Re: An Equivalence Principle
Bruno wanted me to a bit clearer what I mean by the equivalence principle I introduced. As I tried to explain, there are two apparently different approaches that lead to a theory of the Everything ensemble. Roughly speaking (the details vary), we can start from a theory of all worlds or from a theory of all experiences or observer moments. Both ways have diffculties in explaining the concepts of the complementary approach. My point is that---under few conditions---the choice is free. For a problem of interest, we are allowed to take the simplest approach, and we will not contradict ourselves when employing the other one. Hence the term equivalence. I call it an equivalence principle because I think that it is of fundamental significance; personally, I prefer to take the second approach, i.e. to start from the ensemble of all possible observer moments. But sometimes, it will be very convenient to consider an ensemble of worlds; we can do this if the theory describing this ensemble of worlds obeys the equivalence principle. When assuming the ASSA or RSSA, the equivalence principle holds if the theory uses Unification and predicts the emergence of every possible observer moment in at least one world. For example, Russell's theory of the Everything ensemble seems to obey the equivalence principle. I want to give a highly speculative example for the use of the equivalence principle. Let us have a look at the two most fundamental theories of physics, quantum mechanics (QM) and general relativity (GR). Attempts in this list to derive QM started from knowledge states of the observer, thus from concepts coming from the second approach, the ensemble theory of observer moments. But I think that it is very unlikely to get to the worldview of GR by considering the ensemble of observer moments (if you want, I can try to explain this step in more detail). The more promising way would be to consider the ensemble of worlds. The equivalence principle states that we don't contradict ourselves by taking the two apparently different roads at the same time. But the reconciliation of QM and GR might be as difficult as explaining the concept of observer moments starting from a description of worlds and vice versa. Since the last step includes (explaining observer moments out of the ensemble of worlds) a neurological theory, we can speculate whether the moment is near when our revolutionary view of the interdependence of physics and neurology/psychology is needed to find new physics. Youness Ayaita --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
An Equivalence Principle
that they are identical. I will say that they have identical implications for our reasoning. To clarify this, I must first explain how we shall reason. Here, I take the ASSA (maybe we can check during the discussion whether or not my argument generalizes to other versions of the self-sampling assumption): 'Each observer moment should reason as if it were randomly selected from the class of all observer moments.' The second assumption is more subtle. Suppose we take the first approach, with all worlds as ontological basis. We explain observer moments with the help of some neurological theories. At first, it is not clear whether we can find every possible observer moment under these emergent observer moments. The assumption is that we can. Every possible observer moment is realized in at least one world. Perhaps, some of you remember that I wrote about this topic September last year. At that time, I came to the conclusions that the equivalence did not exist. But yesterday, I read Bostrom's paper that is currently analyzed on this list (Quantity of experience: brain- duplication and degrees of consciousness) and I understood that September last year I took for granted what Bostrom calls Duplication. His arguments in favor of Duplication didn't convince me, quite the opposite happened: I have adopted the other position, Unification. The question Bostrom raises is the following: Suppose two brains are in the same conscious state. Are there two minds [Duplication], two streams of conscious experience? Or only one [Unification]? This may seem to be a matter of definition. But let us return to the ASSA: Which measure should be assigned to each observer moment? Given Unification it is natural to assign a uniform measure: no observer moment is more likely to be selected than any other. Given Duplication it is natural to assign a measure to each observer moment proportional to the number of its occurences in the Everything ensemble. I assume a uniform measure. Surely, we can soften this assumption. Nonetheless, it is decisive that the measure does not fundamentally depend on the worlds but can also be deduced when taking the class of observer moments as ontological basis. This is why I think that the RSSA does not do any worse than the ASSA. The equivalence principle 'Our reasoning does not depend on whether the ensemble of worlds or the ensemble of observer moments is considered fundamental.' I assumed that our reasoning should follow from the ASSA (or any other version of the SSA compatible with my argument). Due to Unification, we cannot detect any difference between the two different approaches: The measure for each observer moment is the same. The equivalence principle is a fundamental expression of what Russell so eloquently explained in his book: Not only is our psyche emergent from the eletrical and chemical goings on in our brain, but the laws governing that chemico-electrical behaviour in turn depend on our psyche. I speculate that both approaches to the Everything ensemble, the ensemble of worlds and the ensemble of observer moments, are two different windows to the same theory. Youness Ayaita --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
The ASSA leads to a unique utilitarism
In this message, I neither want to support the ASSA nor utilitarism. But I will argue that the former has remarkable consequences for the latter. To give a short overview of the concepts, I remind you that utilitarism is a doctrine measuring the morality of an action only by its outcome. Those actions are said to be more moral than others if they cause a greater sum of happiness or pleasure (for all people involved). Though this theory seems to be attractive, it has to cope with a lot of problems. Maybe the most fundamental problem is to define how 'happiness' and 'pleasure' are measured: In order to decide which action is the most moral one, we need a 'felicific calculus'. However, it seems that there is no chance to find a unique felicific calculus everyone would agree upon. Until today, there is a lot of arbitrariness: - How do we measure happiness? - How do we compare the happiness of different people? - How do we account for pain and suffering? Which weight is assigned to them? - Even maximizing 'the sum of happiness' in some felicific calculus does not necessarily determine a unique action. Maybe it's possible to increase the happiness of some individuals and to decrease the happiness of other individuals without changing the 'sum of happiness'. What is preferable? Most of us have a mathematical or scientific background. We know that such a situation can lead to an infinity of possible felicific calculi each one defined by arbitrary measures and parameters. In the sciences, one would usually discard a theory that contains so much arbitrariness (philosophy however is not that rigorous). The application of the ASSA can help to surmount these conceptual difficulties. Assuming the ASSA, we are able to define a uniquely determined utilitarism. Nonetheless, the practical problem of deciding which action one has to prefer remains rather unchanged. 