On 3/16/07, Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> > 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 [in] 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?
There are factors creating a local measure, even if the Plenitude is
infinite and measureless. Although the chance that you will be you is zero
or almost zero if you consider the Plenitude as God's big lucky dip, you
have to be someone given that we are talking about observers, and once you
are that fantastically improbable person, it becomes a certainty that you
will remain him for as long as there are future versions of him extant
anywhere at all. Thus, the first person perspective, necessarily from within
the plenitude, makes a global impossibility a local certainty.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Fri Mar 16 2007 - 05:31:08 PDT