On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 4:45 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On 12/12/2012 8:00 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>> All,
>>
>> One of the questions in mathematics is where does mathematical truth come
>> from, if it exists platonically, how does it manifest physically (e.g. as
>> the utterances of mathematicians).
>>
>> I had a thought inspired by one of Roger's posts regarding cause and
>> effect extending outside of spacetime.  I thought, there is nothing
>> preventing the goings on in this universe from having causal implications
>> outside our universe.  Consider that an advanced civilization might choose
>> to simulate our universe and inspect it.  Then when they observe what
>> happens in our universe the observations generate causal effects in their
>> own universe.  The same applies to our universe, we might choose to observe
>> another universe through simulation, and our discoveries or observations of
>> that other universe change us.  Thus, the various universes that can exist
>> out there are more interconnected than we might suppose.  Our universe is
>> an open book to those universes possessing sufficient computational power
>> to simulate it.  Likewise, how simple universes like certain small
>> instances of the game of life are open books to us.  The possibilities of
>> gliders in the GoL has led to many discussions about GoL gliders, their
>> existence in the GoL universe has led to the manifestation of physical
>> changes in our own universe.
>>
>> I think the entrance of mathematical truth to our own universe is no
>> different.  Mathematicians have used their minds to simulate objects and
>> structures that exist in other universes, in a sense they observe them, and
>> then those mathematicians report their observations and discoveries
>> concerning those objects, just as an advanced civilization might report
>> discoveries about our universe, or we might report discoveries about the
>> GoL universe.  Thus the structures and objects which exist in other
>> universes have directly changed the course of the evolution of our own.
>>
>
> Except the simulation of the other universe is in this universe and the
> existence of that 'other universe' being simulated is just an assumption.


Even the existence of our own universe, we must admit, is an assumption.


>  So it boils down to assumptions made in this universe can have
> consequences in this universe.
>

I see your point, someone in this universe at least needs to have the idea
about a possible other universe out there, before building a simulation of
it, but we could just as well iterate over all the natural numbers, and map
each number to a string of letters, and any such strings of letters which
describe how to setup a simulation could be run, so it doesn't really take
any creativity at all, like the UD, it can be entirely automated.  Thus in
just starting from 0 .. infinity, we can iterate over all possible digital
simulations, and spend eternity exploring them and learning things about
them.

I would also add, the existence of glider guns (and even Turing machines)
in the GoL universe is not immediately clear from the assumptions of the
rules that define the GoL universe.  When they were discovered, is it more
appropriate to say "they were discovered in our starting assumptions" or
"they were discovered a GoL universe"?


>
> Simulating other universes which are anything like ours is impossible
> anyway because it is impossible to gather the necessary information to
> initialize the simulation.  There are events out beyond our past light cone
> that we cannot know about now, but which will affect us in the future.
>

Well once you have identified the volume and length of time you wish to run
the simulation for, you can fill out the X number of light years beyond
that volume just so you don't get any surprises.  E.g., to simulate our
solar system over the next 5 years, simulate 5 light years around our solar
system.   Or if our universes is folded in on itself, it has a non-infinite
volume, which could serve as a boundary for the simulation.

Jason

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