1st step: Reducing the number of utilitarisms to the number of human beings. The ASSA states that my next experience is randomly chosen out of all observer moments. For the decision of my action, only those observer moments are of interest that are significantly influenced by my decision (e.g. observer moments in the past aren't). Since my next observer moment can be any of those observer moments, I am driven to a utilitarian action. Utilitarism directly arises whenever an observer wants to act rationally while assuming the ASSA. I could say that utilitarism is 'egoism + ASSA'. 2nd step: The unique utilitarism. Starting from the definition that utilitarism is egoism in combination with the ASSA, I argue that all observers will agree upon the same action. At first you might think that the preferred action depends on the individual preferences of the deciding individual. For example, if I was suffering from hunger, I could perform an action to minimize hunger in the world. But this is a wrong conclusion. When I experience another observer moment, I am no longer affected by my former needs and preferences. Directly speaking: Since all observers must expect to get their next observer moments out of the same ensemble of observer moments, there is no reason to insist on different preferences. But there is still one problem left. Different observers have different states of knowledge about the consequences of a potential action. In theory, we can exclude this problem by defining utilitarism as the rational decision of a hypothetic observer that knows all the consequences of all potential actions (of course while assuming the ASSA). It's a nice feature of the ASSA that it naturally leads to a theory of morality. The RSSA does not seem to provide such a result. Though, I'd like to have similar concepts out of the RSSA (according to Stathis, I belong to the RSSA camp). Youness Ayaita --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: against UD+ASSA, part 1
On 26 Sep., 14:39, Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ASSA implies that just before you answer, you should think that you have 0.91 probability of being in the universe with 0 up. Does that mean you should guess yes? Well, I wouldn't. If I was in that situation, I'd think If I answer 'no' my survivors are financially supported in 9 times as many universes as if I answer 'yes', so I should answer 'no'. How many copies of me exist in each universe doesn't matter, since it doesn't affect the outcome that I'm interested in. Notice that in this thought experiment my reasoning mentions nothing about probabilities. I'm not interested in my measure, but in the measures of the outcomes that I care about. I do agree with you, Wei. Sometimes, it's not useful to consider the expectation for your next observer moment---in particular, if you are interested in what happens to other people (thus in the observer moments they must expect for themselves). As I pointed out in my recent message A question concerning the ASSA/RSSA debate, an absolute measure over observer moments isn't necessary. Every specific problem we are concerned with leads to a specific measure over observer moments. In this context, I would refer the ideas of the ASSA/ RSSA to the problem What will I experience next? This is a problem we are very often concerned with (for example if we perform an observation or a measurement, also leading to the Born rule). But it's not the only problem we might be interested in! So, this new perspective can be seen as a generalization of the ASSA/RSSA. In our rational decisions, we can include other aspects (e.g. other people) than ourselves. Rationality is not restricted to self-sampling. We could call this 'general rationality'. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Conscious States vs. Conscious Computations
Jason, let me split your ideas into two problems. The first problem is to understand why and how observers interpret data in a meaningful way despite of the fact that the data has no unique meaning within itself. On 26 Sep., 21:09, Jason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A given piece of data can represent an infinite number of different things depending on the software that interprets it. What may be an mp3 file to one program may look like snow to an image editor. If we invited an inhabitant of a strange universe to our universe (e.g. to an interuniversal conference), he would most probably perceive nothing but random noise (if his senses allow him to perceive anything at all). He would feel like the image editor confronted with an mp3 file. Though, the fact that we being humans perceive something useful is self-evident since we are a product of evolution within our universe. Useful interpretation of the environment has been a necessary condition for survival. The successful analogy between an observer and a computer program shows that the process of observation has a computational character: The observer 'calculates' a meaning for his perception in a systematic way (which was elaborated evolutionary). We can formalize this similar to Russell and introduce the map from descriptions to meanings as a property of the observer. The second problem you address in your message concerns the embedding of the observer in the universe's description (you write of self- aware substructres). You give a very nice example: Some piece of advanced technology maps out the neural network of one's brain, including which neurons are firing at the instance the brain was scanned and then saves it as a file. Does this file on the computer constitute an observer moment? Does duplicating this file increase that observer moment's measure? Or for it to constitute an observer does some software have to load the file and simulate future evolutions of brain states in a manner consistent with how a real brain would to create a valid observer moment? Before I'm writing an uncompleted answer, I'd prefer to read what the long-time participants (Russell, Bruno and others) are thinking about this point. Youness --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The physical world is real
Thank you for your opinions and conceptual clarifications. I'll answer separately. Russell: On 24 Sep., 01:36, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Successor observer moments are meant to be similar to their prior OMs. By similar, I really mean differ by a single bit, but don't hold me to that. I attribute this to the heritability requirement of an evolutionary process, which I think the process of observation must be. Once you have this requirement, the probabilities of sucessive OMs are not all equal, and in fact I do demonstrate how the Born rule arises in this context (Occams Razor, my Book). Its not going to be so easy to distinguish realism and idealism, as the emergent reality in idealism also kicks back. I really enjoyed reading your paper Why Occam's Razor? and I'd never pretend to understand your derivation of quantum mechanics better than you do. But maybe, I have another perspective on it (or even an addition). Explaining this will reveal why I think that the Born rule supports materialism/realism against idealism. From a physicist's point of view, your derivation is complete and doesn't require any addition. We get the postulates as they can be found in every introductory textbook on quantum mechanics. But someone starting from the idea of the Everything ensemble won't be completely satisfied. You introduce an unspecified probability distribution P_psi which