Fwd: Why physical laws

From: <GSLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 1999 16:48:05 EDT

In a message dated 99-06-05 08:27:11 EDT, dude.domain.name.hidden writes:

<< The answer is that the structure(s)
 we are in obey physical laws, not because they were cast by
 fiat from some omnipotent being, but simply because the structures
 that do obey physical laws are more numerous than those that do
 not, and hence we are likely to find ourselves in those. >>

To paraphrase Einstein, and in keeping with the MWI, when God threw the dice,
all faces came up. Not just a dice with six faces but one with an infinity.
This is brute force creation to say the least, requiring no "creative
ingenuity" in the human sense. You assume that "the structures that obey
physical laws are more numerous than those that do not, and hence we are more
likely to find ourselves in those."
The problem with this reasonning is that it is self sampling. We can find
ourselves ONLY in those structures that obey physical laws because these are
the ONLY structures that can support us as rational beings (SAS). The
assumption that worlds with (rational) physical laws are more more numerous
than those without is therefore unwarranted. In fact I would believe in the
opposite. That the worlds without rational physical laws, (if these could be
called worlds at all), are more numerous than those with rational physical
laws.

attached mail follows:



In Tegmark's paper,
in section 2G, he makes a crucial point that the fewer axioms
you use to define your mathematical structure, the larger is
the ensemble. This provides a concrete justification for the
principle of Occam's Razor. Similarly to the argument given
above, we would expect to find ourselves in worlds with fairly
few laws of physics, since those admit the most SAS's. You
can always add any bizarre behavior to the structure by adding
ad hoc axioms, but worlds in which that is the case
have a smaller measure than those that do not.

This line of reasoning also explains why, in a general sense,
we find that our universe behaves sensibly from moment to moment.
Many philosophers have pondered the question of why everything
doesn't disintegrate into chaos in the next instant. What holds
the world together such that things persist and our memories
match our external reality? The answer is that the structure(s)
we are in obey physical laws, not because they were cast by
fiat from some omnipotent being, but simply because the structures
that do obey physical laws are more numerous than those that do
not, and hence we are likely to find ourselves in those.



-- 
Chris Maloney
http://www.chrismaloney.com
"Knowledge is good"
-- Emil Faber
Received on Sun Jun 06 1999 - 13:49:25 PDT

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