of rationality. So Bruno claims to be able to explain it. So far I haven't been satisfied with his UDA. It seems that his assumptions restrict the multiverse in an equally unsupported way. It must be a necessary premise, equal in validity to the premise of just one universe, or what we see is what we get. Tom
Re: Let There Be Something
Tom Caylor writes: I believe that my statement before: ...simply bringing in the hypothetical set of all unobservable things doesn't explain rationally in any way (deeper than our direct experience) the existence of observable things. applies to the multiverse as well, since the multiverse = observable things + unobservable things and equivalently the multiverse = this universe + unobservable things Are you saying that you don't agree that the anthropic principle applied to an ensemble of instances has greater explanatory power than when applied to a single instance? Hal Finney
Re: Let There Be Something
Hi, as I said before I don't think/feel that single universe is on the same level as multiverse... Just by using absurd feeling I was talking about. If there is a single reality, you have to anwser why this one ? why like this ? what is the ultimate reason for the reality to be limited to this subset ? If you take the multiverse(everything) theory this is easily explained. On the other hand, multiverse theory by now could not answer why you're experiencing this precise reality among all possible that are in the multiverse. Regards, Quentin Le Mardi 01 Novembre 2005 20:49, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : My phrase something from nothing was not meant to restrict my inquiry to origins, in the sense of time or causality, but can be viewed in terms of information in general. It seems that the discussion has not contradicted my initial idea that, when it comes to explaining why things are the way they are, the multiverse is on the same level playing field as one universe. Hal Finney simply states that this is not true without supporting it: [The multiverse + AP is] a very different kind of argument than you get with a single universe model. Anthropic reasoning is only explanatory if you assume the actual existence of an ensemble of universes, as multiverse models do. The multiverse therefore elevates anthropic reasoning from something of a tautology, a form of circular reasoning, up to an actual explanatory principle that has real value in helping us understand why the world is as we see it. I believe that my statement before: ...simply bringing in the hypothetical set of all unobservable things doesn't explain rationally in any way (deeper than our direct experience) the existence of observable things. applies to the multiverse as well, since the multiverse = observable things + unobservable things and equivalently the multiverse = this universe + unobservable things I believe my reasoning applies to all selection principles, not just the AP. Also, Bruno wrote: I think we should not confuse the problem of the selection of a (apparant) universe/history from the assumption of a multiverse (like the quantum hypothesis) with the question of explaining the appearances of a multiverse itself. Godelian self-reference can explain both from numbers and their nameable and unameable relations A physical theory is a set of rules which remains invariant for the transformations allowed in a multiverse. And comp or its generalization makes our apparent multiverse the result of the interference of the possible (with respect the the comp hyp chosen) multiverses. I see the problem of explaining what the multiverse is in the first place (Bruno's second problem) as covered by my inquiry. Selecting a smaller initial multiverse from the set of all possible multiverses (or that could be The Multiverse) is equally an unsupportable selection process, outside of the realm of rationality. So Bruno claims to be able to explain it. So far I haven't been satisfied with his UDA. It seems that his assumptions restrict the multiverse in an equally unsupported way. It must be a necessary premise, equal in validity to the premise of just one universe, or what we see is what we get. Tom
Re: Let There Be Something
Unfortunately lately I do not have the time to read and think through each post but I would like to briefly point out that my approach has the Godelian ingredients of completeness/incompleteness, consistency/inconsistency and self reference. The power set of divisions of the list provides [I think] an uncountable infinity of universes of any given category. The self reference infinitely nests the system. I suppose that one could think of this last as either infinite regression or a system that eats its own tail [a termination of a causal chain. So as in the case of my Nothing and my All it seems the apex of causation may be neither infinite regression or termination but rather both [an and]. Hal Ruhl
Re: Let There Be Something
Hi Tom, I second Russell on this and would add that Leibniz's question why this and not some other (or whatever the exact quote is) really bring the question to a head. I would also point out that the so called initial conditions and fine tuning problem is a version of this. Personally, I think that we should take any anthropic principle as a constraint on the 1st person aspect, not on any notion of 3rd person. Onward! Stephen - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 3:23 PM Subject: Re: Let There Be Something
Re: Let There Be Something
Norman Samish writes: If the multiverse concept, as I understand it, is true, then anything that can exist does exist, and anything that can happen has happened and will continue to happen, ad infinitum. The sequence of events that we observe has been played in the past, and will be played in the future, over and over again. How strange and pointless it all seems. I'll grant you it may be strange, but how is it any more pointless than anything that can happen (or a subset thereof) happening only once, or a finite number of times? --Stathis Papaioannou _ MyCareer.com.au: Visit the NEW Salary Survey http://www.mycareer.com.au/salary-survey/?s_cid=203697
Re: Let There Be Something
Norman Samish writes: If the multiverse concept, as I understand it, is true, then anything that can exist does exist, and anything that can happen has happened and will continue to happen, ad infinitum. The sequence of events that we observe has been played in the past, and will be played in the future, over and over again. How strange and pointless it all seems. ~~ I'll grant you it may be strange, but how is it any more pointless than anything that can happen (or a subset thereof) happening only once, or a finite number of times? --Stathis Papaioannou ~~ That's a good question, forcing me to realize that I have an irrational fuzzy feeling that there should be a point to it all that I can understand, and that a sequence of events should occur only once. Implicit in these feelings is the assumption that there is some kind of God which designed the multiverse for some reason, and keeps track of all events. I suppose my early first cause training is at work. I think now that the premises of the First Cause argument are unproven.