is essential in the definition of the inner product. In physics, the Hilbert space of physical states can be different for every system; a physical theory must specify the inner product of each Hilbert space from which we can reconstruct the distribution P_psi by applying the Born rule. Though, if we start from a theory of everything, we want a fundamental explanation for the specific distribution. The materialist approach (of the Everything ensemble) would say that P_psi(psi_a) is given by the measure of psi_a divided by the measure of psi. Here, the measure of psi(_a) is meant to be proportional to the 'number' of 'worlds' forming psi(_a). More precisely, I would not speak of a 'number' but merely of the measure in the case when equal weight is assigned to every single world. So, with the help of the theory of the Everything ensemble and materialism, we are able in principle to precisely define the probability distribution P_psi. The idealist approach may lead to a similar idea for calculating the distribution P_psi: An idealist would not count (or measure) worlds but observer moments. The problem that I see here is the following: Let's suppose a system is in the state I introduced in my first message... |B = |0/sqrt(3) + |1/sqrt(1.5) Then, if an observer performs a measurement in the (|0,|1) basis, only two observer moments will follow. One OM that sees the outcome 0 and another OM that sees the outcome 1. If we apply equal measure to each of these OMs, we will conclude that both cases are equally probable. But they are not. I guess that the idealist approach leads to a probability distribution incompatible with the experiment. Marc: I do recognize the difference between weak and strong materialism but it's not essential in this case. When I wrote of mapping physical states of the brain to states of the mind or observer moments, I did not exclude the possibility that the map is only a concept invented by humans. COMP surely provides a true alternative. It is good that you mention it. Nonetheless, it's still a little strange for me. My own thinking has always been rather similar to Russell's concepts. Reflectivity (how to think about thought itself) is an unsolved problem in probability theory, the solution for which is known only to me. I have no intention of revealing that solution here however, since it's the key to AI and my opponents are undoubtably reading my postings on this messagelist. Damn! I was convinced that my message would make you blab out your important ideas :) Youness Ayaita --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
The physical world is real
There have always been two ways to interpret the interrelationship between the physical world and our minds. The first one is to consider the physical world to be fundamental; from this perspective, the appearance of the mind is to be understood with the help of some neurological theory that maps physical states of the brain to states of the mind or observer moments. The second way starts with the mind, denying the fundamental role of the physical world. According to this assumption, the physical world is introduced with the help of a theory of physics mapping mental states to physical states that reproduce the mental state within themselves. Imprecisely speaking, the second way questions the reality status of the physical world. Both ways allow the elaboration of an ensemble theory. The first approach starts from the ensemble of all physical worlds (or formally with descriptions thereof). The second approach uses the ensemble of all observer moments (or descriptions thereof). When Rolf expressed the idea UTM outputs a qualia, not a universe (which is similar to the second approach), I wrote: I have always been hopeful that both approaches will finally turn out to be equivalent. It's a very trivial fact though that the two approaches are not equivalent. Nonetheless it's interesting to note it. I argue that we have good reasons to discard the second approach. The fundamental role will be assigned to the physical worlds (hence the title of this message). The difference between the two approaches leads to different expections to the question What will I experience next?. Consequently it can be measured empirically. We find this result by observing that different physical worlds may produce the same observer moment (e.g. if the physical worlds differ in a detail not perceivable by the observer). This assigns a higher probability to the observer moment when chosen randomly in order to answer the question (it's multiply counted because it appears more than once in the everyting ensemble). Opposed to this, every observer moment (in the RSSA within a given reference class) would have an equal probability to be selected if we used the second approach. I think that the quantum mechanical Born rule strongly supports the first approach: Observer moments are weighted according to a specific formula. They don't have equal probability! Example: Both quantum states, |A = |0/sqrt(2) + |1/sqrt(2) and |B = |0/sqrt(3) + |1/sqrt(1.5) lead to the same two possible observer moments when a measurement in the (|0,|1) basis is performed. According to the Born rule the probabilites for the two observer moments are equal for |A and different for |B. Starting from the second approach (observer moments are fundamental) this result cannot be understood. If we take this result seriously, Bostrom's self-sampling assumption Each observer moment should reason as if it were randomly selected from the class of all observer moments in its reference class. should be modified: Each observer moment should reason as if it were randomly selected from the class of all observer moments in its reference class, weighted with their frequencies in the Everything ensemble. In order to avoid misunderstandings, I want to add that I consider the Everything ensemble (in both approaches) as given. It's not the output of some UTM. Youness Ayaita --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: A question concerning the ASSA/RSSA debate
On 20 Sep., 04:04, Russell Standish wrote: The way I use the term, the ASSA just refers to use a global measure for answering the question What is my next OM experienced. For other questions using a global measure over OMs, the original term SSSA (strong SSA) should be used. I'm aware of a few situations (mostly hypotheticals) where the SSSA is valid. The SSA refers to a global measure on birth moments, and the RSSA is typically based on the SSA. If the supporters of the ASSA use the term in the sense you describe, then I really don't understand them. If I ask what my next experience will be, I can only consider observer moments identifying themselves as myself, Youness Ayaita. Otherwise they should postulate that I is not linked to the process of self- identification, but that it is an absolute entity jumping from one observer moment to another. The everything list wiki has some notes on the RSSA/ASSA distinction - I'm wondering if these shouldn't be inserted directly into Wikipedia, as the everything wiki has been near death since its inception. Due to a momentary problem of my internet connection, I have no access to the everything wiki. So, I don't know how it looks. But in general, I strongly support the idea of establishing a wiki for us, and I would participate, too. One reason, of course, is to have a reference for the various definitions used in our discussions. I also see further reasons: For example, there are so many books and articles concerned with the anthropic principle and other ideas somehow linked to the Everything ensemble. It would be great to have a short summary and review of every interesting book/article one of us has read. This would simplify the process of finding adequate literature. We could also list famous philosophers and physicists (David Lewis, Max Tegmark, Hugh Everett, ...) of interest and copy the basic information out of Wikipedia (or at least give a link to Wikipedia). I'd also welcome the idea of summarizing the various theories individually defended by participants of this list in the wiki. The interdependency of the theories would be clear, and links to other articles to the wiki could be used. I don't like the current situation in which everyone is only concerned with his own website publishing articles there. A central website would be much more comfortable; of course, links to the specific homepages where the theories are described in detail, could be added without any problem. Youness --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
