[ExI] teachers

efc at swisscows.email efc at swisscows.email
Tue Aug 29 21:18:43 UTC 2023


Good evening Jason,

On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote:

>       Relating to your examples above, plausible conclusion but does not
>       definitely verify it. Since the galaxies will never be seen, that's
>       about the best we can do, and we will forever live without certainty.
> 
> Earlier you asked a thought-provoking question. Something like: Can a good explanation count as evidence for a theory being true?
> 
> As it happens, there are reasons why good explanations so often end up being right. Some fairly recent results show that if certain
> ensemble theories are right, there is a reason that occam's razor works. I explain it somewhat
...
> most likely probable theory to be correct. Until very recently, it was not known why Occam's Razor was so effective. But if we happen
> to inhabit an infinite ensemble of computationally/algorithmically generated worlds, (as an increasing amount of other evidence

That is quite a big "if" in my world.

>       I see and accept your point, but I do not feel as confident about the
>       multiverse, as the result of a 1-ton diamond. It seems to me, that there
>       is no clear consensus or proof of the matter. The point that information
>       only travels one way in that scenario (see answer to Bill and the MWI
>       article on wikipedia) makes a lot of sense to me. So the diamon scenario
>       and the multiverse scenario are in my opinion different scenarios with
>       different levels of confidence.
> 
> There is a caveat to this "one way information travel": interference. It is through interference that other parallel universes make
> their presence known to us. If it weren't for interference, we would have no reason to suspect these other universes are real. It is
> interference that is mysterious in the two-slit experiment, and it is interference that gives us useful results from quantum
> computers.

Hold on... so when checking quantum interference and the two slit
experiment, it seems to me that the experiment resulted in the
interpretations and theories we are discussing. So since I am doubting
information transfer between universes, I don't see how we can use this
experiment, which gives rise to what I am doubting, to justify or prove
what I'm doubting here. MWI is one interpretation among many, which are
not proved. So I would not count it as proof of this.

>       In that case it can never be verified, and since it will in that case
>       not impact us in any way, I'd say that this is a weakness of that
>       theory.
> 
> It can subjectively impact you. For example, if you find yourself mysteriously surviving many iterations of Shrodinger's cat
> experiment, where you play the role of the cat, then I consider that an impact that is directly relevant to you. In the same way, if

Well, my interpretation is that I'm a lucky guy, not that MWI is right.
I'm an actor in this world, and when confronted by coincidents, lucky
ones in the case of Schördinger, sometimes there is not explanation, so
we would suspend our judgement until further proof arrives.

> you find after your death in this universe, you awaken in another universe where this life was a dream or a video game, I would also
> consider that an impact to you.

Since I'm talking about this world, any happenings after my death do not
have any bearing on my beliefs in this world. Again, no information
travels from the dead to us based on anything I ever read (religious
relatives aside).

>       Relative to this world, and empirical proof á la science, that is a
>       proof I am not willing to accept as proof.
> 
> All evidence we have comes to us through our conscious experience. Physics can be understood as the science of observations: given
> past observations, what are the expected future ones?
> But then what happens when we use physics to consider the predicted observations of a scientist undergoing Shrodinger's cat
> experiment with himself as the cat? What does physics predict for the future observations of a scientist that is killed (at least
> locally in this part of reality)? Here, for physics to provide an answer, we require a fully fleshed out ontology: we need to know
> answers to questions like:
> - Is the universe spatially infinite?
> - Is there an eternal succession of big bangs?
> - Is there a quantum multiverse?
> - Is it possible this experience is duplicated in a simulation elsewhere? Etc.
> Physics will remain incomplete without answers to these questions, because without answering these questions, physics will fail to

Bingo! I think actually, as per Adrians post as well, that this is the
nature of the question. Physics and science will by design most likely
forever be incomplete. We can approach truth, but never realize it 100%.

> provide answers to the questions of what the scientist will experience, and physics is the science expected to provide answers
> concerning future expected observations. I think to say "physics can't, (or shouldn't try to), answer these questions." is to
> needlessly constrain physics. 

