RE: delayed reply

From: Higgo James <james.higgo.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 09:32:03 -0000

Some nice points. In answer to the last one: We happen to be in part of
reality where Y is not present. So what?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marchal [SMTP:marchal.domain.name.hidden]
> Sent: Friday, March 19, 1999 9:10 AM
> To: Higgo James; 'everything-list.domain.name.hidden'
> Subject: RE: delayed reply
>
>
> James wrote:
> >In answer to Wei dai's question, what is the set of all possible
> universes,
> >I would say, it is the set of all universes which can be rendered by
> > mapping
> >a subset of the output of "LET A=A+1; GOTO START", however you wish to
> map
> >it. I'm not sure why we want to know if we are living in 'this particular
> >turing machine' - as far as I understand it only one machine is running.
>
> OK, although I would say "no machines are running". "Running" is a
> dynamical concept, and "dynamics" is an internal modality of arithmeticla
> truth.
> And, if you have go through the PE-omega thought experiment, you know
> also that we are not localized at all in any universe, we "belong" to all
> (indiscernible) computationnal histories passing by our computationnal
> state.
> Time AND space are internal modalities.
>
>
> >It
> >generates everything possible as per previous paragraph, so what the
> > program
> >looks like can only be known if we know the mapping and all that seems
> >like
> >a fruitless avenue of research.
>
> Indeed. That is why I prefer to think in semantical term (arithmetical
> truth) and not in any syntactical or formal specifications. Those
> specifications are useful for the thought experiments, and they are
> useful for giving hyperbolic shortcuts to convey some point. But we must
> never take them too litteraly.
>
> >I'm confused: why do we need to explain anything? If everything possible
> >exists then that X exists in our environment can never be very
> surprising.
>
> The surprising thing is that, although "everything possible exists" some
> Y does NOT appear in our environment. We need to explain that, if
> "everything possible exists" can be taken as an explanation.
>
> Bruno
Received on Fri Mar 19 1999 - 01:36:18 PST