The Anthropic Puzzle, and the Nature of Human Epistemology

Imagine you find a twenty-four-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle in a thrift store. You assume it is twenty-four-thousand pieces because that's what it says on the box---and it's a huge box. The only other thing on the box is a picture of a man. There are no explanations.

The price tag sticker on the box says "2 cents". When you look inside the box, you see only a bunch of normal-sized pure black puzzle pieces that shimmer in the light. Despite the large number of pieces, you find this puzzle compelling. You estimate that its assembled size would be about 144 square feet---not too big for your living room floor.

So, out of an odd curiosity, you buy the puzzle and take it home. After all, it only cost you two cents. As you begin laying out the pieces on the floor, you notice that they all are randomly shaped on two opposing sides, while the other two sides are shaped like normal jigsaw puzzle pieces.

A few months later you have assembled enough groups of the pieces to realize that there is nothing random about the 'random' sides of the pieces: the puzzle is just a really huge border outlining the shape of a man. But, there is still something about this puzzle that puzzles you. Eventually, you get a hunch. You get working.

Your hunch is right: the shimmering quality of the pieces are parts of a faint hologram when laid out in a grid, with each piece simply abutting adjacent pieces. The hologram is of the words "You asked for it: my two cents."

At this point, you take a trip back to the thrift store to ask the employees, and hopefully also the owner, about this puzzle. You want to know who made it, and why. Strangely, every employee you find is identically reticent in their answer. They all reply with a shrug and say, "It's just a puzzle." This gets on your nerves.

Weeks go by before you finally track down so much as the store owner's phone number. It's an unlisted number---which increases your irritation. You call him up, your hands shaking in frustration, and you beg him to tell you about the puzzle. He replies simply, "It's just a puzzle". You explode.

You scream through the phone at him, demanding that he explain why everyone who knows about the puzzle keeps giving that same non-answer.

He replies that "that's the whole point: it's just a puzzle: the actual world is already assembled, and you're down in it."

"I'm down in it?", you ask. "What does that mean?"

He replies, "From your perspective, the actual world is highly topographic, and you are not able to look down on it. The only thing you can look down on is the puzzle itself----like a paper map of the world, it's not the actual world down in which you live. If you want to understand the world, you have to understand your relative position in it. You have to be willing to look up."

After a few moments of silence, you ask him, "Who made the puzzle?"

"You did." he says.

"I mean, who made the pieces?"

He hems and haws for a bit, and then says, "Why..., do you want your two cents back?"