Re: White Rabbit vs. Tegmark

From: Alastair Malcolm <amalcolm.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 08:21:03 +0100

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Patrick Leahy <jpl.domain.name.hidden>
> To: Alastair Malcolm <amalcolm.domain.name.hidden>
> Cc: EverythingList <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
> Sent: 24 May 2005 22:10
> Subject: Re: White Rabbit vs. Tegmark
> .
>[Patrick:]
> > This is very reminiscent of Lewis' argument. Have you read his book?
IIRC
> > he claims that you can't actually put a measure (he probably said: you
> > can't define probabilities) on a countably infinite set, precisely
because
> > of Cantor's pairing arguments. Which seems plausible to me.
> [Alastair:]
> It seems to depend on whether one can find an intrinsic ordering (or
> something similar), such that relative frequency comes into play (so prime
> numbers *would* be less likely to be hit).

An example occurs which might be of help. Let us say that the physics of the
universe is such that in the Milky Way galaxy, carbon-based SAS's outnumber
silicon-based SAS's by a trillion to one. Wouldn't we say that the
inhabitants of that galaxy are more likely to find themselves as
carbon-based? Now extrapolate this to any large, finite number of galaxies.
The same likelihood will pertain. Now surely all the statistics don't just
go out of the window if the universe happens to be infinite rather than
large and finite?

Alastair
Received on Thu May 26 2005 - 03:38:48 PDT