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#4680·Tyler Mills, 2 days agoComputational Universality only implies that all computable programs can be run by UCs. But what is relevant here is what programs can be reached by a given program -- synthesized by it. A UC with knowledge that only contains objectively whirlpool-scale conjectures (resulting from external stimulus or not) will not have niches relating to molecule-scale theories. Such theories solve no problems for it. So there will be no selection for those theories, so evolution will not develop them. Molecule-scale theories constitute intractable niches for the whirlpool system. They are still possible to run, if present, but that is not what's at issue. Observer Theory is correct if it is saying that the theories of reality developed by systems will depend on the abstraction level of their knowledge with respect to reality.
Of course it's true that a system confined to a given abstraction will only evolve theories of that scale. But a person can operate at all computable levels of abstraction. The growth of knowledge by people (e.g. Relativity) would only have happened if people can vary their abstractions arbitrarily, because Relativity solves no problems at any one given level of abstraction, but across many. Observer Theory might be right for certain systems, but is wrong for people.