On 18 Sep., 16:23, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So without putting any extra-stcruture on the set of infinite strings, you could as well have taken as basic in your ontology the set of subset of N, written P(N). Now, such a set is not even nameable in any first order theory. In a first order theory of those strings you will get something equivalent to Tarski theory of Real: very nice but below the turing world: the theory is complete and decidable and cannot be used for a theory of everything (there is no natural numbers definable in such theories). From this I can deduce that your intuition relies on second order arithmetic or analysis (and this is confirmed by the way you introduce time). Bruno and Russell, I don't want to interfere with your discussion. But I want to say something concerning the mathematics applied to study the ensemble of infinite bitstrings (which is, as you, Bruno, mentioned correctly, equivalent to the power set of the natural numbers). For me, the Everything ensemble is something given. I'm not forced to restrict myself to the use of mathematical structures definable by the structure of the Everything ensemble. I can use the whole of mathematics developed until today in order to study the Everything ensemble. Let's consider our universe that is studied by physics. Probably, we won't find the set of natural numbers within this universe, the number of identical particles (as far as we can talk about that) of any kind is finite. Nonetheless, it is useful to define the natural numbers and to construct rational, real and even complex numbers in order to study the universe. A vivid though quite ridiculous example might be: When we study the unaffected tropics, we go there with cameras despite of the fact that cameras don't come from the tropics. As Everything ensemble, we use the set of infinite bitstrings. But the Theory of Everything, which doesn't really exist so far, may use every mathematical structure that proves to be useful. This of course differs seriously from arithmetical realism. Youness --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
Many thanks! I'll give my current attitudes to your hints:
Bruno:
You mentioned the ASSA. Yesterday, motivdated by your hint, I have
read about the ASSA/RSSA debate that is said to have divided the list
into two camps. Since I have trouble with the reasoning I read, I will
probably send a new message hoping for leaving the misunderstanding
behind.
Searching for the Universal Dovetailer Argument, I found a quite
formal demonstration that you wrote in the list, and an even more
formal demonstration that you published in the original work. I do see
the advantage to have such a formal demonstration when it comes to
detailed discussions, but sometimes I'd prefer a simplified outline to
get the basic idea and the main conclusions before going into detail.
If you have written such an outline (in English or in French as well)
I would be thankful to get the link. Otherwise I'll read one of the
formal versions in the future.
Hal (and partially Russell):
I still like your approach to the Everything ensemble using a
countable set P of 'properties'. In fact, if we describe any object or
world by a sequence of properties, the objects form a set equivalent
to {0,1}^P (e.g. we assign 0 if the object does not have the property
and 1 if it has the property) which is the power set of P
(equivalently we could have formed subsets of P). Since P is
countable, we can work with the Everything ensemble {0,1}^IN of
infinite bitstrings. As you have mentioned, this set is uncountable.
So far, there isn't any mathematical problem. In contrast to Marc, I
do also agree identifying objects with the corresponding subset of P.
In this picture, states and behaviours as Marc calls it, must also
lie in the properties. Thus, the term 'property' is used in a more
comprehensive sense than in programming.
But now, we come to much more serious criticism. Russell noticed that
regarding the ensemble of infinite bitstrings to be based on
properties jumbles the ensemble (a simple mathematical entity) with
interpretations by the observer. His separation between syntactic
and semantic space is essential. I agree with Russell, but I do also
see the necessity to interpret (not in an exact sense) mathematical
entities in our theories within our everyday theory; because this is
what makes a mathematical theory a (meta)physical theory as I have
pointed out. Russell also uses such an interpretation, but on a more
implicit level: An observer reads bits of the world's description. In
order to make this a (meta)physical theory, we must be able to find
ourselves within the theory, namely as observers. So, we must know
what the process of reading bits of the word's description is meaning
for us. And I'd say that it means measuring 'properties' of the world.
To give a concise explanation: Properties should not be a fundamental
ingredient to the mathematical theory. The mathematical theory uses
syntactic space. Though, in order to understand the mathematical
theory by means of the everyday theory (and thus to link the
mathematical theory to concrete reality), we need (at some point of
our theories) a translation. This translation can possibly be done by
interpreting the ensemble via 'properties'. Conversely, we can
motivate the ensemble of infinite bitstrings (ant thus syntactic
space) starting from a countable set of 'properties'.
Maybe it would be the best for your theories, Hal, to interrupt after
having motivated the ensemble of infinite bitstrings. Then, the
infinite bitstrings are considered to be fundamental (and no longer
the properties themselves). Russell (and surely others, too) has
provided a good framework to work with this ensemble and the role of
observers. Perhaps, you can try to translate some of your ideas to
Russell's more strict and formal language. Then, it will be easier for
us to follow your thinking.
Marc:
Thank you very much for the definitions. I did not know how this was
commonly called.
Brent:
I do still defend extensional definitions even for infinite sets.
Mathematics shows how useful this is. I come back to the example of a
real function f that maps every real number to another real number. In
mathematics, this function is defined by the infinite set {(x,f(x)); x
being a real number}. And the space of all these functions has very
nice mathematical properties, we can work with it and prove theorems.
Of course, in practice I will not have the set but merely a formula
defining f. For example f(x)=x+1. But this does not disprove the
possibilty of working with the sets on an abstract level. Mathematics
indeed proves that it is possible.
