Kory Heath wrote: > > On Nov 22, 2008, at 1:10 PM, Brent Meeker wrote: >> So why should it make a difference >> whether those state changes are decided by gates in the cpu or a >> huge look-up table? > > The difference is in the number of times that the relevant computation > was physically implemented. When you query the lookup table to get a > bit, you are not performing the computation again. You're just viewing > the result of the computation you did earlier. It seems to me that > this matters for Duplicationists, but maybe not for Unificationists. > > Or maybe I'm still misdiagnosing the problem. Is anyone arguing that, > when you play back the lookup table like a movie, this counts as > performing all of the Conway's Life computations a second time?
Why shouldn't it? Suppose your recording device uses a compression algorithm and suppose the compression algorithm is so efficient the compressed recording is no bigger than the Conway's Life program plus the initial state information. Brent >In > that case there would be nothing problematic about this thought > experiment for Duplicationists or Unificationists. But I don't see how > playing back the lookup table can count as implementing the Conway's > Life computations. > > -- Kory > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
