A possible paradox concerning consciousness and matter.

In this world there is one, at least one, living and thinking being. We could call him Paul Lester Ato.

Paul has an abstract mathematical ability. He can figure out, or at least understand, that the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter computes to about 3.14. He can understand also other similar ideas.

Things scattered about in the world are all constructed from very tiny building blocks, that we call elementary particles, or possibly strings. Also Paulīs body is constructed in that way. Paul knows that thatīs the way it is.

Paul Lester has an exact and exhaustive mathematical understanding of how the elementary particles work. We must assume that he has access to a mathematical model that is "sufficiently" exact and complete.

Now P. L. Ato becomes really wild and clever. He defines the mathematical set of all possible states for a single elementary particle, in space and in time. Nothing can happen to one lonely particle that isn't described somewhere in the set.

Paul continues and defines yet another set: the set of all possible configurations for two elementary particles in space and time. The details of this set may be too much for Paulīs brain, but the set as a concept is not completely ungraspable.

The tendency should be clear. Paul of course continues with three, four and five elementary particles. He goes on to somewhere between ten raised to the power of fourty, or fifty, or maybe even more. Paul Lester now describes an utterly large set of worlds as complicated as the one he is living in.

Yes, the world he lives in must be a member of the set, reproduced with a fair exactitude and detail, as abstract mathematics - information. Paul now wonders if his exact copy within mathematics, his cyberclone, could also be equipped with human consciousness.

If the completely abstract Paul Lester could actually be conscious, what measurement or what experiment could he perform to determine whether he is "genuinely real" or "merely" an abstract possibility?

If the foundation of our own existence is precisely this abstract and information theoretical, then would not everything be possible? An explanation is required for why we can observe physical laws that are both strict and constant. I don't know but maybe the explanation could be statistical in nature. Strict physical law could emerge as a kind of middle of the road average of chaos and motley possibilities. Is our universe rich in information because such worlds are more commonplace than simpler worlds? But how does it happen? There seems to be nothing in this point of view predicting that our elementary particles be what they are and not something else. This little thought experiment seems to remain sketchy for the time being...

Some further material.