magfrump comments on Theists are wrong; is theism? - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Will_Newsome 20 January 2011 12:18AM

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Comment author: magfrump 20 January 2011 06:46:33AM 1 point [-]

I would think "Observers who find their surroundings interesting duplicate their observer-ness better" is an even-less-mind-bending anthropic-style argument.

Also this keeps clear that "interesting" is more a property of observers than of places.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 20 January 2011 01:52:28PM 1 point [-]

(nods) Yeah, I would expect life forms that fail to be interested in the aspects of their surroundings that pertain to their ability to produce successful offspring to die out pretty quickly.

That said, once you're talking about life forms with sufficiently general intelligences that they become interested in things not directly related to that, it starts being meaningful to talk about phenomena of more general interest.

Of course, "general" does not mean "universal."