It's not a very good explanation, frankly.

Which is unfortunate, because off the top of his head, it's the only explanation Othrem sees which does not involve intelligence, which if it is involved is hiding.  Either in the sense of aliens copy-kidnapping him, or in the sense of generalized authors of generalized books; if you can't see them, it's because they don't want you to know they're there.

Reasoning gets a lot more complicated once you introduce adversarial intelligences manipulating your evidence in order to hide their own existence.  If they're sufficiently smarter than you, or maybe just smart enough to succeed at a bounded problem, you will never be able to deduce those facts that they did not want you to know.  You aren't going to get it until the Conspiracy makes a mistake, or chooses to drop a hint, which nails down at least what rough sort of Conspiracy you are inside, out of an intractably vast field of possibilities.  If they are smarter than you, as realistically applies to a lot of Conspiracies that can access exotic physics, you end up thinking what they want you to think.  You may as well table those lines of thought, pending the Conspiracy having made what looks like a mistake.

It is an obvious thought that this is exactly what They want you to think; but thinking this doesn't actually help.

So return then to the supposition that things are apparently as they are.  Othrem has materialized in this cave by a fluke of exotic physics, anthropically selected to continue his experience from where it halted in almost all other cases.

...Well, it could also be an alien artifact which wasn't deliberately hidden but which is indifferent to announcing itself, i.e., if new arrivals always materialize in the same place it is maybe worth at least checking for alien machinery in the cave.

But with this little data, it is probably futile to go on staring at the set of 'all nonobvious possibilities' / 'all adversarial possibilities' / 'all the exotic clever hypotheses that don't involve taking things at face value'.  The set is too wide; one must try taking things at face value first.

Othrem has materialized inside a cave, continuing from where he otherwise would have died; it was an event of low probability, but the higher probabilities are ones with no Othrem around to experience them.  There is no visible alien machinery to support this.  One may suppose it either for an anthropically selected fluke of physics, or alternatively the operation of alien machinery that is indifferent to revealing itself and which happens to not be immediately visible.  Other, much wider sets of possibilities can be tabled until it is more useful to think about them; until some hint of alien motive has been revealed, or some flaw of alien concealment.

It's not a very good explanation, frankly.

Which is unfortunate, because off the top of his head, it's the only explanation Othrem sees which does not involve intelligence, which if it is involved is hiding.  Either in the sense of aliens copy-kidnapping him, or in the sense of generalized authors of generalized books; if you can't see them, it's because they don't want you to know they're there.

Reasoning gets a lot more complicated once you introduce adversarial intelligences manipulating your evidence in order to hide their own existence.  If they're sufficiently smarter than you, or maybe just smart enough to succeed at a bounded problem, you will never be able to deduce those facts that they did not want you to know.  You aren't going to get it until the Conspiracy makes a mistake, or chooses to drop a hint, which nails down at least what rough sort of Conspiracy you are inside, out of an intractably vast field of possibilities.  If they are smarter than you, as realistically applies to a lot of Conspiracies that can access exotic physics, you end up thinking what they want you to think.  You may as well table those lines of thought, pending the Conspiracy having made what looks like a mistake.

It is an obvious thought that this is exactly what They want you to think; but thinking this doesn't actually help.

So return then to the supposition that things are apparently as they are.  Othrem has materialized in this cave by a fluke of exotic physics, anthropically selected to continue his experience from where it halted in almost all other cases.

...Well, it could also be an alien artifact which wasn't deliberately hidden but which is indifferent to announcing itself, i.e., if new arrivals always materialize in the same place it is maybe worth at least checking for alien machinery in the cave.

But with this little data, it is probably futile to go on staring at the set of 'all nonobvious possibilities' / 'all adversarial possibilities' / 'all the exotic clever hypotheses that don't involve taking things at face value'.  The set is too wide; one ought to try taking things at face value first, and survey how it looks from there.

Othrem has materialized inside a cave, continuing from where he otherwise would have died; it was an event of low probability, but the higher probabilities are ones with no Othrem around to experience them.  There is no visible alien machinery to support this.  One may suppose it either for an anthropically selected fluke of physics, or alternatively the operation of alien machinery that is indifferent to revealing itself and which happens to not be immediately visible.  Other, much wider sets of possibilities can be tabled until it is more useful to think about them; until some hint of alien motive has been revealed, or some flaw of alien concealment.

It's not a very good explanation, frankly.

Which is unfortunate, because off the top of his head, it's the only explanation Othrem sees which does not involve intelligence, which if it is involved is hiding.  Either in the sense of aliens copy-kidnapping him, or in the sense of generalized authors of generalized books; if you can't see them, it's because they don't want you to know they're there.

Reasoning gets a lot more complicated once you introduce adversarial intelligences manipulating your evidence in order to hide their own existence.  If they're sufficiently smarter than you, or maybe just smart enough to succeed at a bounded problem, you will never be able to deduce those facts that they did not want you to know.  You aren't going to get it until the Conspiracy makes a mistake, or chooses to drop a hint, which nails down at least what rough sort of Conspiracy you are inside, out of an intractably vast field of possibilities.  If they are smarter than you, as realistically applies to a lot of Conspiracies that can access exotic physics, you end up thinking what they want you to think.  You may as well table those lines of thought, pending the Conspiracy having made what looks like a mistake.

It is an obvious thought that this is exactly what They want you to think; but thinking this doesn't actually help.

So return then to the supposition that things are apparently as they are.  Othrem has materialized in this cave by a fluke of exotic physics, anthropically selected to continue his experience from where it halted in almost all other cases.

...Well, it could also be an alien artifact which wasn't deliberately hidden but which is indifferent to announcing itself, i.e., if new arrivals always materialize in the same place it is maybe worth at least checking for alien machinery in the cave.

But with this little data, it is probably futile to go on staring at the set of 'all nonobvious possibilities' / 'all adversarial possibilities' / 'all the exotic clever hypotheses that don't involve taking things at face value'.  The set is too wide; one ought to try taking things at face value first, and survey how it looks from there.

Othrem has materialized inside a cave, continuing from where he otherwise would have died; it was an event of low probability, but the higher probabilities are ones with no Othrem around to experience them.  There is no visible alien machinery to support this.  One may suppose it to be either an anthropically selected fluke of physics, or alternatively the operation of alien machinery that is indifferent to revealing itself and which happens to not be immediately visible.  Other, much wider sets of Conspiratorial possibilities can be tabled until it is more useful to think about them; until some hint of alien motive has been revealed, or some flaw of alien concealment.