Re: The Anthropic Principle Boundary Conditions

From: <GSLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 19:33:13 EDT

In a message dated 05/25/2000 11:03:40 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
jackmallah.domain.name.hidden writes:

> > If the world is rational, and if something that
> > could potentially be in many alternatives states,
> > ARBITRARILY exists in one of these alternatives
> > states with no apparent reason, (in other words it
> is
> > "fact-like") then this something MUST also exist in
> > all other alternatives states. Allowing only one
> > state to be real but not the others, would lead to
> > an unexplanable situation.
>
> This is related to the wabbit question. Given the
> above, is it possible to deduce whether the world is
> rational based on observation?

Very interesting. You want the converse. The original statement effectively
states:

"if the world is rational, then whenever an arbitray state is discovered, all
other possible alternative states must also exist." Hence the Plenitude.

The converse could be stated as follows:

"If all possible states are also found to exist whenever an arbitrary state
is discovered (i.e., there are no unexplained phenomena, no wabbits) then the
world is rational."

Experiments in Quantum Theory seem to indicate, in the small scale, that this
is the case.

> Perhaps the best thing to do is just to compare
> the complexity of an observation with that of an equal
> size, anthropically filtered but otherwise random
> possible observation. The latter case would have
> higher complexity.

I don't understand your statement about complexity.

> > Yet another way of proving the Plenitude is to rely
> > on Goedel consistency/completeness theorem.
> > Insisting on consistency, while trying to
> > achieve completeness (which is an impossibility),
> > forces the boundary of the set of discourse to
> > infinity.
>
> That doesn't prove the plenitude.

True. I stand corrected. It does not prove the physical Plenitude. However,
it certainly expands the mathematical universe to infinity. Now if the
correspondance between the physical Plenitude and the Mathematical Universe
holds then my statement is still right.
>
> > How do you draw the line around the set of creatures
> > with the quality of observer? The simplest way is to
> > draw it around yourself, and to adopt a relativistic
> > philosophy, which I did.
>
> No, it's not simplest, and you still haven't
> defined it or "yourself".
>
We went through that many times. I draw the line as tightly around myself..
my mind as I can. "I think," this is my starting point. You don't have any.


In a message dated 05/25/2000 11:26:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
meekerdb.domain.name.hidden writes:

> The principle you were trying to remember is
> Murray Gell-mann's "Everything not forbidden is mandatory."

Thanks


> The WAP permits wabbits - the miracles some people see. One of the
> interesting ideas deriving from the Plenitude is that by assigning some
> measure to the universes that can exist one may be able to prove that
> wabbits have vanishing probability. I haven't seen a way of assigning
> this measure that seems completely convincing in detail, but the idea
> seems right.


The WAP filters what we can observe from the Plenitude. If you assume that WE
ARE RATIONAL then OUR RATIONALITY CONSTRAINS the WAP filtering to rational
observations. Hence no arbitrary events. All is explainable. No Wabbits. This
may also be an answer to Jacques' post.


George
Received on Thu May 25 2000 - 16:42:03 PDT