Posted by
Günther Greindl on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Urban-myths-in-contemporary-cosmology-tp526297p526313.html
Carl,
a very interesting post, thanks!
> I was particularly struck by Greg Egan's statement:
>
> "The only ?Copernican principle? I?d consider worth defending would be
> one that avoids coincidences, rather than one that assumes typicality. "
I think he was talking about the cosmological perspective here;
"coincidences" at the level of biological systems etc would then be
theoretically, if not practically derivable from the ultimate theory.
> The BB discussion has value as a catalyst, however, in that it shows
> that we have few mature conceptual tools with which to have such a
> discussion.
I agree!
> In particular, most of the discussants exhibit some chagrin
> that not only do they not share a notion of what an 'observer' might be,
> but that their individual notions about the definition of such an entity
> have begun to seem to them less than coherent.
Have you looked at this?:
The information integration theory of consciousness
by Giulio Tononi
in Velmans, M. & Schneider, S. The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness
Blackwell Publishing, 2007, pp. 287-300
An overview can be found here:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6315> The study of Complexity lacks a coherent theory of the emegence of
> (complex) observers. I'm speaking of such a theory in the abstract, and
> not about humans or fruit flies or whether an observer must be
> self-aware, autonomous or able to recognize itself in a mirror. I'm
> particularly groping for something beyond a simple notion of whether an
> observer is 'typical' in some given environment and more how
> observerness emerges and operates in coevolutionary or epigenetic
> situations.
Would the above theory fit your desiderata? Or are you looking for
something different?
Cheers,
G?nther
--
G?nther Greindl
Department of Philosophy of Science
University of Vienna
guenther.greindl at univie.ac.at
http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/Blog:
http://dao.complexitystudies.org/Site:
http://www.complexitystudies.org