Re: Draft Philosophy Paper

From: H J Ruhl <HalRuhl.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 19:05:13 -0800

Dear Alastair:

I think you still fail to see my point. So here I try to draw a picture.

Original single venue system [V(0)]:

            V(0) x -------------- -1 ----- 0
-------------------------------------- + 10 ----

Take a random sample into the line.
The target size between x = -1 to x = 0 is clearly not equal to the target
size between x = 0 to x = +10 therefore so to the resulting sample.

My infinite venues system [V(0) to V(infinity)]

                                                      y

            V(infinity) x -------------- -1 ----- 0
-------------------------------------- + 10 ----
                                                       .
                                                       .
                                                       .
             V(2) x -------------- -1 ----- 0
-------------------------------------- + 10 ----
             V(1) x -------------- -1 ----- 0
-------------------------------------- + 10 ----
             V(0) x -------------- -1 ----- 0
-------------------------------------- + 10 ----

Here, to be a random sample over the complete Everything - all venues - the
sample is taken into the structure like shooting an arrow at random into an
infinite piece of tape perpendicular to the surface of the tape over the
whole tape strip bounded by -1 to + 10 on x and by y = 0 to y = infinity on
y. The entire surface of the tape will have a uniform hit density - equal
hits per square. Since the target area between x = -1 and x = 0 is now the
same as the target area from x = 0 to x = +10 that is both have an infinite
area - or the same number of squares - they will take the same number of
hits and there will be no sign bias in the resulting sample. Any
lengthwise parsing of the tape is not relevant.


Your additional comment

> >there is no more
> > >necessity to have no preponderance of any particular type of physical
> > >universe than to have no preponderance of a particular type of galaxy, or
> > >grain of sand.
> >

My reply

> > With this I disagree when describing the Everything because on its face it
> > attempts to extract information from an informationless source. Your
> > example from within a particular universe [intrinsic information] is not
> > applicable because here its any style you want.

In the above reply I was merely stating that you could get any type of
universe you wanted if sampled the Everything often enough.

Your reply

>Certainly not - if anything, there will be all possible styles, but this
>would depend on what you mean by that word. I think you are just assuming a
>different starting point - for me it is all logically possible entities (not
>just universes), with no bias in favour of any one, as required by NAP. If
>there happened to be some resultant lack of bias (preponderance) at the
>level of physical universes (which would include those forming part of other
>entities), that would just be a coincidence.



It is clear that I believe that a lack of preponderance of any type or sub
group of types is not coincidence but necessary to yield no information in
the Everything.

Hal
Received on Fri Feb 22 2002 - 16:08:33 PST