Re: History-less observer moments

From: Alastair Malcolm <amalcolm.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 14:44:19 +0100

----- Original Message -----
From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
.
.
> It seems to me that these discussions are sometimes confused as
> to whether the argument is going to take a Cartesian direction from
something
> we perceive directly -- "there is a thought" -- to the apparent physical
world
> or instead to assume some Platonic ideal --- the ensemble of all logically
> possible worlds -- and try to show that it makes us and our world at least
> probable. These are both interesting approaches and need not contradict;
but
> it gets muddle when one slides from one to the other.

There is no problem for several of us in going (not on logical consequence,
but on reasonable assumptions) from
(1) 'This thought' -> 'apparent physics-governed world' -> 'all logically
possible universes'.

The problems can occur when instead people do things like
(2) 'This thought' -> 'all possible thoughts'
or
(3) 'This thought' -> 'this monad' -> 'all possible monads',

where, if (2) and (3) do not bring in something akin to physics at some
stage, they will fall foul of what is effectively the white rabbit problem
(aka induction failure problem), unless some other factor can be invoked
which effectively gives priority to simpler universes / ordered thoughts.

Alastair
Received on Wed May 17 2000 - 06:50:14 PDT