From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 13:07:54 MST
Spudboy100@aol.com writes:
> In a message dated 12/20/1999 10:32:45 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> asa@nada.kth.se writes:
>
> > Tegmark's theory is actually much neater, with far fewer wild
> > assumptions than Tipler's theory (which requires a rather unusual
> > boundary condition for no particular reason).
>
> !! I think the Beckenstein Boundary condition is a well-conceived
> theory and generally accepted by most cosmologists--including GFR
> Ellis, a devoted hater of Tipler's work.
I was not talking about the BB (which I think makes a lot of sense),
but the Omega Point Boundary Condition - the coundary condition of the
universal wave function is an omega point. That is IMHO a rather
arbitrary boundary condition (for example, the boundary condition that
the universe ends in a state corresponding to the digits of pi seems
just as motivated as the end with a supermind thinking all possible
thoughts).
> Again getting to your
> point of falsifiablity is crucial and yet we may never have the practical
> means to determine validity.
Tipler is likely falsifiable (if the universe is of a form that does
not allow omega points, then the theory is obviously void), while
Tegmark seems to have a weaker case since his theory rather predicts
that we will see anthropic values of the dimensionless constants of a
certain form - but if we don't, we are just a more unlikely universe.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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