I'm not sure I understand you. Physical laws ARE necessary to consciousness.
You will not find consciousness where you do not find the right environment,
and that environment must include not only physical laws, but physical laws
that are very similar to the ones we see in our environment. There is no
'use' in invoking other computational histories in the same way that
Betelgeuse is of no 'use' to us.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gilles HENRI [SMTP:Gilles.Henri.domain.name.hidden]
> Sent: 29 January 1999 14:28
> To: Higgo James
> Cc: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> Subject: RE: Misc.
>
> >I just read Schmidhuber's paper - I think it is 100% pertinent to this
> >discussion and should be revisited in the light of the comments below.
> >
> >ftp://ftp.idsia.ch/pub/juergen/everything.ps.gz
> >
> >Essentially, the program that specifies all worlds is digital.
> >
> >A universe with physical laws is atypical but obviously we inhabit such a
> >universe - weak anthropic principle.
>
> I have difficulties to apply anthropic principle in this case (I have not
> yet read Schmidhuber's paper, maybe the answer is there.)
> If physical laws are not necessary to consciousness, anthropic principle
> should state that a typical conscious being should live in a "universe"
> or
> "computation?" without laws.
> If they are, what's the use of invoking other computational histories?
>
>
> Gilles
>
>
>
Received on Fri Jan 29 1999 - 06:36:41 PST