Re: are we in a simulation?
Stephen Paul King wrote: [SPK] Oh, ok. I have my own version of the anthropic principle: The content of a first person reality of an observer is the minimum that is necessary and sufficient for the existence of that observer. I am trying to include observer selection ideas in my definition of anthropy. ;-) I conjecture that the third-person aspect could be defined in terms of a so-called communication principle: An arbitrary pair of observers and only communicate within the overlap or set theoretic intersection of their first person realities. To me, that is too complicated a theory. I think reality is a structure/system that is a set of paths through the plenitude, where those paths exhibit properties like self-consistency, coherence, locality, stability, energy etc. That structure can contain observers that can observe the very structure they are part of, precisely because of those properties of self-consistency, coherence, locality, stability etc that the structure (i.e. those paths through a state-space plenitude) exhibits. Every observer will see the structure from their own limited point of view (from their place and time within it) so there will be disagreements about it, but fundamentally, the observers (those who can observe and communicate with each other) are within the same structure and are viewing parts of the same thing. If that is physicalist I don't know. It still seems purely mathematico-logical to me. But I'm just positing a larger structure that is a commons that is observed by parts of itself. I think this is Tegmarkian anthropy. Look at it this way. The content of reality of an observer is (their limited perspective on) the minimum (self-consistent structure) that is necessary for themselves, and all the other observers they observe, and for the whole sustaining environment for them and the physics that produced it, to exist. I wrote this just before much better and my email client flipped out and killed it. So sorry for the sleepy, angry, more muddled version you got. Eric -- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde
Re: are we in a simulation?
Dear Eric, - Original Message - From: Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2003 3:02 AM Subject: Re: are we in a simulation? Stephen Paul King wrote: [SPK] Oh, ok. I have my own version of the anthropic principle: The content of a first person reality of an observer is the minimum that is necessary and sufficient for the existence of that observer. I am trying to include observer selection ideas in my definition of anthropy. ;-) I conjecture that the third-person aspect could be defined in terms of a so-called communication principle: An arbitrary pair of observers and only communicate within the overlap or set theoretic intersection of their first person realities. To me, that is too complicated a theory. [SPK] Too, no. Complicated yes. Occam's Razon cuts both ways. We can not fall back on naive realism to save us. I think reality is a structure/system that is a set of paths through the plenitude, where those paths exhibit properties like self-consistency, coherence, locality, stability, energy etc. That structure can contain observers that can observe the very structure they are part of, precisely because of those properties of self-consistency, coherence, locality, stability etc that the structure (i.e. those paths through a state-space plenitude) exhibits. [SPK] I have considered this possibility but it leads nowhere. :_( We must explain within out model exactly how observation can occur such that the properties that we associate with the words self-consistency, coherence, locality, stability, etc., have meaning. Every observer will see the structure from their own limited point of view (from their place and time within it) so there will be disagreements about it, but fundamentally, the observers (those who can observe and communicate with each other) are within the same structure and are viewing parts of the same thing. [SPK] The problem is Eric, that we can not merely hypostatiate the definiteness of properties absent the specification of observers - the to whom it has meaning and definiteness -. How is it that we are sure that we are viewing parts of the same thing? Popper and other philosophers have considered this question. If that is physicalist I don't know. It still seems purely mathematico-logical to me. But I'm just positing a larger structure that is a commons that is observed by parts of itself. I think this is Tegmarkian anthropy. [SPK] I agree with that part, I just balk at naive realism. Look at it this way. The content of reality of an observer is (their limited perspective on) the minimum (self-consistent structure) that is necessary for themselves, and all the other observers they observe, and for the whole sustaining environment for them and the physics that produced it, to exist. [SPK] Ok. I agree, but would like to point out that this content is not pre-specifiable - like Turing Machine is by definition pre-specifiable. I wrote this just before much better and my email client flipped out and killed it. So sorry for the sleepy, angry, more muddled version you got. [SPK] Ah, don't feel bad. I have had many a message tossed into oblivion by a Blue Screen of Death! ;-) Kindest regards, Stephen Eric -- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde
Re: are we in a simulation?
