Alastair Malcolm wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Günther Greindl" <guenther.greindl.domain.name.hidden>
> To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
> Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 9:46 PM
> Subject: Re: Quantum Immortality = no second law
>
>> Dear Nichomachus,
>>
>>> decision. If she measures the particle's spin as positive, she will
>>> elect to switch cases, and if she measures it with a negative spin she
>>> will keep the one she has. This is because she wants to be sure that,
>>> having gotten to this point in the game, there will be at least some
>>> branches of her existence where she experiences winning the grand
>>> prize. She is not convinced that, were she to decide what to do using
>>> only the processes available to her mind, she would guarantee that
>>> same result since it is just possible that all of the mutiple versions
>>> of herself confronted with the dilemma may make the same bad guess.
>>
>> I have also thought along these lines some time ago (to use a qubit to
>> ensure that all outcomes are chosen, because one should not rely on
>> one's mind decohering into all possible decisions).
>>
>> The essential question is this: what worlds exist? All possible worlds.
>> But which worlds are possible? We have, on the one hand, physical
>> possibility (this also includes other physical constants etc, but no
>> totally unphysical scenarios).
>>
>> I have long adhered to this "everything physically possible", but this
>> does break down under closer scrutiny: first of all, physical relations
>> are, when things come down to it, mathematical relations.
>>
>> So we could conclude with Max Tegmark: all possible mathematical
>> structures exist; this is ill defined (but then, why should the
>> Everything be well defined?)
>>
>> Alastair argues in his paper that everything logically possible exists
>> (with his non arbitrariness principle) but, while initially appealing,
>> it leads to the question: what is logically possible? In what logic?
>> Classical/Intuitionist/Deviant logics etc etc...then we are back at
>> Max's all possible structures.
>>
>
> The focus of my paper is on theories in principle fully describing universes
> (or u-reality). The term 'logically possible' is intended to contrast with
> 'physically possible' and refers to descriptions (theories) being internally
> non-contradictory (more in note 4 in my paper). Classical logic is usually
> intended in these kinds of cases, and I can't actually see from what I know
> of other logics how they might relevantly extend the range of possible
> inhabitable universes beyond those describable by formal systems operating
> according to classical logic.
Have you considered para-consistent logics, c.f. Graham Priest "In
Contradiction".
Brent Meeker
>(There is also the issue of their additional
> complexity, if some are somehow incorporatable.) I do mention in general
> terms possible alternatives to standard formal systems at the start of
> section 4. For my purposes all I need is a plausible way around the White
> Rabbit problem. In my view its deep philosophical basis and potential
> explanation of our relative simplicity and lawfulness are points in favour
> of the 'All Possible States' hypothesis, and the idea of not being able to
> fully characterize it is pretty much to be expected given its universal
> scope.
>
> Alastair
>
> Paper at: http://www.physica.freeserve.co.uk/pa01.htm
>
> >
>
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Received on Sun Apr 20 2008 - 22:53:54 PDT