GL: "> *The implication of the question seems to be that the
questioner (Q)
> could have been born in either of the two populations at random, and,
> assuming the number of people in the Galactic Empire is sufficiently
> immense, the probability that he could have been born on Earth is close
> to nil.*
> * *
> *But Q could not have been born in either of the two populations; he
> could only have been born on Earth, and his failure to realize this
> suggests that he has ignored his own material and biological nature.*
> * *"
MP: That does seem to be the essence of it. Another way to look
at it - which as an arithmetical failure I much prefer - is to
recognise that, however wonderful the processes underlying one's
self-awareness are, what it comes down to is that the experience
of being here now is what it is like to be the universe
observing itself from a particular point of view, and no other
point of view. All the rest is just imagination.
At other times when I have made this statement, some people have
criticised the formulation on the grounds of 'too metaphysical'
or just 'too grandiose'. But I think that all such denials
depend on the imposition of arbitrary boundaries. Such
boundaries and conventions of thought are the very stuff of
social life maybe but if we want to be REAL then we have to be
'here' and 'now'. This entails recognising that here and now
have come about in consequence of every force and movement
causally antecedent to all the events and processes which make
up the experience of being the construction which is the
rendition of this body's model of self in the world. Sounds
complicated, but the complexity is mostly about having enough
self-referencing systems happening together to construct/be the
awareness. The underlying simplicity is that if something really
exists, even if that something is just a 'point of view', then
it has to be somewhere now, not somewhere else.
Thanks for the interesting question!
Regards
Mark Peaty CDES
mpeaty.domain.name.hidden
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
Gene Ledbetter wrote:
> *In another thread Rolf mentioned a variant of the Doomsday Argument
> where the universe is infinite:*
> * *
> *<< ...This variant DA asks, "if there's currently a Galactic Empire
> 10000 Hubble Volumes away with an immensely large number of people, why
> wasn't I born there instead of here?" >>*
> * *
> *The implication of the question seems to be that the questioner (Q)
> could have been born in either of the two populations at random, and,
> assuming the number of people in the Galactic Empire is sufficiently
> immense, the probability that he could have been born on Earth is close
> to nil.*
> * *
> *But Q could not have been born in either of the two populations; he
> could only have been born on Earth, and his failure to realize this
> suggests that he has ignored his own material and biological nature.*
> * *
> *Q is a material object and a living organism. He is composed of atoms
> from Earth's interior that could in no way be part of a remote Galactic
> Empire. Q's birth occurred because humans reproduce sexually, and his
> birth occurred on Earth because his parents lived on Earth. Q could not
> have been born in the Galactic Empire because he could not have been
> born anywhere but on Earth. *
> * *
> *If Q could only have been born on Earth, then the probability that he
> would have been born on Earth is 100%. The answer to Q's question,
> "...why wasn't I born there instead of here?", is that the probability
> of his having been born there is 0%.*
> * *
> *Gene Ledbetter*
>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Mon Nov 19 2007 - 08:56:52 PST