Hi Brent,
On Friday 16 March 2007 00:16:13 Brent Meeker wrote:
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > On 3/15/07, *Brent Meeker* <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden
> >
> > <mailto:meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>> wrote:
> > > But these ideas illustrate a problem with
> > > "everything-exists". Everything conceivable, i.e. not
> > > self-contradictory is so ill defined it seems impossible to
> >
> > assign
> >
> > > any measure to it, and without a measure, something to pick
> >
> > out this
> >
> > > rather than that, the theory is empty. It just says what is
> > > possible is possible. But if there a measure, something
> >
> > picks out
> >
> > > this rather than that, we can ask why THAT measure?
> > >
> > >
> > > Isn't that like arguing that there can be no number 17 because
> >
> > there is
> >
> > > no way to assign it a measure and it would get lost among all the
> >
> > other
> >
> > > objects in Platonia?
> > >
> > > Stathis Papaioannou
> >
> > I think it's more like asking why are we aware of 17 and other small
> > numbers but no integers greater that say 10^10^20 - i.e. almost all
> > of them. A theory that just says "all integers exist" doesn't help
> > answer that. But if the integers are something we "make up" (or are
> > hardwired by evolution) then it makes sense that we are only
> > acquainted with small ones.
> >
> >
> > OK, but there are other questions that defy such an explanation. Suppose
> > the universe were infinite, as per Tegmark Level 1, and contained an
> > infinite number of observers. Wouldn't that make your measure
> > effectively zero? And yet here you are.
> >
> > Stathis Papaioannou
>
> Another observation refuting Tegmark! :-)
>
> Seriously, even in the finite universe we observe my probability is almost
> zero. Almost everything and and everyone is improbable, just like my
> winning the lottery when I buy one a million tickets is improbable - but
> someone has to win. So it's a question of relative measure. Each integer
> has zero measure in the set of all integers - yet we are acquainted with
> some and not others. So why is the "acquaintance measure" of small
> integers so much greater than that of integers greater than 10^10^20 (i.e.
> almost all of them). What picks out the small integers?
>
> Brent Meeker
If you see each integer with a successor notation, 2 is S(1) and 3 is S(2)
which is S(S(1)) and so on, you see that "big" integers contains the "small"
integers and the smalls are over represented... just a though ;-)
Quentin
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Received on Thu Mar 15 2007 - 20:18:46 PDT