Re: Let There Be Something

From: <Daddycaylor.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 08:53:30 EST

Hal Finney wrote:
> Are you saying that you don't agree that the anthropic principle
> applied to an ensemble of instances has greater explanatory
> power than when applied to a single instance?

Russell wrote:
> 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.

Hal Ruhl wrote:
> So as in the case of my Nothing and my All it seems
> the apex of causation may be neither infinite regression
> "or" termination but rather both [an "and"].

I'm saying that the "All" is on equal ontological footing with the
"Nothing". Pulling something out of Nothing is just as believable as pulling
something out of All. I think Quentin touches on the total mystery of both:
 
> as I said before I don't think/feel that single universe is on
> the same level as multiverse... Just by using "absurd" feeling
> I was talking about. If there is a single reality, you have to
> anwser why this one ? why like this ? what is the ultimate
> reason for the reality to be limited to this subset ? If you
> take the multiverse(everything) theory this is easily explained.
> On the other hand, multiverse theory by now could not answer
> why you're experiencing this precise reality among all
> possible that are in the multiverse.

The question "Why this particular something?" is just as mysterious in the
context of All as in the context of Nothing. The problem is that we really
don't realize how totally All All is. We are used to being able to compute
probabilities in the context of an "all" that is quantifiable. So then it is
tempting to extend that notion to the All and say like Quentin's first half, "If
you take the multiverse(everything) theory this is easily explained."
 
But when we realize the total indeterminacy and contingency of this
universe, extending down to even our first person point of view, and apparently to
the quantum level, then Quentin's second question is just as unanswerable in
the context of All as in the context of Nothing. When we realize how All All
is, and how complex and contingent this something is, we start eating our own
tail like in Hal Ruhl's argument.
 
Throughout the history of science, the perpetual message from the universe
is that the sky is wider than the brain. I'm convinced that if we all,
including Bruno and his Lobian machine, somehow took a tour of the whole universe
(whatever that is), including all of it's intricacies from the smallest to the
largest, and the mathematical rules behind it, we would find it so complex
and contingent that we would be converted over to the idea that the universe
is far greater than anything the ANTHROpic principle dictates.
 
Even if you do not hold my above conviction, how can you escape the
possibility that it is true?
 
To look at this from a different perspective, suppose there was a worm that
lived in an apple, and the worm was super-intelligent to the point of being
able to grasp all of our mathematical concepts that Tegmark claims are
sufficient to describe all of reality. Then the worm asks, "Why is it that I'm in
this apple?" Actually the apple is the whole of observed reality for the
worm, so it is equivalent to our observed universe. However the observABLE
universe for the worm is the same as our observable universe. Then the worm comes
up with a multiverse theory along with a Wormopic Principle, saying that the
whole observable universe is just complex enough to sustain the inside of an
apple. Surely this must be true, since the worm can grasp all of
mathematics?
 
"Explanatory power" is in the eye of the beholder, and this is infinitely
true when applied to Everything.
 
Tom
 
Received on Wed Nov 02 2005 - 09:01:49 PST