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What proposed law(s) or principle(s) of nature do you find most fascinating?
(self.naturalphilosophy)
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
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Natural Philosophy
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This is an interesting one, but tricky. I understand it sort of as a constrained version of Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe hypothesis - the constraint being that only constructions out of which complex systems capable of 'observing' its environment naturally arise are in any sense 'real'.
What I can't figure out is what the difference is supposed to be between an 'inert' system, such as a collection of fermions interacting with each other, and a complex system with stochastic information processing capabilities. Where does one draw a line between 'inert' and 'observer'? Basically, what constitutes an observation if not mere interaction?
Interesting. This is why I favor many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. It doesn't give a special status to an observer. Any interacting entity including a conscious being gets entangled with the quantum state that's being interacted with. In the Schrodinger's cat for example the world splits into two. In one branch the physicist opens the box to see a dead cat. In the other branch, his equivalent sees an alive cat.
On the other extreme it from bit gives the highest privileged status to an observer.
I'm sympathetic to the MWI as well. It's currently the only explanation that is both consistent with what we know and doesn't require any new physics to work.
now circle around and combine that with fringe ideas like Robert Anton Wilson’s neuro-linguistic programming or linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) – reality is what you observe, but how much is that observation colored by what you were taught? is what you are seeing “real” or a simulation or a hallucination or a psychotic break?
Or maybe you are a Boltzmann brain!