Your second point, Russell's (Bertie's) paradox, is much more
striking. In fact, if we allow every property the English (or the
German, following Cantor) language can express, we will end up with
contradictions. This is why the set of properties is somehow
restricted. We need, as I wrote, a set of distinct and independent
properties. I don't really know if such a postulate makes sense.
Youness
A question concerning the ASSA/RSSA debate
When Bruno spoke of the ASSA I looked up some messages in this list dealing with the ASSA and RSSA. My message does not aim at initiating yet another controversial discussion of the subject. But I rather hope that you will assist me resolving a misunderstanding. Searching for the self-sampling assumption in Wikipedia leads to the definition: Each observer moment should reason as if it were randomly selected from the class of all observer moments in its reference class. What remains unclear in this definition is the term reference class which is also the source of the ASSA/RSSA debate. When we want to know which observer moment to expect next, we look at the class of all observer moments provided with a measure. The ASSA applies a uniform measure over all observer moments, whereas supporters of the RSSA may for example apply the Born rule to the class of observer moments given by quantum theory. That's an outline of how I understand it. I have serious problems with this kind of reasoning. It suggests the misleading idea of some entity (let's call it the self) jumping from one observer moment to the next. In general, this is a very questionable concept, of course. I feel satisfied with the idea that the observer moments don't come up with a measure by themselves and that nothing at all is jumping. We will introduce measures for practical reasons depending on the problem we are concerned with. The same holds for the study of chains of observer moments. In each case, I will find it useful to introduce different concepts that will show resemblance to the ASSA or RSSA. 1st problem: What will I experience next? I refused the idea of the 'self' being an entity jumping between observer moments. So the word I does not refer to something fixed. It is a vague perception of self-identification (e.g. to be Youness Ayaita) that is part of the current observer moment. If we consider the evolution of the observer from a third person perspective (within our world and its usual dynamics), then we will see how the observer changes with time. Though, as far as his capacity for remembering did not disappear, the observer will still find within himself the old self-identification. This self-identification makes the observer have the feeling that his identity is something constant which is preserved. This feeling gives a meaningful understanding of the word I in the question of interest. By the word I the question restricts the class of observer moments to those who share the mentioned self-identification, e.g. to be Youness Ayaita. This class probably consists for the most part of observers that other observers would identify as Youness Ayaita, too. The word next (despite of the fact that it makes only sense in worlds with time) leads to a further restriction to the class of observer moments: The observer moment to choose must include the memory that the last experience was to ask the question: What will I experience next? The small subclass we have now typically corresponds to what we would expect from quantum theory. The measure that comes up with it corresponds to the Born rule. Nonetheless, the Born rule is not of general applicability here. For example, if the observer falls into coma and wakes up some years later or if he is frozen for some time in some futuristic machine, the observer moments waking up at a later time must have a nonzero measure as well. On the contrary, if the observer experiences a dangerous accident losing his capacity for remembering, the observer moment after the accident has a zero measure for the question of interest. To summarize, we see that a specific question leads to a specific measure. In this case, we get a result usually assigned to the RSSA. 2nd problem: Having had an accident that led to the loss of his capacity for remembering, an observer asks himself (before noticing his environment): Who am I? In this case, the self-identification process failed. Thus, the word I cannot be refered to a self-identification but rather to the identification by other observers. The class of observer moments of interest is restricted: We are only interested in conscious observers that don't have a self-identification process. Thus, in worlds similar to ours we would assign a non-zero measure to all observer moments waking up after such an accident or having lost their capability of self-identification due to some kind of mental illness. This measure has nothing in common with the quantum mechanical Born rule. So, I don't see any need for some kind of fundamental measure for observer moments. Whenever we have a restriction defining a subclass of observer moments that are of interest, we are naturally driven to the RSSA and to a specific measure. If we have no restriction, then we assign equal measure to all observer moments leading to the ASSA. I do not see the categorical difference between the two concepts. Can you make clear where the difference lies? Thank you Youness Ayaita
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
Thank you for this remark, Hal. Indeed, you mentioned very similar
ideas:
List of all properties: The list of all possible properties
objects can have. The list can not be empty since there is at least
one object: A Nothing. A Nothing has at least one property -
emptiness. The list is most likely at least countably infinite and
is assumed herein to be so. Any list can be divided into two
sub-lists - the process of defining two objects - a definitional
pair. The set of all possible subsets of the list is a power set and
therefore uncountably infinite. Therefore there are uncountably
infinite objects.
But your theories are much more complex than that if my first
impression is correct. Sooner or later, I'll give attention to them in
more detail.
This list really is a rich source of unconventional ideas! Since I'm
new in the list, I am always thankful if someone refers me to
interesting earlier discussions where I can read up on several topics.
Youness
On 16 Sep., 21:50, Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi Youness:
I have been posting models based on a list of properties as the
fundamental for a few years.
Hal Ruhl
At 06:36 PM 9/13/2007, you wrote:
On 13 Sep., 19:44, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Youness Ayaita wrote:
This leads to the
2nd idea:
We don't say that imaginable things are fundamental, but that the
properties themselves are. This idea was also expressed by 1Z in his
last reply (We define imaginable things through hypothetical
combinations of properties, Z1) and I think it's a very good
candidate for a solution. Then, we start from S being the set of all
properties (perhaps with the cardinality of the natural numbers). As
above, we define {0,1}^S as the ensemble of descriptions. This would
have the cardinality of the real numbers and could mathematically be
captured by the infinite strings {0,1}^IN (the formal definition of
the Schmidhuber ensemble to give an answer for Bruno).
