Thanks, Quentin. I didn't mean to underestimate the intelligence of
the worm.
By the way, I recently read an article about astonometers finding
aromatic hydrocarbons in outer space. This totally baffles them, since
they don't know how things like this could've gotten there or survived.
This lends more weight to the possibility that maybe there are apples
with worms cruising around in outer space, too!
http://www.astrochem.org/PANHS.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Quentin Anciaux <quentin.anciaux.domain.name.hidden>
To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Sent: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 21:23:47 +0100
Subject: Re: Let There Be Something
Hi,
I don't think the super-intelligent worm is a good analogy... first
because
you made to much assumption of his way of thinking, second I don't see
the
relevance of a super-intelligent worm in an apple compared to the myth
of the
man in the cavern who just see shadow...
The point I think you really want to made is you don't think human
consciousness is able to grab the reality as whole... which I think is
true,
except being the Kwisatz Haderach which see all past/present and future
path
of the universe ;)
I could'nt imagine what would it be for a human to knows the why and
being
able to prove it...
Quentin
Le Mercredi 02 Novembre 2005 21:06, daddycaylor.domain.name.hidden a écrit :
> I should make another point, that it seems very likely that the worm
> has no way of developing the in-apple technology to find out about
> quantum mechanics or DNA. This emphasizes the fact that we, with our
> quantum theories, M-theories, and loop gravity etc. could be just as
> far away from explaining the universe as the worm is.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: daddycaylor.domain.name.hidden
> To: hal.domain.name.hidden; everything-list.domain.name.hidden.com
> Sent: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 14:58:30 -0500
> Subject: Re: Let There Be Something
>
> Hal,
>
> I disagree. How can the worm apply a probability distribution over
> things that he knows nothing of, such as trees, people, and evolution?
> Using the Wormopic Principle, when the worm proclaims that, "The
> universe is just complex enough to produce and sustain such a worm as
> I, and the inside of an apple," how can he be meaning anything (in his
> own mind, mind you, since explanatory power refers to being able to
> explain the universe to him) that even remotely resembles our
universe?
> (As an aside, as much as we know about our universe, we totally
cannot
> rule out the possibility that a worm that understands "sufficient
> mathematics" actually exists in our universe!) Instead, even if he
> developed the in-apple technology to explore quantum mechanics and
DNA,
> he might come up with a quantum theory similar to ours (but who knows
> the probability of that?!!), but he would likely come up with a very
> weird theory of how his DNA was formed, having nothing to do with how
> it actually was formed (according to our theories).
>
> You make a good point about the complexity of living things. If you
ask
> biologists and other non-physics scientists about the Theories of
> Everything, a lot of them would say that we're a long way from it.
> Roger Trigg, University of Warwick, in his book, Rationality and
> Science: Can Science Explain Everything?, makes this point. Also, for
> instance, the premier biologist Carl Woese, in his recent article, A
> New Biology For A New Century, calls for biologists to get out of
their
> myopic pursuit of genetically breaking things down into the smallest
> biological quantum, and to step back and look at the big picture,
> saying that there are whole levels of complexity that we will totally
> miss if we don't, resulting in being totally disabled in being able to
> explain everything in biology (to our satisfaction).
>
> Tom
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hal Finney <hal.domain.name.hidden>
> To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> Sent: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:13:09 -0800 (PST)
> Subject: Re: Let There Be Something
>
> Tom Caylor writes:
>
> > 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?
>
>
> The worm would come up with a multiverse theory that says that
> everything
> exists, including universes like ours with people, apple trees, apples
> and
> worms, and also including other universes which consist of just a
> single
> apple, possibly with a worm in it, and every other possibility
besides.
>
> Among these possible universes there are a certain fraction which
> contain
> worms-in-apples consistent with the experiences, observations and
> memories
> that the worm has experienced in his own apple.
>
> He knows that he is one of those worms.
>
> He applies some kind of measure, such as the Universal Distribution,
> over
> all of these worms-in-apples and is able to come up with a
probability
> distribution for which one he is. This results in first-person
> indeterminacy and uncertainty.
>
> It may well be that the simplest and most likely case is not a
universe
> containing a single apple, but a universe like ours. The reason is
that
> apples and worms are actually very complex objects at the cellular
> level,
> even more complex at the atomic level, and enormously complex at the
> sub-atomic Planck scale. The physics going on in the apple is every
> bit as complex as the physics of our own universe.
>
> Our universe has the advantage in that its initial condition was very
> simple - some say it was completely smooth and uniform in the initial
> instances of the Big Bang. Then we went along in a very natural and
> simple way and developed planets, where life evolved into apples and
> worms.
>
> The apple-only universe must create all this by fiat. It must be
> hard-wired into the initial conditions: everything about the apple,
> about the worm, and about the physics.
>
> It's very plausibly would take a more complex program to run a
universe
> consisting of just an apple and a worm, than our whole universe where
> apples and worms evolve out of much simpler initial conditions.
>
> Hence the worm might well conclude that he is likely to be in a giant
> universe with billions of other apples and worms, as well as many
other
> forms of life. Even though he has not yet observed any of these
things,
> not yet having come to the surface of the apple, he can deduce it.
>
> But perhaps not. Suppose that this super-intelligent worm deduces
> that universes like ours are actually less likely than ones which
> are all apple. In that case, assuming that his reasoning is sound,
> then he is probably right. From the first-person perspective, when he
> chews up to the surface, he will probably find that he is indeed in
> an apple-only universe. The multiverse has many kinds of universes
> with worms in apples, and it may be that our own universe has only a
> small fraction of all the worms in apples, that most worms do in fact
> find themselves in other kinds of universes. That would be a possible
> conclusion of multiverse theory, and it might well be right.
>
> In short, there is no reason to expect a super-intelligent worm in an
> apple to come up with a different multiverse than the one we would,
if
> we were also super-intelligent. We might be in different components
of
> the multiverse than the typical worm, but that is not evidence
against
> the theory or an example of a flaw in its explanatory power.
>
> Hal Finney
>
Received on Wed Nov 02 2005 - 18:21:26 PST