Re: Tegmark is too "physics-centric"

From: CMR <jackogreen.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 20:20:34 -0800

> My guess is that that physical theory (and that subset of computations
> or computed states) would end up being proven to
> be essentially equivalent to the physical theory of OUR universe. In
> other words, I believe in parochialism, because
> I believe everywhere else is a devilish, chaotic place

Perhaps, but hydro-thermal vents are rather devilish locales relative to our
raher narrow comfort zones.

> You can't just say "there could be life and sentience in this
> (arbitrarily weird) set of constraints" and then not bother to
> define what you mean by life and sentience. They aren't self-explanatory
> concepts. Our definitions of them only apply
> within universes that behave at least roughly as ours does.
>

Fair enough. How about, say, if a given universe can harbour phenomena that
meet at least this criteria:

"Life is the result of the non random replication of randomly varying
replicators" (Dawkins)

Then the possibility of emergent sentience can be entertained, IMHO.

CMR
Received on Sat Jan 17 2004 - 23:22:47 PST