Ben,
I'm aware there are at least hundreds of different speculative approaches to quantum gravity out there in the literature. Some of these explicitly model the fundamental infrastructure of the universe as computational, as you probably know.. You mean efforts to discretize the universe? Some of them (don't know if all) are based on Wolfram's cellular automata, which I do not believe are fundamental enough. Please advice if you know of any that do not. Because the totality of all scientific data that ever has, or ever will be, gathered is a finite bit-set. And based on a finite bit-set, there's no way to determine if one is looking at a finite or infinite process, or a computational or non-computational process You mean the halting problem? But what if one requires all computational processes to be finite from the start, including that they halt? That's why we need causets, not just posets. Causets always halt, by definition. The notion of limit is a mathematical artifice, useful for describing some aspects of the world, but not others. Time-dependent differential equations are a limiting case of causets. They have limits, not necessarily science, but they should not be used beyond their limits. Your arguments do not say that emergent inference is computable. The possibility that it is uncomputable remains open. My personal variety of occam's razor biases me unscientifically toward the computational sort of model; Steve's personal variety of Occam's Razor biases him otherwise ;) ... My Occam's Razor biases me to feel very happy that we can now "compute" all those structures using emergent inference, so we have a new tool to use without having to care whether it is computable or not. But I have a new problem. It is beginning to seem to me that emergent inference is also unprovable. I can't think of any way to even remotely approach a proof. BTW, I didn't forget the report about posets I promised. Still working on it. It may turn out to be shorter than you think. Sergio From: Ben Goertzel [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2012 11:40 AM To: AGI Subject: Re: [agi] Analog Computation How is the hypothesis of non-computational processes underlying the universe not falsifiable or verifiable? Because the totality of all scientific data that ever has, or ever will be, gathered is a finite bit-set. And based on a finite bit-set, there's no way to determine if one is looking at a finite or infinite process, or a computational or non-computational process How is the hypothesis of computational processes alone underlying the universe falsifiable or verifiable? It isn't either... Science has its limits.... My personal variety of occam's razor biases me unscientifically toward the computational sort of model; Steve's personal variety of Occam's Razor biases him otherwise ;) ... ben AGI | <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/18883996-f0d58d57> | <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; ad2> Modify Your Subscription <http://www.listbox.com> ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-c97d2393 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-2484a968 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
