Re: middle way

From: <GSLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 13:44:56 EST

In a message dated 11/29/1999 7:35:51 PM Pacific Standard Time,
dude.domain.name.hidden writes:

>
> "Jacques M. Mallah" wrote:
> >
> > You need to make a clearer distinction between Everett's MWI and
> > the AUH of Tegmark et al.
> > For that matter, many of us on this list, including me, lay claim
> > to inventing a version of the AUH. I do not think attributing it to just
> > Tegmark, Marchal and Schmidhuber is fair.
>

Chris Maloney replies:
> I agree with the first sentence, but we should all realize that
> this idea is, in fact, quite old. I've been discovering this fact
> gradually for the last year or so. Arthur Lovejoy traced the
> concept of the "Principle of Plenitude" throughout the history of
> philosophy *up until the 1920's*, when he wrote the book. I've
> just started this book, but it's clear that there has been
> considerable sophisticated thought on this possible explanation
> for quite a long time.
>
>

As far as I know, the principle of Plenitude started explicitly with Leibniz.
Interestingly, applications in physics include Feynman's multiple histories.
Very much related and preceding Feynman's is Huygens' technique for analyzing
wave front propagation according to which each point of the wavefront is
considered to be an emitter of a secondary wave (a multiple history for
waves).
Significantly before Leibniz, the author of Genesis describes the creation on
the world as: "In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth" where both God-
"Elohim" and Heaven- "Hashamayim" have the Hebrew suffix "im" for the plural
form, possibly implying a multiplicity of Heavens (or worlds?)

And of course let's not forget Murphy's "If it can happen it will."

George Levy
Received on Tue Nov 30 1999 - 10:47:12 PST