Mind mind was ticking over a comment made by Wei Dai in his last
post. I had a thought, that I'll share with this group, even though it
might be completely crazy:
What if there were an absolute measure that favours increased
complexity of the mind (ie more complex minds are more likely), along
the lines Wei Dai suggested in the last post. Also, it seems likely
that at a certain level of complexity, minds become self reflective
(observe themeselves). By my observer-dependent measure arguments,
each self-reflective mind (regardless of complexity) will observe a
universe, containing a mind that is just complex enough for
self-reflection.
This would neatly explain why we're not ants (minds are too simple),
and why we're not superhumans (we may be, but we'll only observe
minimal complexity self-reflective minds).
Crazy perhaps, but hopefully food for thought.
Cheers
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile)
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 (")
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Tue Nov 06 2001 - 14:58:21 PST