Fwd: Re: Let There Be Something
--- John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 08:17:12 -0800 (PST) From: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Let There Be Something To: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED], everything-list@eskimo.com --- Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... --Stathis Papaioannou: I'll grant you it may be strange, but how is it any more pointless than anything that can happen (or a subset thereof) happening only once, or a finite number of times? Norman Samish writes: If the multiverse concept, as I understand it, is true, then anything that can exist does exist, and anything that can happen has happened and will continue to happen, ad infinitum. The sequence of events that we observe has been played in the past, and will be played in the future, over and over again. How strange and pointless it all seems. -(excerpts): a fuzzy feeling that there should be a point to it all that I can understand, and that a sequence of events should occur only once. [ Implicit in these feelings is the assumption that there is some kind of God which designed the multiverse for some reason, and keeps track of all events. ] ... How eye-opening! I settle down with my restrictions that only MY WORLD is of any interest to me, I don't care for anything beyond my views and understandability (or rather: observability). This is an extended solipsism, but keeps me from going crazy. I acknowledge (don't go any further) the infinitness of worlds and occurrences, beyond the whatever can happen which is pointing to something like in my (our) views. I cut it off there, HOPING(!) that those worlds and events - really OUT there - do have no influence upon our life. Implied: if they 'have', we would sense it and in that case those worlds and happenings would enter what we may call: our world and observational domains. However in case of 'that' infinity I don't see Normans 'second thought' of the requirement of any god. Before infinity? a category mistake of human pretension. If we cannot understand, we should not explain. Not by fairy tales, not by mathematical formulae. I would not go beyond such limitations in my speculation about my speculation. John Mikes
Re: Let There Be Something
--- Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... --Stathis Papaioannou: I'll grant you it may be strange, but how is it any more pointless than anything that can happen (or a subset thereof) happening only once, or a finite number of times? Norman Samish writes: If the multiverse concept, as I understand it, is true, then anything that can exist does exist, and anything that can happen has happened and will continue to happen, ad infinitum. The sequence of events that we observe has been played in the past, and will be played in the future, over and over again. How strange and pointless it all seems. -(excerpts): a fuzzy feeling that there should be a point to it all that I can understand, and that a sequence of events should occur only once. [ Implicit in these feelings is the assumption that there is some kind of God which designed the multiverse for some reason, and keeps track of all events. ] ... How eye-opening! I settle down with my restrictions that only MY WORLD is of any interest to me, I don't care for anything beyond my views and understandability (or rather: observability). This is an extended solipsism, but keeps me from going crazy. I acknowledge (don't go any further) the infinitness of worlds and occurrences, beyond the whatever can happen which is pointing to something like in my (our) views. I cut it off there, HOPING(!) that those worlds and events - really OUT there - do have no influence upon our life. Implied: if they 'have', we would sense it and in that case those worlds and happenings would enter what we may call: our world and observational domains. However in case of 'that' infinity I don't see Normans 'second thought' of the requirement of any god. Before infinity? a category mistake of human pretension. If we cannot understand, we should not explain. Not by fairy tales, not by mathematical formulae. I would not go beyond such limitations in my speculation about my speculation. John Mikes
Re: Let There Be Something
Dear John, It is refreshing to see that some people are willing to admit to the implicit solipsism that is at the heart of everyone's notion of being in the world. ;-) We must understand that *all* that we have access to is 1st person and any 3rd person representation is merely an ansatz of some 1st person aspect. Onward! Stephen - Original Message - From: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2005 11:17 AM Subject: Re: Let There Be Something snip -(excerpts): a fuzzy feeling that there should be a point to it all that I can understand, and that a sequence of events should occur only once. [ Implicit in these feelings is the assumption that there is some kind of God which designed the multiverse for some reason, and keeps track of all events. ] ... How eye-opening! I settle down with my restrictions that only MY WORLD is of any interest to me, I don't care for anything beyond my views and understandability (or rather: observability). This is an extended solipsism, but keeps me from going crazy. I acknowledge (don't go any further) the infinitness of worlds and occurrences, beyond the whatever can happen which is pointing to something like in my (our) views. I cut it off there, HOPING(!) that those worlds and events - really OUT there - do have no influence upon our life. Implied: if they 'have', we would sense it and in that case those worlds and happenings would enter what we may call: our world and observational domains. However in case of 'that' infinity I don't see Normans 'second thought' of the requirement of any god. Before infinity? a category mistake of human pretension. If we cannot understand, we should not explain. Not by fairy tales, not by mathematical formulae. I would not go beyond such limitations in my speculation about my speculation. John Mikes