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The Fractal Speculation
When I worked on my theory of the Everything ensemble, I have always been convinced that it would require serious efforts to explain the ideas to others. Today, I know that I was wrong: it requires only a small sequence of numbers... Page numbers that can easily be looked up in Russell's book Theory of Nothing where Russell explains every concept in detail (and even much more!). However, a few ideas remained that I did not find anywhere else. One of them was my no-justification of the Everything ensemble. Another idea, which I find interesting despite of its highly speculative nature, is the fractal speculation. I have put the idea online as a PDF file. It starts with: The fractal speculation is a speculative idea how some qualitative properties of the universe we observe follow from the simple metaphysical principle of the Everything ensemble applying the anthropic principle. The link: http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~yayaita/philosophy/fractal-speculation.pdf As always, I am very interested in your opinions. Youness --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
On 14 Sep., 02:27, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In order to observe something about the world it will be necessary to observe relations, not just things with properties. If you allow countably many n-place relations, how will you encode them and how will you express that things like George owes an explanation of counting to Bob. Do you assume that every thing has enough distinct properties to make it unique? Brent Meeker The approach constructing the Everything ensemble using properties as fundamental building blocks has its difficulties. We need a set of distinct and independent properties (such that having property p and having property q is no contradiction if p and q are different) because otherwise we wouldn't get the whole Schmidhuber ensemble which ensures zero information content. Hence, the way I proposed is still vague---It's only a postulate that such a set of properties exists. Though, I think it gives an idea of how we imagine the Schmidhuber ensemble. I'll give an example: Let's study the ensemble of all possible images your monitor can display. It is then possible to describe the images pixel by pixel, every pixel being mapped to a color value. This would be a description using perfectly independent properties (since every combination of colors gives a possible image). Relations are not part of this description, they are seen by observers who assign a meaning to what they see. For example they see a person on the image holding a pencil. Similarly, we imagine the Schmidhuber ensemble. Descriptions are built up of elementary and independent properties (corresponding to the pixels on your monitor). Youness Ayaita --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
On 13 Sep., 13:26, 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On 12 Sep, 01:50, Youness Ayaita [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
The amazing result of these simple considerations is that we get the
Everything ensemble gratis! We don't need any postulate. But how is
this transition made? At this point I remind you of the second section
of this article: The Everything ensemble, or the statement that
everything exists, is the interpretation of our new perspective in the
everyday theory. In our everyday theory, we use the concept of
'existence' as a property of things. A property p is given by the
ensemble of (imaginable) things that have that property. Thus we can
identify the property p with the ensemble of (imaginable) things
having that property.
That isn't how properties are defined, and existence isn't a (first
order) property.
We place things into ensembles (classes, as opposed to sets) on the
basis of their properties;
we don't read properties off from ensembles. Properties have to come
first, or we would not
be able to classify individuals that we had not encountered before.
I see two perfectly equivalent ways to define a property. This is
somehow analogous to the mathematical definition of a function f: Of
course, in order to practically decide which image f(x) is assigned to
a preimage x, we usually must know a formula first. But the function f
is not changed if I do not consider the formula, but the whole set
{(x,f(x))} instead, where x runs over all preimages.
Concerning properties, we normally have some procedure to define which
imaginable thing has that property. But I can change my perspective
and think of the property as being the set of imaginable things having
the property. This is how David Lewis defines properties (e.g. in his
book On the Plurality of Worlds).
If you insist on the difference between the two definitions, you may
call your property property1 and Lewis's property property2.
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Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
On 13 Sep., 19:44, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Youness Ayaita wrote:
...
I see two perfectly equivalent ways to define a property. This is
somehow analogous to the mathematical definition of a function f: Of
course, in order to practically decide which image f(x) is assigned to
a preimage x, we usually must know a formula first. But the function f
is not changed if I do not consider the formula, but the whole set
{(x,f(x))} instead, where x runs over all preimages.
Concerning properties, we normally have some procedure to define which
imaginable thing has that property. But I can change my perspective
and think of the property as being the set of imaginable things having
the property. This is how David Lewis defines properties (e.g. in his
book On the Plurality of Worlds).
But I don't think you can define a property this way. For example,
suppose you want to define red. Conceptually it is the common
property of all things that are red. But this set isn't given, and it
can only be constructed (even in imagination) if you already know what
red is. For a strictly finite set you could use ostensive definition
to get the set, but I suspect you don't want to limit your set size.
In any case I don't think imaginable and describable in some
alphabet are equivalent. People construct perfectly grammatical noun
clauses that don't correspond to anything imaginable, e.g. quadratic
chairs.
Brent Meeker
I've already explained how my (or Lewis's) definition of a property is
to be understood correctly. Of course, practically I can only try to
construct the set of imaginable things that are red if I know a
procedure how to decide if something is red in every particular case.
But this is only related to the practical applicability of the
concept. We agree that the property red is completely defined by the
set of imaginable things being red. So, whenever it's useful, I may
work with this set instead of our common conception of red (I will
never have the concrete and full set at my disposition but that won't
be necessary). And you will se below why it is useful to do so.
Your second remark is very interesting. You're right that the English
language can construct difficult situations when it comes to
descriptions of possibly imaginable things. This is why I avoid the
English language in this context (even the French language, which is
said to be very exact, is not an option). Two ideas how to get the
Schmidhuber ensemble of descriptions out of the set of all
imaginable things:
1st idea:
Let T be the set of all imaginable things. Then, corresponding to my
definition of a property being a subset of the T, the power set P(T)
is the set of all properties. To describe an imaginable thing t, we
might proceed as follows:
For every property p in P(T), we say wheter t has the property (then
we assign a 1) or not (we assign a 0). The set of all descriptions
then is {0,1}^P(T) similar to the Schmidhuber ensemble. The only
problem with this is the cardinality of the ensemble. The construction
{0,1}^P(T) is equivalent to the power set P(P(T)). This means, if T
has the cardinality of the natural numbers, then P(T) has the
cardinality of the real numbers and P(P(T)) has an even higher
cardinality! Since the Schmidhuber ensemble only has the cardinality
of the real numbers, we're facing a problem at this point.
