James Higgo, <james.higgo.domain.name.hidden>, writes:
> 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.
Isn't it questionable whether we "obviously" inhabit a universe with
physical laws? I think that is one of the points Wei was making.
All we really know is that we have memories of living in a universe with
such laws. Which is easier (i.e. more likely): creating a universe
with physical laws and evolving intelligence in it, or just creating
an intelligence with false memories of physical laws, out of random
fluctuations?
We can only apply the anthropic principle if we assume that our memories
are accurate, but given the wide range of possibilities opened up by
the everything-exists models, we can't blindly assume that memories are
correct.
Hal
Received on Fri Jan 29 1999 - 09:39:08 PST