Re: Let There Be Something
Dear Stephen, thanks for the consent. I would use instead of your ansatz rather Ersatz which means rather a non identical substitute, not an implenishing of another person's 1st person opinion (called for me a 3rd person view) when I absorb it as my 1st person variant of it. Thanks again John M --- Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear John, It is refreshing to see that some people are willing to admit to the implicit solipsism that is at the heart of everyone's notion of being in the world. ;-) We must understand that *all* that we have access to is 1st person and any 3rd person representation is merely an ansatz of some 1st person aspect. Onward! Stephen - Original Message - From: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2005 11:17 AM Subject: Re: Let There Be Something snip -(excerpts): a fuzzy feeling that there should be a point to it all that I can understand, and that a sequence of events should occur only once. [ Implicit in these feelings is the assumption that there is some kind of God which designed the multiverse for some reason, and keeps track of all events. ] ... How eye-opening! I settle down with my restrictions that only MY WORLD is of any interest to me, I don't care for anything beyond my views and understandability (or rather: observability). This is an extended solipsism, but keeps me from going crazy. I acknowledge (don't go any further) the infinitness of worlds and occurrences, beyond the whatever can happen which is pointing to something like in my (our) views. I cut it off there, HOPING(!) that those worlds and events - really OUT there - do have no influence upon our life. Implied: if they 'have', we would sense it and in that case those worlds and happenings would enter what we may call: our world and observational domains. However in case of 'that' infinity I don't see Normans 'second thought' of the requirement of any god. Before infinity? a category mistake of human pretension. If we cannot understand, we should not explain. Not by fairy tales, not by mathematical formulae. I would not go beyond such limitations in my speculation about my speculation. John Mikes
RE: Let There Be Something
Hi John: At 12:02 PM 10/30/2005, you wrote: Stathis, let me address first Tom C's objection addressing the nothing (from which nothing can come out) - and I wonder how Hal will feel about this: All we can talk about as N O TH I N G is that it does not contain anything we know about. It would make Tom's absolute no-no if we were omniscient gods, what we are not. OUR nothing may be loaded with things we do not know about, sense, observe, include into Hal's list. From those 'indonnu's there may be a healthy causation for a world within our grasp. Now about your objection: Actually many divisions of the list might work. All that is required to launch evolving Somethings is that one side of the division be incomplete and the other inconsistent. This is easy to demonstrate for the Nothing:All pair since the Nothing contains no possible further divisions of the list so can not respond to any meaningful question and I show there is at least 1. In general I suspect the divisions that will work must be finite:infinite pairs. So on your point re the Nothing I think you may be correct. Yours Hal Ruhl
Re: Let There Be Something
Norman Samish writes: If the multiverse concept, as I understand it, is true, then anything that can exist does exist, and anything that can happen has happened and will continue to happen, ad infinitum. The sequence of events that we observe has been played in the past, and will be played in the future, over and over again. How strange and pointless it all seems. ~~ I'll grant you it may be strange, but how is it any more pointless than anything that can happen (or a subset thereof) happening only once, or a finite number of times? --Stathis Papaioannou ~~ That's a good question, forcing me to realize that I have an irrational fuzzy feeling that there should be a point to it all that I can understand, and that a sequence of events should occur only once. Implicit in these feelings is the assumption that there is some kind of God which designed the multiverse for some reason, and keeps track of all events. I suppose my early first cause training is at work. I think now that the premises of the First Cause argument are unproven. The same objection to the quest for a first cause applies to the quest for ultimate meaning: you can always ask, if the meaning (or cause, or purpose) of x is y, what's the meaning (or cause, or purpose) of y? If you assert that y is special because it is the ultimate meaning (or cause, or purpose), then why not make the same assertion of x? --Stathis Papaioannou _ SEEK: Over 80,000 jobs across all industries at Australia's #1 job site. http://ninemsn.seek.com.au?hotmail
Re: Let There Be Something
