Re: The Anthropic Principle Boundary Conditions

From: Jacques Mallah <jackmallah.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 10:35:28 -0700 (PDT)

--- GSLevy.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> jackmallah.domain.name.hidden writes:
> > what you experience is an observer-moment.
>
> So you admit that the observer moment is to be
> experienced, precisely what I said about the "I."
> Are you saying that the first step in understanding
> the world is subjective? If you do, then we agree:
> "I think" = observer-moment = subjective
experience.

    I don't know what you mean by subjective. If by
"subjective" you mean "pertaining to a particular
observer-moment", than an observer-moment would
qualify. But keep in mind that other observer-moments
exist, that they are just as real, and that the ratio
of numbers of different types of such is a feature of
the objective reality.
    But I don't think by "I" you mean an
observer-moment, since then you would deny QTI.

> If the world was wabbity then some elements of the
> world would exist with absolutely no reason at all.
> ... My earlier post deriving the existence of
> the Plenitude using the rationality of the world as
> a starting point would be irrelevent and therefore
> irrationality would preclude the need for the
> Plenitude. The Copenhagen school would actually
> advocate the simplest approach to QM.

    I don't think so. It depends on what you use to
decide what "simplest" means of course. My approach
is algorithmic complexity, but as I have said, with
that criterion for Occam's razor, no possible
observation would falsify the AUH. Even the most
wabbitty observation would still bear witness to the
likelihood that it is not due to a coincidence of
nature, but is instead one of many.

> Observers brains would be governed by wabbity
> physical processes and would therefore be partially
> or totally incoherent.

    Partially. If totally, that's not an observer.

--- GSLevy.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> Yet, the root of all knowledge must start with the
> basic assumption about the self, about our
> own rationality and about our own observations. I
> agree that it makes sense to talk about 3rd person,
> but only as a derived or deduced fact from the
> first person perspective.

    It's deduced from known facts, which is the
observer-moment. (Technically, from the memory + laws
of the brain *at each step*. The brain can follow
many steps of computation; while each observer-moment
sees only one, later observer-moments can benefit from
the results of the calculation done by the brain
earlier just as they can benefit from books previously
read by the brain written by other people entirely or
by a lucky coincidence of cosmic rays which implants
false memories. Computationalism asserts that such a
brain is conscious, but other schools of thought would
make a distinction such that, for example, a zombie
brain would still make the same deductions as a
conscious brain. Even with computationalism, a
distinction must be maintained between the physical
system (wavefunction of brain) and observers, because
such a wavefunction can give rise to multiple distinct
observer-moments at the same time, and that number
(measure) can vary with time.)

> Saying that (physical) computationalism is
> (anthropically) emergent from consciousness is a
> first person statement. I am referring here to the
> fact that the world is rational -- seems to be
> simulatable on a computer.

    That's not what computationalism means.

=====
- - - - - - -
               Jacques Mallah (jackmallah.domain.name.hidden)
         Physicist / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
         My URL: http://hammer.prohosting.com/~mathmind/

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Received on Fri Jun 02 2000 - 10:40:04 PDT

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