I don't think it is needlessly constraining physics, but just a fact of
our reality. Once we leave empirical proof, falsifiable theories,
verifications etc. we move into the realm of philosophy, and as much as
I love philosophy, there have been debates going on there for 1000s of
years, and probably will continue for 1000s more for as long as we are
humans beings in the physical world.

Instead of seeing this as a limitation, perhaps this is instead a
strength?

>       Could you expand a bit on this point?
> 
> Here are some examples of our exploration of the GoL universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE&t=75s
> Note there is no upper bound to the complexity of objects that can exist there, people have been able to build Turing machines inside
> them.
> 
> Imagine we found something in one of these very alien universes that was sentient, or even intelligent. We could then create a
> simulation of its world, copy it into that environment, and also create a communication portal so that scientists here could
> communicate with that being. From it's perspective, it might be sitting in its living room one moment, then suddenly find itself
> elsewhere, in a place it doesn't recognize. Our scientists might use avatars to appear within that environment to talk to it, or we
> might create a "window" via something like a TV screen in its virtual environment where it could look at it out into the computer lab
> where the scientists are gathered around. Computer simulate is a tool that lets us explore and create other realities, and this would
> be an example of it's ultimate capacity -- the ability to effectively travel to other universes and interact with their inhabitants.

Ah, but this is mixing levels. We are running the simulation in our
world. So yes, as far as the beings inside the virtual machine are
concerned, that is all they know. But there is nothing they can do to
escape their medium of existence by themselves. We, since we are running
the simulation, can affect the basic building blocks of theirs, but that
does not prove anything. Yes, theoretically we could live in a
simulation, or in a world created by god, but unless god reaches with
his hand inside his creation, there is nothing we can do at the moment.

> For this reason, universes are never entirely causally isolated from one another, they can peer into other universes, extract
> information from them, and that information can effect the goings on in that universe. For example, the fact that I've written the

As per above, I still do not see how this could be. I'm very sorry. I
feel as if this might end up as the qualia discussions, where one side
cannot see how the other cannot see.

Best regards, 
Daniel


> 
> Jason
>  
>
>       Best regards,
>       Daniel
>
>       >
>       > Jason
>       >
>       >
>       >
>       >       >
>       >       >
>       >       >       On Sun, 27 Aug 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote:
>       >       >
>       >       >
>       >       >
>       >       >             On Saturday, August 26, 2023, efc--- via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>       >       >                   Hello Stuart,
>       >       >
>       >       >                   Just a quick question from someone not very knowledgeable of cutting
>       >       >                   edge physics.
>       >       >
>       >       >                   You say that
>       >       >
>       >       >                         that a copy of you can truly be you, then you can relax because you are already
>       immortal. You
>       >       >             don't need to
>       >       >                         copy yourself because there are already plenty of, if not infinite numbers of, you
>       strewn about
>       >       >             the
>       >       >                         multiverse.
>       >       >
>       >       >
>       >       >                   What I wonder is, are infinite numbers of you and multiverses supported by proof or is itone
>       of many
>       >       >             interpretations of
>       >       >                   current theories?
>       >       >
>       >       >
>       >       >             Anthropic considerations provide strong evidence, in the sense that the probability there's only
>       one
>       >       universe
>       >       >             (with one kind of
>       >       >             physics) is on the order of 1 in 10^122.
>       >       >
>       >       >             https://alwaysasking.com/is-the-universe-fine-tuned/
>       >       >
>       >       >             This is as close to proof as anything science can provide.
>       >       >
>       >       >             Jason 
>       >       >
>       >       >
>       >       >
>       >       >              
>       >       >
>       >       >                   Best regards, Daniel
>       >       >
>       >       >
>       >       >                         Stuart LaForge
>       >       >
>       >       >
>       >       >                               This is a crucial point, for those of us interested in uploading, so I think we
>       should
>       >       >             really
>       >       >                               understand it, yet it makes no sense to me. Would you please explain further?
>       >       >
>       >       >                               Could you also please explain the comment about continuity and not-discontinuity
>       not
>       >       being
>       >       >             the
>       >       >                               same thing?
>       >       >
>       >       >                               Ben
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