Hi Steven Some thoughts/problems on an initial look at your impressive book:
- Observer-moments as states of consciousness require an explanation - they are too complex just to be acceptable as 'brute facts' (especially if 'add-ons' are included). - I can't believe that Nature had a sole proclivity towards directly creating these elements of consciousness, or indeed any such proclivity at all (IOW one shouldn't expect it to be inherently human-centered). - I am not sure how communication between OMs (or their highest-weighted sequences) in different minds would work - aren't we in danger of solipsism here - would we be talking to a real other mind or just a zombie mind of the law-based product of our own current OM? Also, do we have a 'consciousness/OM -> laws/compression -> evolved-brains -> physical-consciousness' loop here? (Back to the Hard Problem?). But I will need to study the book more carefully - I've probably missed something. Alastair On Monday, March 9, 2026 at 9:23:35 PM UTC [email protected] wrote: > Hi, > > > > I have written a draft manuscript developing a theory I call the *Anthropic > Compression Principle (ACP)*, and I thought some people here might find > it interesting. > > > > The core idea is that *observer-moments are fundamental*, that their > measure should be weighted by *algorithmic simplicity / generative > support*, and that the lawful physical world we observe is best > understood as the *simplest generative compression of experience* rather > than as an unexplained base from which consciousness somehow later emerges. > > > > The project sits somewhere between anthropic reasoning, algorithmic > information theory, philosophy of mind, and foundations of physics. It > draws on ideas related to *Bostrom’s SSSA*, *Solomonoff induction*, > *UDASSA*, *Tegmark-style mathematical ontology*, and some of the > implementation / continuity issues explored in *Greg Egan*, though it is > not identical to any of those. > > > > This is a substantial draft rather than a finished formal theory, and I > would be very interested in critical feedback, especially on: > > - whether the central formal picture is coherent > - whether counting *detector complexity* really helps with arbitrary > implementation worries > - whether the treatment of observer-moments and measure avoids naive > copy-counting > - whether the relation to existing views is stated fairly > - whether the theory seems genuinely scientific in schematic form, or > still too underdeveloped > > > > The manuscript is attached below. I would be very grateful for any serious > comments. > > > > Regards – Steven Ridgway > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/d8f9c42d-e5de-4a7c-a271-434ff34506dbn%40googlegroups.com.
