On 6/09/2017 5:39 pm, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 6/09/2017 2:52 pm, Russell Standish wrote:
More importantly, I'm sure you appreciate that codings are also entirely
arbitrary, that every possible bitstring will represent the OM of me
sitting at this keyboard typing to you under some coding. It is only by
fixing a coding that we can talk about bit strings having meaning, ie
some bitstrings represent (eg the aforementioned OM) whilst others
don't.
We have skirted round the coding problem. While I do not for a moment
think that there is any possible coding that can relate every possible
bitstring to my present (or any other) observer moment (there is no
coding that can make a complex entity out of a string consisting
entirely of ones, or of an infinite sequence of alternate 0s and 1s,
and so on), the problem of where the coding comes from, and how it is
interpreted, seems insurmountable. Perhaps that is, in fact, the
Achilles heel of the whole enterprise.
On reflection, I realize that coding is not really an issue if we have a
plenum consisting of all possible bit strings. After all, any coding of
any particular bitstring simply gives another bitstring -- coding is
nothing more than a map of the plenum to itself. So any possible coding
of any possible bitstring is already a string in the pile!
The question, then, is what particular strings are 'self-realizing' as
time capsules? If this is a possibility, how ever low the probability,
it must be realized among the infinite number of bitstrings in the
plenum. Nothing more need be done!
Of course, we have not actually explained anything, but that is one of
the problems of any form of 'everythingism'.
Bruce
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