GSLevy.domain.name.hidden wrote:
>
> In a message dated 05/18/2000 10:15:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> R.Standish.domain.name.hidden writes:
>
> at
> > http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks/pubs.html
>
... stuff deleted ....
>
> >Evolution is also described as a mixture of contingency and necessity.
> >When understood in terms of the AP supplying the necessary, and the SSA
> >supplying the rationale for resolving chance, the connection between
> >the selection of phyical laws and the selection of organisms in evolution
> >is made clear. It is as though the laws of physics and chemistry have
> >themselves evolved. Perhaps applying evolutionary principles to the
> >underlying physico-chemical laws of an alife system will result in an
> >alife system that can pass through these hard transitions.
>
>
> This concept requires
>
> 1) the existence of an absolute objective world that all observers share and
> perceive identically and
> 2) the magical ability on the part of any one sentient being in that universe
> to "collapse" so to speak any "undecided" parameter the first time this
> parameter is ever observed by a sentient being in that universe. This
> collapse does not happen just for that one observer, but, since you assume an
> objective reality, it happens for all beings in that universe, whether they
> have observed that parameter or not.
>
> Both ideas are anathema to me.
>
Whoa up there! At no point do I admit an absolute objective world in
this paper. If you peruse my postings on this list, you will find I
believe the opposite. I consider the Multiverse to be an objective
object, however it is not in my opinion a "world" in the usual sense
of the word.
Secondly, the collapse happens not "magically to all observers", but
rather just to that subset of observers sharing the history including
that "collapse".
> As I have mentioned before, absolute objective reality cannot be proven. The
> only incontrovertible fact that we can rely on is the observation of the
> self, of our thought process and of our senses: "I Think." Everything else is
> extrapolation and deduction. Everything else is in relation to the self.
>
> I am not sure if it is necessary to use the self sampling assumption (SSA). I
> believe that the statement "I think" can provide one boundary condition to
> the logical/computational/causal chain. This is the one form of the AP that I
> favor. The rest of the causal chain is unbounded and can be represented in
> all its alleles in the plenitude as long as it is also constrained in the
> logical/computational/causal sense. This logical/computational/causal
> constraint excludes wabbits (I like this term coined by Jacques).
>
> George
>
>
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Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
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Received on Sun May 21 2000 - 20:05:35 PDT