Re: Constraints on "everything existing"

From: Stephen Paul King <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 09:20:53 -0500

Dear Eric,

    I have a question. How do you allow for the range of 1-person
"experienciability" such that we can recover in our model both the "normal"
psychology and the "pathologies" such as schizophrenia and dismorphia?

Kindest regards,

Stephen


----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Hawthorne" <egh.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Cc: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 11:40 PM
Subject: Re: Constraints on "everything existing"


> John M wrote:
>
> >Eric:
> >
> >do I detect in your 'circumstances' some 'anthropocentric/metric/logic'
> >restrictions? is the multiverse exclusively built according to the system
> >we devised on this planet as 'our physical laws'? (your 'factor' #1,
> >although you oincluded in factor #2 the (CLASSICAL existence) modifier.)
> >
> >Brings to mind Mr Square's opponents in Abbott's Flatland,
> >with the 2-D vs 3-D joke.
> >
> >
> It may seem that way (anthropocentric) but when I say "intelligent
> observer" I mean "any kind of intelligent observer" or couched
> in some more terminology "any emergent system or pattern
> that functions as an intelligent observer."
>
> So no, I'm not talking about a human-centric anthropic principle,
> I'm talking about an "arbitrary intelligent observer", generically
> defined. As you would expect, I would guess that there are
> some pretty tight constraints on how an intelligent observer
> would have to function to be considered such, but "human" is
> definitely too narrow a definition of it.
>
> I see "intelligent observer production" as being
> a threshold level of organization achieved by certain
> constraint regimes on "all sequences of state changes".
>
> Of course, as a thought experiment, you could set a lower
> threshold criterion for "fully existing worlds", such as
> the ability to be organized enough to produce
> "some interesting (non-trivial) stable emergent systems
> that seem to exhibit some higher-level functions
> including self-preserving functions".
>
> Unless a world (i.e. a sequence of information state changes)
> has produced intelligent observers though, there will be
> no one around in it to argue whether it exists or not.
>
> Which brings us around to the conclusion that after all,
> the question of "classical existence or not" of some world
> is only ever a concern of intelligent observers. It is
> not really a concern for the non-thinking aspects of
> worlds or potential worlds, precisely because those parts
> are content to just be, or maybe be, as the case may be.
> Those parts are just "the potential for information".
> Only when something comes along that cares to conceptualize
> about the various possibilities borne of different states
> of information, does there arise a question of existence,
> and then, it is a question of existence from the perspective
> of those that can observe and care about such things.
Received on Sat Jan 18 2003 - 09:22:00 PST