Re: Introduction (Digital Physics)

From: George Levy <GLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 22:11:01 -0700

Joel Dobrzelewski wrote:

> Within the Universe that generates all things... All things will happen.
>

Fred Chen wrote

> > A resolution to the White Rabbits problem accepted by most on the
> > distribution requires us to insist that we live in the simplest
> > possible universe containing SAS's. So it would be impossible or
> > highly improbable that we can create universes with SAS's (e.g., by
> > constructing cellular automata).
>
> I just don't understand the White Rabbit problem. Again, in a Universe
> where Everything happens, some worlds are going to have white rabbits, and
> others blue, and others flying, and others hopping.
>

Fred like so many others conceive of the MW as separate universes, and we live
in the simplest possible one, one that does not have white rabbits. I would call
this viewpoint an extension of the One World (OW) point of view. It is
unsatisfactory because it does not address the most important issue of
consciousness, and the mind-body problem.

My position, is that there are no separations between worlds. There is only one
single huge world, the plenitude and we live in it. The plenitude is choke full
of white rabbits. In fact most of it is white rabbit stuff. The reason we don't
see them is that our consciousness anthropically constrains what we can observe
and filters out the white rabbits just like inhabitants of Flat Land can only
see objects in two dimentions. My approach explains and equates the rationality
of consciousness to the rationality of the world we observe. The analogy with
Flat Land is that their two dimensions correspond to our rationality (set of
beliefs, thinking rules, neuronal and sensory properties and so on). For
example, physicists living in the 19th century, because of their beliefs, would
have called "White Rabbit," outcomes of some quantum experiments involving
superposition, or entanglement. Greek philosophers would have called "White
Rabbits" devices like cars, TVs and flashlights. Of course, after an expossure
to twentieth century science, their beliefs would be modified and what used to
be White Rabbits would become hackneyed household hare. So the perception of
white rabbits is definitely in the eyes of the beholder. A very relativistic
attitude.

> Probability has nothing to do with it. (And is meaningless, in my opinion,
> when it comes to infinite collections of things.)
> Joe

You raise a good question regarding the probability of infinite sets. It has
been the subject of infinite discussions on this list.... dismissing it as
meaningless does not solve the problem of why event A may be more probable than
event B even though both may have infinite measure in the plenitude.

George
Received on Wed Jun 20 2001 - 22:12:47 PDT