Then in making that assertion it follows surely that we (x) are all God (y) and God has no particular attributes that we do not possess, being in some sense equivalent. God would then be equivalent to Life. Stathis may have unwittingly proven the existence of the big G Kim Jones On 31/10/2005, at 12:19 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: to the quest for a first cause applies to the quest for ultimate meaning: you can always ask, if the meaning (or cause, or purpose) of x is y, what's the meaning (or cause, or purpose) of y? If you assert that y is special because it is the ultimate meaning (or cause, or purpose), then why not make the same assertion of x? --Stathis Papaioannou email 1: [EMAIL PROTECTED] email 2: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Let There Be Something
Norman, you seem to arrive back at Fred Hoyl's infinite harmonic worldview without any thoughts of a begin or end. Although that sounds reasonable - as far as our capabilities are concerned, but we (who?) like to go a step further and satisfy our logic or at least taste by (fairytales?) theories fitting our present mental capabilities. John Mikes --- Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the multiverse concept, as I understand it, is true, then anything that can exist does exist, and anything that can happen has happened and will continue to happen, ad infinitum. The sequence of events that we observe has been played in the past, and will be played in the future, over and over again. How strange and pointless it all seems. Norman Samish ~ - Original Message - From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 3:57 PM Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Tom Caylor writes: I just don't get how it can be rationally justified that you can get something out of nothing. To me, combining the multiverse with a selection principle does not explain anything. I see no reason why it is not mathematically equivalent to our universe appearing out of nothing. I would suggest that the multiverse concept is better thought of in somewhat different terms. It's goal is not really to explain where the universe comes from. (In fact, that question does not even make sense to me.) Rather, what it explains better than many other theories is why the universe looks the way it does. Why is the universe like THIS rather than like THAT? Why are the physical constants what they are? Why are there three dimensions rather than two or four? These are hard questions for any physical theory. Multiverse theories generally sidestep these issues by proposing that all universes exist. Then they explain why we see what we do by invoking anthropic reasoning, that we would only see universes that are conducive to life. Does this really not explain anything? I would say that it explains that there are things that don't need to be explained. Or at least, they should be explained in very different terms. It is hard to say why the universe must be three dimensional. What is it about other dimensionalities that would make them impossible? That doesn't make sense. But Tegmark shows reasons why even if universes with other dimensionalities exist, they are unlikely to have life. The physics just isn't as conducive to living things as in our universe. That's a very different kind of argument than you get with a single universe model. Anthropic reasoning is only explanatory if you assume the actual existence of an ensemble of universes, as multiverse models do. The multiverse therefore elevates anthropic reasoning from something of a tautology, a form of circular reasoning, up to an actual explanatory principle that has real value in helping us understand why the world is as we see it. In time, I hope we will see complexity theory elevated in a similar way, as Russell Standish discusses in his Why Occam's Razor paper. Ideally we will be able to get evidence some day that the physical laws of our own universe are about as simple as you can have and still expect life to form and evolve. In conjunction with acceptance of generalized Occam's Razor, we will have a very good explanation of the universe we see. Hal Finney
Re: Let There Be Something
Hi, yes it sounds like blind faith, but I can't see either any rationnality in the faith that not everything exists... If not everything exists then the reality is more absurd... How a justification for only a small part of possibilities (and only this one) could be found ? Quentin Le Vendredi 28 Octobre 2005 18:33, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : I guess I'll break the symmetry of relative silence on this list lately. I just don't get how it can be rationally justified that you can get something out of nothing. To me, combining the multiverse with a selection principle does not explain anything. I see no reason why it is not mathematically equivalent to our universe appearing out of nothing. And I see the belief that our universe appeared out of nothing as just that, a belief. In fact, I believe that. But I don't see how it makes one iota more rational, scientific sense to try to explain it with a Plenitude and the Anthropic Principle. It's like a probability argument that poses the existence of as much unobservable stuff out there as we need, along with the well-behaved unobservable probability distribution we need, in order to give us a fuzzy feeling in terms of probability as we know it in our comfortable immediate surroundings. Sounds like blind faith to me.