This leads to the
2nd idea:
We don't say that imaginable things are fundamental, but that the
properties themselves are. This idea was also expressed by 1Z in his
last reply (We define imaginable things through hypothetical
combinations of properties, Z1) and I think it's a very good
candidate for a solution. Then, we start from S being the set of all
properties (perhaps with the cardinality of the natural numbers). As
above, we define {0,1}^S as the ensemble of descriptions. This would
have the cardinality of the real numbers and could mathematically be
captured by the infinite strings {0,1}^IN (the formal definition of
the Schmidhuber ensemble to give an answer for Bruno).
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Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
I want to correct an error, the 1st idea in my last reply was
erroneous, since in the set {0,1}^P(T) one will find descriptions that
do not belong to any imaginable thing t in T. Thus, it would not be
possible to use the total set and the whole idea is rather useless.
So, I restrict my arguments to the second idea that I present in
detail:
The task is to justify why Russell and I use the Schmidhuber ensemble
of infinite bitstrings in order to represent the Everything. The
Schmidhuber ensemble can be constructed if we start from the set P of
properties. Ad hoc we assume P to have the cardinality of the natural
numbers. Every imaginable thing t can be described as follows:
We take every property p in P and say whether the thing t has the
property p or not. We express this by assigning a 0 if it has the
property and a 1 if it doesn't. The set of descriptions is thus given
by the infinite bitstrings:
{0,1}^P
If P has the cardinality of the natural numbers than this can be
identified with the Schmidhuber ensemble
{0,1}^IN (IN being the set of the natural numbers).
In a final step I will say why this approach to the Schmidhuber
ensemble is very useful. When we talk about observation, than we
imagine (according to Russell) an observer reading some of the bits
contained in the infinite bitstring. The observer can now restrict the
plurality of worlds he is in: The worlds' descriptions must have the
bit values he has read. But a priori, there is no justification to
think that these remaining worlds are somehow similar to each other
(because we did not mention how the descriptions were made. The
English expressions combat and fight denote similar things though
their spellings are very different. Light and fight are spelled
similarly though they denote completely different things. Analogous
situations could happen for unfortunate choices of how to describe a
world using bitstrings). If we construct the Schmidhuber ensemble as I
proposed it, then our intuitive expectation that worlds having a
similar description are similar in kind. If two worlds have the
bitstring 01011 after let's say 3 bits, then they definitely have
(5) properties in common.
I'd be thankful for a comment, Russell.
Youness
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Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
The two concerns, how to give a precise notion of the Everything, and how to deduce predictions from a chosen notion, lie at the very heart of our common efforts. Though, I did not go into them for the simple reason that I wanted to avoid discussions that are not directly linked to the topic. When I first wanted to capture mathematically the Everything, I tried several mathematicalist approaches. But later, I prefered the Everything ensemble that is also known here as the Schmidhuber ensemble. I assume that the no-justification naturally leads to this ensemble. This comes from the development of the (degenerate) property of existence which is then assigned to all imaginable things. I don't think that a metaphysical discussion of the term imaginable thing is necessary now, I'm satisfied with the idea that an imaginable thing can be completely described by means of language. For further research, it is then natural to identify imaginable things with their descriptions and to choose a simple alphabet for expressing the descriptions (e.g. strings of 0 and 1). In the past I assumed these strings to be of finite length. I read that Russell Standish also permits infinite strings. But first of all, I'm interested in your opinions concerning the no- justification. Thank you, Stathis Papaioannou, for letting me know of Kant's ideas in this context. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
On 13 Sep., 00:48, Russell Standish wrote: It would be possible to construct an ensemble of purely finite strings (all strings of length googol bits, say). This wouldn't satisfy the zero information principle, or your no-justification, as you still have the finite string size to justify (why googol and not googol+1, for instance). I suspect the observable results would be indistinguishable from the infinite string ensembles for large enough string string size, however. We've a little misunderstanding in this point. I did never suggest strings of an overall fixed length, but only of a finite length that may vary from string to string without being limited. The idea behind this was that imaginable things should be describable completely (e.g. by a person telling me about them) and not only asymptotically (which---I thought---could be the case if the descriptions were infinite). On the other hand, I do see two arguments in favor of the infinite strings: 1. It may be that something can be described by a finite description in one language, but must be described by an infinite description in another language. A simple example is the number pi which can be defined by finite expressions (e.g. by writing down formally the Gregory-Leibniz series). But if we restrict ourselves to describe numbers by writing down their digits in the decimal numeral system, then the description of pi is infinite. This can be seen as a motivation to allow infinite strings. 2. The difference between finite and infinite strings is somehow similar to the difference between natural and real numbers (at least as far as their cardinalities are concerned) in mathematics. If, in a far future, we want to establish analytical methods to study the Everything ensemble (this of course is a very, very problematic task and cannot be our concern here) it may turn out useful to allow infinite strings as it turned out useful for ordinary mathematics to allow real numbers instead of natural or rational numbers. Where differences lie is in the measure attached to these strings. I take each string to be of equal weight to any other, so that there are twice the measure of strings satisfying 01* as 011*. This leads naturally to a universal prior. I'm still hesitant to accept the idea that the Everything ensemble by itself comes up with a measure. Although undoubtedly the measure is a fundamental ingredient of our theories, I think that it should only be introduced for practical reasons, i.e. whenever we are interested in probabilities. Then the measure is adapted to our state of ignorance. The standard case will be that one has no information whether to prefer a given description which leads to your measure of equal weight and the universal prior. This is very analogous to statistical physics where we usually assign equal measure to every microstate. I am not yet familiar with Schmidhuber's ideas but I am going to read up on this topic soon, in particular in the context of the White Rabbit paradox. Youness Ayaita --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble
