On 27 Aug 2015, at 00:25, smitra wrote:
The answer is (1), except that that it's not the algorithm for
generating the laws of physics rather simply you, me, Bruno or
whatever other conscious entity at some particular state where they
have some conscious experience. Each different conscious experience
is defined by the action of some operator on a set of states.
Are you assuming QM?
This defines a different element for each different conscious
experience.
The laws of physics are effective meta laws that describe the
structure of the multiverse. The laws of physics allow one to
predict the probability to experience certain experimental outcomes
and this must therefore already include any effects due to us having
multiple copies in various sectors of some Platonic multiverse.
Bruno has made some progress in deriving the laws of physics from
such ideas, but I'm not convinced at this moment that his approach
is indeed the correct path.
It is not my path. It is the path of any ideally arithmetically sound
self-referentially correct entity (in particular the platonist
computationalist ideally arithmetically sound self-referentially
correct machines).
The weakness of this approach is that it use mathematical logic, which
is not well known.
I've been thinking about a different approach, here one starts with
defining an observer moment as a fuzzy object defined by a mapping
from set of inputs to a set of outputs. The fuzzyness comes from the
fact that both sets have more than one element, so one cannot nail
down exactly what is observed, it has a finite width. On the other
hand, the range is not infinite, therefore the mapping is not
clearly defined. The larger you make the range of the mapping, the
better defined the mapping becomes but then the fuzzyness of what is
observed increases.
Given any arbitrary observer moment defined by such an operator O,
one can construct a generator H such that:
exp(-i H t) = O E
where H acts on a larger space than O and then the exponentiation
results in the tensor product of O and another operator E that acts
on the extraneous degrees of freedom. The question is if there
exists an H that can be specified with just a few bits of
information for some generic O that needs to be specified using
trillions of gigabytes of information.
I am open to the exp(-i H t) solution. The advantage of getting it,
(if it is correct from the machine's introspection/interview) is to
make us able to distinguish the sharable part (the measurable numbers
of the experimental physicists) from the non sharable (but still true)
part of reality, that is, notably, the qualia, consciousness, the
divine, etc. This by the intensional nuance of the logic of self-
reference G and G*, and G* \ G, but mainly.
The aristotelians cheat by looking at nature, but of course there is
no problem, and it is needed to compare with what the machine can find
in their "head".
Bruno
Saibal
On 26-08-2015 09:21, Peter Sas wrote:
Hi guys and girls,
I'm sure this question has already come up many times before, but
it's
an important one, so I guess it can't do any harm to go over it
again.
If the universe is thoroughly computational, what are the
computations
'running' on? What I especially like to know is what options are
discussed in digital physics. So far I have encountered only the
following possibilities:
(1) Mathematical platonism: all natural numbers, and all mappings
between them (i.e. all algorithms), simply exist in 'Plato's heaven',
including those algorithms that compute our universe. The simple
non-spatiotemporal existence of those algorithms is enough to
'instantiate' a spatiotemporal world. This type of solution can be
found in Tipler, Tegmark and our own Bruno Marchal. Major problem:
the
hard problem of consciousness.
(2) Simulation by an advanced civilization: Our universe is simulated
on a physical computer build by a superior intelligence. Nick
Bolstrom
has explored this option and found it quite probable. I don't know
about that, but as a general approach to digital physics it fails. If
we want to understand the physical universe in terms of computation
then it is circular to postulate a physical hardware on which the
computations are running.
(3) Or perhaps it is not circular? This third option sees the
physical
universe itself as a (quantum) computer (or cellular automaton)
computing its own future. Thus its present state is the input and the
temporally next state is the output. Isn't this how David Deutsch
approaches it? I am not very clear on this option. The major problem
seems to be that you have to presuppose an initial state of the
universe that itself is not the result of computation, just to avoid
an infinite regress. Or you accept the regress and say the universe
exists eternally (but this is problematic in light of the big bang).
But then you still have to explain why the universe exists eternally.
And then the explanation must still fall outside the computations
going on in the universe...
(4) The computations that yield our universe run on a platform that
exists somewhere else, in another dimension that is principally
inaccessible to us. Ed Fredkin has embraced this 'solution' and calls
this other dimension simply "the Other" which has a theological ring
to it. I don't like this option, but it seems to be the most
straightforward one.
Any thoughts or corrections? Are there some options I haven't
discussed.
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