On Wed, Jul 06, 2011 at 10:12:45PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: > >One that happens to be incompatible with > >theory that our minds are computer programs. > > Can you explain that? It seems to be Bruno's central claim, but so > far as I can see he only tries to prove that a physical reality is > otiose. > > Brent
Here's my take on it. I guess you read the version I wrote 6 years ago in ToN. Once you allow the existence of a universal dovetailer, we are far more likely to be running on the dovetailer (which is a simple program) than on a much more complicated program (such as simulating the universe as we currently see it). Under COMP, the dovetailer is capable of generating all possible experiences (which is why it is universal). Therefore, everything we call physics (electrons, quarks, electromagnetic fields, etc) is phenomena caused by the running of the dovetailer. By Church-Turing thesis, the dovetailer could be running on anything capable of supporting universal computation. To use Kantian terminology, what the dovetailer runs on is the noumenon, unknowable reality, which need have no connection which the phenomenon we observe. In fact with the CT-thesis, we cannot even know which noumenon we're running on, in the case there may be more than one. We might just as well be running on some demigod's child's playstation, as running on Platonic arithmetic. It is in principle unknowable, even by any putative omniscient God - there is simply no matter of fact there to know. So ultimately, this is why Bruno eliminates the concrete dovetailer, in the manner of Laplace eliminating God "Sire, je n'ai besoin de cet hypothese". Anyway, Bruno will no doubt correct any mistaken conceptions here :). Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- 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.