No(-)Justification Justifies The Everything Ensemble Youness Ayaita In this message, I present my no-justification of the hypothesis that everything exists. The no-justification argues that no justification at all is needed to accept the hypothesis. This provides a new and very satisfying approach to the Everything ensemble. 1 Hitherto proposed justifications In this first section I give a brief overview of some existing justifications for the Everything ensemble. The reader familiar with the topic may skip this section. Several thinkers have come independently to the hypothesis that---in some sense or another---everything exists. The justifications they have found in favor of this hypothesis vary as do their intellectual backgrounds (philosophy, computer science, mathematics or physics). When I myself developed the hypothesis, I found three justifications which I call respectively the 'metaphysical approach', the 'generalized Copernican principle' and the 'no-justification'. The main justifications supported by contributors to the everything-list are the 'zero information principle' and 'arithmetical realism' (also called 'mathematical Platonism'). Another justification is due to the analytic philosopher David Lewis: Why believe in a plurality of worlds?---Because the hypothesis is serviceable, and that is a reason to think it is true. For most philosophers Lewis's justification was not convincing. Much more attractive to many thinkers is arithmetical realism, assuming the objective existence of all mathematical objects. The zero information principle bases upon the observation that the Everything has no information content. Russell Standish writes: There is a mathematical equivalence between the Everything, as represented by this collection of all possible descriptions and Nothing, a state of no information. This justification is impressive since it shows that Everything is--- in some sense---not more than Nothing. It thus provides a striking argument against the critics' objection that supporters of the Everything ensemble postulate too much additional ontology. As a last example, I mention the generalized Copernican principle. The idea is to give up the categorical difference between our world and all other possible worlds: Everything is equally real. 2 Remarks on new fundamental theories Before starting to explain my no-justification of the Everything ensemble, I want to summarize some important statements in advance which concern all new fundamental theories. Taking seriously the approach given by the no-justification, it will turn out that the term Everything exists is logically meaningless. Nonetheless I'll still use the term without questioning its outstanding significance. The only thing that changes is the term's role within our thinking. It will no longer be an integral part of the fundamental theory, but merely a link from the fundamental theory to our 'everyday theory'. As a typical example of such a relation may serve Einstein's theory of general relativity. The concept of mass---or to be more precise, the energy-momentum tensor---is no integral part of general relativity, it is replaced by the curvature of spacetime. Einstein's famous field equations that relate the curvature of spacetime to the energy- momentum tensor, are thus meaningless insofar as they only 'define' the energy-momentum tensor. In principle, we could abandon the concept of mass and energy and use the curvature tensor instead. So, would the theory of general relativity lose anything if we removed Enstein's field equations? The answer to this question is twofold. As a mathematical theory, general relativity would remain complete and as rich as it is today. But as a physical theory it would lose its meaning, i.e. it would lose its explanatory and predictive power. This is because a mathematical theory (in the case of general relativity: Spacetime is a smooth 4-manifold with a metric tensor and such and such properties) does not give a physical interpretation by itself. The term physical interpretation means that we have a procedure how to interpret elements of the theory as elements of our everyday theory. A physical interpretation serves as translation from the theory's mathematical language to our concrete everyday language. Einstein's field equations link general relativity (with the curvature of spacetime) to special relativity (with the energy-momentum tensor) which is itself linked to Newtonian mechanics (with the usual concept of mass and Euclidian space). Newtonian mechanics is understood in the everyday theory. We see from this that Einstein's field equations are part of the physical interpretation in the sense described above. The everyday theory, of course, is only a vague concept that allows us to exchange information about events in the world that surrounds us. Though, it is not clearly defined. 3 No-justification The no-justification is the most satisfying justification
Re: JOINING post
Thanks for your answers to my joining post! Dear Russell, your book Theory of Nothing has overwhelmed me, it's a fantastic work. Several months ago, I slowly began writing a book on the theory that everything exists (in German) -- but I will not go on because your book seems to be so great and complete, dealing with so many different aspects, that my project would have never been able to compare with it. I do not know into which direction my thinking will evolve. But I'm convinced that your book will always serve as the basic reference for works linked to the theory of the everything ensemble. Youness --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
JOINING post
Hello everyone. My name's Youness Ayaita and currently I'm a graduate student of physics and mathematics at Heidelberg University, with special interests in the field of theoretical quantum physics and in the question how it comes to our specific laws of nature. In the beginning of the year 2003 (I was as a sixteen-year-old) philosophical considerations led me to the idea that possibly everything exists. Independently from everything that was said or written by others working on the issue, I went on developing my theories and found different justifications for the everything- hypothesis (some of which are substantially different from the mathematicalist approach or the motivation by information theory). In particular, I was interested in the implications of the everything- hypothesis for physics, or to be more precise, for the expected structure of the world that we experience. I asked the question whether it is even possible (in principle) to mathematically deduce properties of the physical world from the everything-hypothesis (if the answer is yes, then this could provide some kind of experimental test of the everything-hypothesis, making it falsifiable in a vague-- though not exact--sense). In this context, I found several plausible arguments and I explored ideas how to capture mathematically the Everything. Until the end of the year 2005, I had no idea that other people were seriously working on the issue. But then, I read of David Lewis and bought his book On the Plurality of Worlds. Later, in 2006, I was interested in the philosophy of quantum physics and became a supporter of the Everett interpretation. I read recent publications by Wallace, Saunders, Zurek, Zeh, Deutsch, Tegmark and others. Yesterday I found this list. I am still surprised and pleased that my old ideas are also developed and discussed by others than myself. Since my thought is only little influenced by the literature, I hope that I will be able to give some new perspectives in future discussions. Youness --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
