Perhaps I'm missing your argument here, but I gather you are claiming
that the assumption of a plenitude is on an equal ontological footing
as the assumption of a single reality, as both are ab initio moves,
not derived from any other principle.
Whilst I agree that nothing mandates one case or the other, I would
disagree with the assertion of equal ontological footing, in that the
zero information principle in particular, or Bruno's UDA, or Hal
Ruhl's consistency argument lend strong support to a plenitude
assumption over a single reality.
It seems to me that the only really good reason in favour of a single
reality is to preserve some notion of faith in God, as omniscient
deities do not seem compatible with plenitudes. And that, I'm afraid
is somewhere science cannot go.
Cheers
On Tue, Nov 01, 2005 at 02:49:45PM -0500, daddycaylor.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> My phrase "something from nothing" was not meant
> to restrict my inquiry to origins, in the sense of time or causality,
> but can be viewed in terms of information in general.
>
> It seems that the discussion has not contradicted my initial idea that,
> when it comes to explaining why things are the way they are,
> the multiverse is on the same level playing field as one universe.
> Hal Finney simply states that this is not true without supporting it:
>
> >[The multiverse + AP is]
> >a very different kind of argument than you get with a single
> >universe model. Anthropic reasoning is only explanatory if you assume
> the
> >actual existence of an ensemble of universes, as multiverse models do.
> >The multiverse therefore elevates anthropic reasoning from something of
> >a tautology, a form of circular reasoning, up to an actual explanatory
> >principle that has real value in helping us understand why the world is
> >as we see it.
>
> I believe that my statement before:
>
> >...simply bringing in the hypothetical set of all unobservable things
> >doesn't explain rationally in any way (deeper than our direct
> >experience) the existence of observable things.
>
> applies to the multiverse as well, since
> the multiverse = observable things + unobservable things
> and equivalently
> the multiverse = this universe + unobservable things
>
> I believe my reasoning applies to all selection principles,
> not just the AP.
>
> Also, Bruno wrote:
> >I think we should not confuse the problem of the selection
> >of a (apparant) universe/history from the assumption of a
> >multiverse (like the quantum hypothesis) with the question
> >of explaining the appearances of a multiverse itself. Godelian
> >self-reference can explain both from numbers and their
> >nameable and unameable relations....
> >A physical theory is a set of rules which remains invariant
> >for the transformations allowed in a multiverse. And comp
> >or its generalization makes our apparent multiverse the result
> >of the interference of the possible (with respect the the
> >comp hyp chosen) multiverses.
>
> I see the problem of explaining what the multiverse is in the
> first place (Bruno's second problem) as covered by my inquiry.
> Selecting a smaller "initial" multiverse from the set of all possible
> multiverses (or that could be The Multiverse) is equally an
> unsupportable selection process, outside of the realm of
> rationality. So Bruno claims to be able to explain it. So far I
> haven't been satisfied with his UDA. It seems that his
> assumptions restrict the multiverse in an equally unsupported
> way. It must be a "necessary" premise, equal in validity
> to the premise of just one universe, or
> "what we see is what we get".
>
> Tom
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Received on Tue Nov 01 2005 - 17:07:38 PST