Stephen Paul King wrote: Dear George, Interleaving, - Original Message - From: George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 4:21 PM Subject: Re: are we in a simulation? HI Stephen Stephen Paul King wrote: [SPK] Does computational complexity (such as NP-Completeness, etc.) and computational power requirements factor into the idea of simulated worlds? [GL] It may. Also important is the issue that Tegmark raised in the Scientific American article about the ordering of an infinite set. The probability of the occurence of an element of any subset (say the even numbers) can be altered depending on how the element of the set (say the natural numbers) are ordered. http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0101077 http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000F1EDD-B48A-1E90-8EA5809EC588 [SPK] Is this related to what D. Deutsch mentions regarding the measure on the ensemble in his paper It From Qubit U can find it here: http://www.qubit.org/people/david/Articles/ItFromQubit.pdf Deutsch does not discuss the ordering issue. I haven't seen anyone discuss it, but I have not been reviewing much literature on the subject. No one in this group has tackled it to my knowledge. I think ordering in infinite sets is an essential component in the discussion of measure. I do not agree with David's arguements because of its appearent physicalist assumptions I agree with you but he does raise some interesting points to counter those of Tegmark. [SPK] It might also be related to the Burali-Forti paradox? From http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~cebrown/notes/vonHeijenoort.html : The Burali-Forti paradox deals with the greatest ordinal--which is obtained by assuming the set of ordinals is well-ordered [and, of course, that it is a set!]--which must be a member of the set of ordinals and simultaneously greater than any ordinal in the set. [GL] So if we assume that the multiworlds are an infinite set, to compute the probability of any event we need to know how the multiwords are ordered. I conjecture that the ordering should be anthropy related. [SPK] I have my own version of the anthropic principle: The content of a first person reality of an observer is the minimum that is necessary and sufficient for the existence of that observer. sufficient implies minimum, I think so you may delete minimum from the above sentence. I certainly believe the necessary condition - it is the anthropic principle. The sufficient condition appears to be some from of Occam razor condition. Together, they seem to relate to the mirror idea I discussed earlier. Logically speaking, the world is a mirror of ourselves. However, what do you mean by observer and reality. I think we may have to restrict ourselves to the logical domain, not to specifics such as the earth has one moon, or the name of my cat is Sandy. On the other hand see below I am trying to include observer selection ideas in my definition of anthropy. ;-) I conjecture that the third-person aspect could be defined in terms of a so-called communication principle: An arbitrary pair of observers and only communicate within the overlap or set theoretic intersection of their first person realities Does this make sense? Do you see any way of generalizing it? This relates to my relativistic point of view: observers sharing the same frame or reference experience the same objective reality. By frame of reference I mean logical model not specific mental states like my name is George, and by objective reality I mean physical laws, not specific instances like one moon. Hmmm after some reflection I am now inclined to say that if two observers share the same logical model as well as the same particular mental states, then the objective reality should be the same both in physical laws and in physical instances. Well, I suppose the degree of divergence between two observers should be reflected by divergence in their physical reality. [GL] I also do not understand either the connection between the philosophical concept of the plenitude with the quantum idea of phase and conjugate quantities. [SPK] This should be explained in Everett's original paper on the Relative State interpretation, but I have not seen much discussion of it. :_( [SPK] For one thing, nowhere does there seem to be a place to embed the notion of an observer other than the notion of the observable itself, but we don't have a formal (or even informal!) way of defining the idea of a relation between and observer and observables. Do you have any ideas? [GL] The observer can only observe anthropy related worlds. Each consciousness is the fundamental filter in the selection of what it, itself, observes out of the plenitude. I believe that it is no accident that the world makes sense. The world is rational in exactly the same extent
