I thought Tipler's theory is that there will be an actual physical computer that will be able to do all possible computations as the Universe collapses - although since he came up with the idea it has been shown that the Universe won't collapse in the required way.
Yes, it's not Tipler's main theory, which is the one about 'resurrection"... But he also suggested this idea: that the platonic existence of mathematics might be enough for the simulation of physical universes with consciousness in them... Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness a problem in the computerless > computation scenario? > Yes, this is an unfortunate formulation on my part. The hard problem is of course a problem for all computational approaches.... Personally I take the hard problem very seriously. I think it shows that consciousness cannot be fully understood in computational terms: the what-it's-likeness of consciousness, its involving qualia, cannnot be accounted for computationally. I think this may give us a 5th option: (5) Consciousness, being inexplicable in computational terms, can be the hardware that ontologically precedes the computations that ourput the physical universe. How might this work? Here I would like to invoke an idea from the American idealist philosopher Josiah Royce, who argued for the infinite complexity of complete self-awareness. To be self-aware is to be aware that one is self-aware, and aware that one is aware of one's self-awareness... and son on. So, as Royce pointed out, there is a recursivity to self-awareness that mirrors the recursion that generates the natural number system. Similar ideas were brought forward by the German philosopher/mathematican Oskar Becker. Anyway, what this suggests is that if we postulate a primordial self-awareness as the foundation of all reality, then that self-awareness through its recursivity could be said to be aware of all natural numbers (the hierarchy of its reflective levels) and thus also of all relations between them, i.e. all computable functions. And since it is basically a self-awareness it singles out those algorithms for 'special attention' that best mirror its self-awareness by forming universes with conscious beings in them. Of course, the question remains why one should postulate the existence of such an absolute self-awareness as the basis of all existence. My guess is that such a self-awareness can bootstrap itself into existence: if esse est percipi, then the ultimate observer only exists because it observes itself. It has often been remarked that there is a circularity in self-awareness. In my view this circularity is what makes it causa sui. Royce's story then allows us to conceive of this absolute self-awareness as a computer... The idea that an absolute self-grounding self-awareness underlies existence can by the way be found in Plotinus, the Indian vedanta and German idealism (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel). Royce allows us to take this idealism into a computational direction. It is something I am working on... Peter -- 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.
