Virgil Șerbănuță edited untitled.tex  over 8 years ago

Commit id: 8b1947ee81c6ef08deed31dd1fdc2a8f202b03ca

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As a parenthesis, note that until now we restricted the possible world concept several times. The argument below also works with larger possible world concepts as long as those worlds have a few basic properties (e.g. one can make predictions and it can contain intelligent beings) and at the same time it is plausible that our world is such a possible world.  First, let us note that having intelligent beings in an universe likely means that their intelligence is needed to allow them to live in that universe, which likely means that they can have a partial model of the universe. That model does not have to be precise (it precise, e.g. it  could be made of simple rules like \ghilimele{If I pick fruits then I can eat them. If I eat them then I live.}) live},  and it can cover only a small part of their world, but it should predict\footnote{This is the only place where predict means that the beings can actually say something about the future instead of a theoretical way of making predictions.} something. Of course, these predictions do not have to be deterministic. Also, they might not be able to perceive the entire universe.  Note that predictions. Everywhere else we're using  the previous definition of prediction does not say that it is feasible to actually predict everything, it which  only means requires  that prediction is possible for a being which can take full snapshots of the universe and can go through all the possible models of an axiom system. A related case is the following: It is possible that almost all macroscopic events can be predicted very precisely using quantum physics. Assuming that this is indeed the case, many of system.} something. Of course,  these predictions require too many computational resources, making them infeasible. I am requiring even less than this, I am allowing axiom systems where there is no way to infer a prediction from the axiom system, but if one checks all possible models of that system, the prediction turns out do not have  to be true. [TODO: put some order in this paragraph and move it where it belongs, maybe leave it here.] deterministic. Also, they might not be able to perceive the entire universe.  Also, a mathematical model for a universe needs a set of measuring units. For each of the universes containing intelligent beings, let us take a fixed set of measuring units covering everything that those beings would measure. As an example, when measuring distance in our space we could use meters, light seconds or various other measuring units. The measuring unit is not important as long as we pick something.