Re: The Anthropic Principle Boundary Conditions

From: <GSLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 00:38:15 EDT

In a message dated 05/26/2000 12:05:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
jackmallah.domain.name.hidden writes:

> --- GSLevy.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> > jackmallah.domain.name.hidden writes:
> > > 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.
>
> OK. The question is what do you mean by "seem to
> indicate". I would like a precise mathematical
> criterion for this.

Many experiments have supported the related principle which I couldn't
remember and quoted by Brent from Murray Gell-mann's "Everything not
forbidden is mandatory." I don't think we could ever prove such a statement
to be TRUE. So far Quantum mechanics has not FALSIFIED this concept. I don't
know enough to be capable of designing a physical experiment to check it out.

> The problem, as I pointed out in
> the thread about the AUH not being falsifiable, is
> that using the minimum-complexity criterion for
> Occam's razor, *ANY POSSIBLE* experimental facts will
> still not lead one to say that the AUH had been
> falsified. Hence I say
>
> > > 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.
>
> Why not? Complexity = Kolmogorov complexity. I
> am comparing two cases:
> 1) A typical observation (modelled as a bitstring)
> drawn from, e.g., a UD with computationalism. Simple
> "apparent laws of physics" are said to be favored by
> this.
> 2) A typical observation, as above, but drawn
> instead from a set with equal weight for all
> anthropically valid possible observations, of the same
> size (same bitstring length) as above. This should be
> more "wabbitty"; the question is how to define that.

We are really really not on the same wavelength. I am guessing the following:
According to you, your 1) (a UD with computationalism) can be found
independently of Anthropic filtering. According to me it can't.
Computationalism of the world is the result of Anthropic filtering with
computationalism of the mind of the observer as a boundary condition. So your
1) and your 2) are, according to me, identical.

If I attempt to keep your 2) as such and redefine your 1) as a totally
random world (without necessarily computationalism) then there should be lots
of wabbits in that world. I guess the information encoded in its laws of
physics would be close to zero. So 1) would be more wabbitty than 2).

HOWEVER, this evaluation of a wabbitty world is very ethnocentric or rather
Cosmocentric. From my perspective, yes, world 1) is very wabbitty. But if
there were any inhabitants in world 1) (There aren't necessarily inhabitants
and I don't know how there could be... the inhabitants would be too
irrational to understand, but using a different kind of logic, they might be
doing fine understanding each other), they would say, "Hey, our world is just
fine, you are the one with the wabbits." I guess the property of wabbitness
could be relativistic. A key question is "Could there be a different kind of
logic that we could not understand?" I don't know.


> > > > Yet another way of proving the Plenitude is to
> > > > rely on Goedel consistency/completeness theorem.
> > > 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.
>
> Surely if it held, one wouldn't need Godel to
> declare the plenitude. That part is trivial.
>
> > > > 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.
>
> You still haven't defined "I", and the fact that
> we've discussed it many times without me getting a
> straight answer from you is not an excuse for you.
> As for my starting point, as I've said repeatedly,
> it's my observer-moment.
>
You can't prove observer-moment without going through "I think" first. And I
don't need to, nor know how to define "I." I experience it.

Could we please resolve our differences simply by saying that observer-moment
is the same as "I think?" Thank you.

George
Received on Fri May 26 2000 - 21:41:37 PDT