Re: Let There Be Something
If we are leaving all rationality aside, then how can be talk about relative absurdity and justification? Tom Caylor -Original Message- From: Quentin Anciaux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:59:10 +0200 Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Hi, yes it sounds like blind faith, but I can't see either any rationnality in the faith that not everything exists... If not everything exists then the reality is more absurd... How a justification for only a small part of possibilities (and only this one) could be found ? Quentin Le Vendredi 28 Octobre 2005 18:33, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : I guess I'll break the symmetry of relative silence on this list lately. I just don't get how it can be rationally justified that you can get something out of nothing. To me, combining the multiverse with a selection principle does not explain anything. I see no reason why it is not mathematically equivalent to our universe appearing out of nothing. And I see the belief that our universe appeared out of nothing as just that, a belief. In fact, I believe that. But I don't see how it makes one iota more rational, scientific sense to try to explain it with a Plenitude and the Anthropic Principle. It's like a probability argument that poses the existence of as much unobservable stuff out there as we need, along with the well-behaved unobservable probability distribution we need, in order to give us a fuzzy feeling in terms of probability as we know it in our comfortable immediate surroundings. Sounds like blind faith to me.
Re: Let There Be Something
Why do you think (my interpretation of my understanding of what you're saying) that rationality is not just a type of belief ? I see rationality as the belief that what we are experiencing could be understand/known by us, that somehow here and now could be explained in acceptable term. In any cases, I just see absurdity for what is reality (don't know if it has to be rational), but in the not everything case, I see it as much more absurd. In the everything case, I'm because I must be by definition... And you are too for the same reason. In the other case you just get absurd justification for absurdity ;D Quentin Le Vendredi 28 Octobre 2005 21:24, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : If we are leaving all rationality aside, then how can be talk about relative absurdity and justification? Tom Caylor -Original Message- From: Quentin Anciaux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:59:10 +0200 Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Hi, yes it sounds like blind faith, but I can't see either any rationnality in the faith that not everything exists... If not everything exists then the reality is more absurd... How a justification for only a small part of possibilities (and only this one) could be found ? Quentin Le Vendredi 28 Octobre 2005 18:33, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : I guess I'll break the symmetry of relative silence on this list lately. I just don't get how it can be rationally justified that you can get something out of nothing. To me, combining the multiverse with a selection principle does not explain anything. I see no reason why it is not mathematically equivalent to our universe appearing out of nothing. And I see the belief that our universe appeared out of nothing as just that, a belief. In fact, I believe that. But I don't see how it makes one iota more rational, scientific sense to try to explain it with a Plenitude and the Anthropic Principle. It's like a probability argument that poses the existence of as much unobservable stuff out there as we need, along with the well-behaved unobservable probability distribution we need, in order to give us a fuzzy feeling in terms of probability as we know it in our comfortable immediate surroundings. Sounds like blind faith to me.
