steven comments on Beyond the Reach of God - Less Wrong

66 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 October 2008 03:42PM

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Comment author: steven 07 October 2008 05:53:00AM 0 points [-]

Alastair Malcolm:

in any comparison of all possible combinations of bit/axiom strings up to any equal finite (long) length (many representing not only a world but also (using 'spare' string segments inside the total length) extraneous features such as other worlds, nothing in particular, or perhaps 'invisible' intra-world entities), it is reasonable to suppose that the simplest worlds (ie those with the shortest representing string segments) will occur most often across all strings, since they will have more 'spare' irrelevant bit/axiom combinations up to that equal comparison length, than those of more complex worlds (and so similarly for all long finite comparison lengths).

Thus out of all worlds inhabitable by SAS's, we are most likely to be in one of the simplest (other things being equal) - any physics-violating events like flying rabbits or dragons would require more bits/axioms to (minimally) specify their worlds, and so we should not expect to find ourselves in such a world, at any time in its history.

(SAS means self-aware substructure)