Dear Juergen: I certainly currently agree with the idea that a particular universe is a cellular automaton but one that is subject to true noise from an external source. This does not preclude universes that are internally computational rather they are required to balance those that are not [no selection allowed]. Universes that are internally computational nevertheless are subject to true noise by the need to avoid an information selection within the everything. With either universe the true noise destroys the prior universe on some scale.
Absent this true noise feature I do not see how one can have a zero information ensemble and I seem to be able to forge such an ensemble with it. I believe this idea of the universe being the result of chance plus necessity goes at least back to Democritus around 400 B.C. Then of course there is the Bible: "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." Ecclesiastes; 9:11-12 If I might be so bold: if my model is viable then it seems that here the Bible points to a zero information ensemble. The cellular automaton engine for any universe need be no more "logical" than a lookup table giving the next state of a central cell as a function of the current state of its neighbors, its own current state, plus true noise in some engines. Yours Hal At 4/15/02, you wrote: >I am currently trying to understand the origins of the notion of >computable universes. > >It seems that Konrad Zuse himself (the "inventor of the computer" >who built the first digital machines in the 1930s and >completed the first working programmable computer in 1941 and >created the first higher-level programming language in 1945) >was also the first to propose that the physical universe >is just "Computing Space" (Rechnender Raum) implemented on a >grid of computers, each communicating with its neighbors. Today >this would be called a cellular automaton. The reference is: > > Zuse, Konrad: Rechnender Raum, Schriften zur Datenverarbeitung, > Band 1. Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig (1969). > >I also found references to Fredkin's similar but more recent ideas.