Re: Let There Be Something
Tom Caylor writes: I just don't get how it can be rationally justified that you can get something out of nothing. To me, combining the multiverse with a selection principle does not explain anything. I see no reason why it is not mathematically equivalent to our universe appearing out of nothing. I would suggest that the multiverse concept is better thought of in somewhat different terms. It's goal is not really to explain where the universe comes from. (In fact, that question does not even make sense to me.) Rather, what it explains better than many other theories is why the universe looks the way it does. Why is the universe like THIS rather than like THAT? Why are the physical constants what they are? Why are there three dimensions rather than two or four? These are hard questions for any physical theory. Multiverse theories generally sidestep these issues by proposing that all universes exist. Then they explain why we see what we do by invoking anthropic reasoning, that we would only see universes that are conducive to life. Does this really not explain anything? I would say that it explains that there are things that don't need to be explained. Or at least, they should be explained in very different terms. It is hard to say why the universe must be three dimensional. What is it about other dimensionalities that would make them impossible? That doesn't make sense. But Tegmark shows reasons why even if universes with other dimensionalities exist, they are unlikely to have life. The physics just isn't as conducive to living things as in our universe. That's a very different kind of argument than you get with a single universe model. Anthropic reasoning is only explanatory if you assume the actual existence of an ensemble of universes, as multiverse models do. The multiverse therefore elevates anthropic reasoning from something of a tautology, a form of circular reasoning, up to an actual explanatory principle that has real value in helping us understand why the world is as we see it. In time, I hope we will see complexity theory elevated in a similar way, as Russell Standish discusses in his Why Occam's Razor paper. Ideally we will be able to get evidence some day that the physical laws of our own universe are about as simple as you can have and still expect life to form and evolve. In conjunction with acceptance of generalized Occam's Razor, we will have a very good explanation of the universe we see. Hal Finney
Re: Let There Be Something
If the multiverse concept, as I understand it, is true, then anything that can exist does exist, and anything that can happen has happened and will continue to happen, ad infinitum. The sequence of events that we observe has been played in the past, and will be played in the future, over and over again. How strange and pointless it all seems. Norman Samish ~ - Original Message - From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 3:57 PM Subject: Re: Let There Be Something Tom Caylor writes: I just don't get how it can be rationally justified that you can get something out of nothing. To me, combining the multiverse with a selection principle does not explain anything. I see no reason why it is not mathematically equivalent to our universe appearing out of nothing. I would suggest that the multiverse concept is better thought of in somewhat different terms. It's goal is not really to explain where the universe comes from. (In fact, that question does not even make sense to me.) Rather, what it explains better than many other theories is why the universe looks the way it does. Why is the universe like THIS rather than like THAT? Why are the physical constants what they are? Why are there three dimensions rather than two or four? These are hard questions for any physical theory. Multiverse theories generally sidestep these issues by proposing that all universes exist. Then they explain why we see what we do by invoking anthropic reasoning, that we would only see universes that are conducive to life. Does this really not explain anything? I would say that it explains that there are things that don't need to be explained. Or at least, they should be explained in very different terms. It is hard to say why the universe must be three dimensional. What is it about other dimensionalities that would make them impossible? That doesn't make sense. But Tegmark shows reasons why even if universes with other dimensionalities exist, they are unlikely to have life. The physics just isn't as conducive to living things as in our universe. That's a very different kind of argument than you get with a single universe model. Anthropic reasoning is only explanatory if you assume the actual existence of an ensemble of universes, as multiverse models do. The multiverse therefore elevates anthropic reasoning from something of a tautology, a form of circular reasoning, up to an actual explanatory principle that has real value in helping us understand why the world is as we see it. In time, I hope we will see complexity theory elevated in a similar way, as Russell Standish discusses in his Why Occam's Razor paper. Ideally we will be able to get evidence some day that the physical laws of our own universe are about as simple as you can have and still expect life to form and evolve. In conjunction with acceptance of generalized Occam's Razor, we will have a very good explanation of the universe we see. Hal Finney
Re: Let There Be Something
My approach is that there is [exists] a list of possible features of objects and ideas. This list is [at least] countably infinite. Universes are described by the various one list to two sub list ways of dividing this list. the number of such divisions is uncountably infinite [a power set]. Nothing and and my All are one of these divisions. If any division has a degree of reality this division does. Since the Nothing and the All are a paired sub list there is no rationale for assigning either Nothing or the All a higher degree of reality than the other. The Nothing suffers incompleteness and the All suffers inconsistency. The result as explained in my posts is a fleeting and random assignment of a lower degree of reality to all the other possible divisions. The only assumption I can see is of the existence of a countably infinite and divisible list of possibilities. I do not see how such an assumption can be challenged. Universes do not arise out of nothing but rather out of the mere possibility of nothing. Hal
Re: Let There Be Something
Hal Finney wrote: Anthropic reasoning is only explanatory if you assume the actual existence of an ensemble of universes, as multiverse models do. The multiverse therefore elevates anthropic reasoning from something of a tautology, a form of circular reasoning, up to an actual explanatory principle that has real value in helping us understand why the world is as we see it. Very good Hal. I agree with you. George
