On 08 Oct 2014, at 23:16, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
> the question is not if human can use nature's solution of an NP-
hard (or even a non computable analog function),
If nature can do it then there is no reason humans can't harness
nature to do it for us, but there is ZERO evidence that nature can
solve NP complete problems (much less non computable problems!) in
polynomial time.
I agree for the NP complete. But quantum computation suggest some NP
hard, but not complete (to my current knowledge) problem can be solved
in polynomial time by quantum computer, and remains exponential
classically.
> but if nature does
The question isn't if human beings can devise problems that are NP-
complete, we already know that they can, the question is: Does
nature ever solve NP-hard problems in polynomial time? There is not
one scarp of evidence that it does.
Quantum computations?
> If our consciousness relies on this [...]
Then it's very odd that we can't find one bit of evidence that it's
true and even odder that we're even worse at solving NP-complete
problems than computers are.
Sure, may be only Ramanujan's brain was a quantum computer :)
Of course we know that Ramanujan was only consulting the goddess
Namagiri ...
I am just joking. I doubt nature solve NP complete problem, except
many NP hard all the time because it seems (at least) to emulate a
solution of the SWE, which is exponential.
> The point, I thought, was theoretical at the start.
You theory predicted that soap films could solve NP-complete problems.
I never said that. I read that mathematicians have proved this for
some NP hard (not NP complete) problem. It is nothing to do with "my
theory" (which is just taking seriously the web of all possible
emulation of subjective exoerience which exists in arithmetic. Then
the question of the existence, and definition, of a physical universe
can be framed.
If you could revise a bit of the step 3, you might understand that the
idea "there is a primitive physical universe" is a speculation which
might not corresponds to the facts, nor the logic, when taking
computationalism seriously enough.
Experiment showed that it can not. Therefore the your theory is wrong.
No, you are wrong.
If it has been proved it can't be wrong. The mathematicians did not
pretend real soap can do it in a manner such that it can be exploited.
They use perfect fluids. It is like the proof that billiard ball can
emulate the turing machine. That is true for perfect ball not
dissipating energies. It is math. Quantum computing is also math, but
with surprising theorems making us thinking we can achieve it in
practice.
A good experiment ALWAYS outranks theory, any theory.
Not always. QM remains undefeated, and we know slight change would
only make the weirdness weirder.
And by the way, elementary arithmetic remains undefeated, even if
today we know that the elementary arithmetical realm is immensely vast
and that it challenges all theories ...
If you accept the computationalist thesis, which entails that the
running of some programs emulate your consciousness, and if you are
aware of computer science, that a tiny fragment of arithmetic
provability is sigma_1 complete, and thus Turing universal, so that
existence of computations, and emulations of machines by other
machines is an arithmetical notion, and that there is an infinity of
computations going through your current states in arithmetic.
To select one by saying "physical universe" is not a better
explanation than God made the universe.
Computationalism does not solve the problem, but it helps, through
computer science, to formulate key parts of it, and it suggests, at
the least, a rational explanation of where the beliefs in physical
universes can come from.
The day I tend to find comp plausible, I feel atheist with respect to
your god, the primary physical universe. It is more like a web of
histories to me (those days). Some sharable, some non sharable.
Bruno
John K Clark
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
