On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 9:37 PM, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> You could argue that all modern science has done is prove the vacuum is
>> not nothing and although Leibniz was wrong about that the question remains
>> valid, but I would say expecting science to explain how a nothing that is
>> so nothing that it doesn't even have the potential of ever becoming
>> something is unreasonable. Even a omnipotent omniscient God couldn't do
>> that, it would be like asking Him to make a rock so heavy he can't lift it.
>>
>
> *>This is giving up. I think we can, and have explained why there is
> something rather than nothing.*
>
That depends on how nothing nothing is. Leibniz would say although there is
still not a definitive answer a enormous amount of progress has been made
in answering that question, but now people say because of that very
progress it doesn't count. If you define nothing as "that which does not
even have the potential of ever becoming something" then the only logical
thing for scientists to do is indeed to give up. And they are not the only
ones, God should give up trying to answer that too.
> >* *
> *Even if no thing existed, there would still be a difference between "1 =
> 0" and "0 = 0".*
>
One doesn't exist and zero doesn't exist. No difference.
> >
> There would still be a difference between "7 is composite" and "7 is
> prime", and you can continue this up to far less trivial truths about much
> bigger numbers, such as solutions to the Diophantine equation that
> simulates the time evolution of the Schrodinger equation
>
So now you have an equation simulating an equation that is describing the
probability of a event occurring in the physical world, you are describing
with words a painting of a roulette wheel. Except of course an equation
can't simulate anything, to do that you need a computer made of matter and
energy to run it.
>
> >
> *Consider the first person views of conscious gliders in Conway's Game of
> Life. From their point of view*,
> [...]
>
A Turing Machine can be built from Conway's Life game and gliders would be
a key part of it, but a individual glider has no intelligence and the
chances it is conscious and has a point of view are about the same as the
brain neurotransmitter molecule Acetylcholine being conscious.
>**
*the evolution of their game moves forward, according to discrete and
simple rules. But they would wonder why. *
Physicist in the Life world might discover those rules after years of
effort, and to them that would be a physical discovery not a mathematical
one. And even to us who can see things from the outside of their world that
they can't its still about physics and the movement of electrons through a
machine made of matter.
>
>>> >>
>>>
>>> *Feynman: "It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we
>>> understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of
>>> logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a
>>> region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that
>>> be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of
>>> logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do?"*
>>
>>
>>
>> >>
>> That is exactly why I think the field of Quantum Computers has such
>> enormous potential.
>>
>
> *>But can you explain it?*
>
If I could I'd be writhing my Nobel Prize acceptance speech right now and
not be farting around on the Everything List.
*>Computationalism can, as the infinite set of computations that realize
your mind, all of which exist platonically at a level of finer detail than
is relevant/necessary for the implementation of your mind.*
The infinite set of computations may exist in Plato's heaven, but nearly
all of those computations are wrong and in heaven there is no way to tell
the difference between correct and incorrect. It's like the Jorge Luis
Borges short story "The Library Of Babel", it contains every possible book
of 1000 pages or less all arranged in alphabetical order. The first book is
nothing but a thousand pages of {....aaaaaaaaaaaaaa...}, the second book is
identical except that page 1000 ends with {...aaaaaaaaaaaaab}, the last
book is nothing but {....zzzzzzzzzz...} . The library contains every great
book ever written and every great book that will be written, it contains
every true statement that can be expressed in 1000 pages or less and the
library is totally and completely useless because the vast majority of
books are just gibberish and the vast majority of non-gibberish books are
false and there is no way to tell the true ones from the false and because
of the way the books are arranged there is no way to find a specific book
unless you already know exactly what is in it.
> >
> *Do you think the 10^(10^120)th binary digit of Pi has a definite, but yet
> unknown value?*
>
If the entire universe does not have sufficient computational capacity to
ever calculate it and the word "exists" is to have any meaning then that
digit does not exist.
> >>
>> As you point out, the answer a Turing Machine spite out depends on its
>> program not what its made of, you can make one with silicon or vacuum tubes
>> or mechanical gears or even Lego blocks, but you can't make one out of pure
>> numbers, it you could be Intel wouldn't need silicon, and it does.
>>
>
> >**
> *I've given counter examples already. Look at my first and second post in
> this thread.*
>
I did look and I saw no such counter example or even a hint of one.
>
>>>> >>
>>>> >>
>>>>
>>>> Definitions are made for our convenience, they do not create physical
>>>> objects.
>>>>
>>>
>>> >
>>> >>
>>>
>>> *Physical theories are also made for our convenience and they do not
>>> tell physical objects what to do.*
>>>
>>
>>
>> >>
>> Yes, but physical theories do tell **us** what those physical objects
>> will do under a certain range of conditions, outside of that range we ned
>> to find a better theory.
>>
>
> >
> *You deleted my comment that showed the analogy between physical theories
> and mathematical theories. Why?*
>
Because I'm a mendacious evil being with no interest in finding the truth,
is that what you want me to say? Come on Jason, we were having a very nice
discussion, there is no reason to get all nasty now. This list is not the
Talmud and neither of us is obligated to comment on every line of the
others post, and if I'm not commenting on it I see little reason to repeat
verbatim what you already said. In this particular instance I did not
comment because I didn't think the point you made was very important and
because I had no strong disagreement with it, although I might have phrased
it a little differently and mentioned the difference between a mathematical
object and a physical object; a physical object can effect me even if I’m
not thinking about it but a mathematical object can’t.
I really hate the iterated layers of quotations seen on this list that can
sometimes be 10 layers deep so I always limit my quotations to the specific
thing I'm commenting on, however I want to keep the peace and therefore I
will now include your quotation in full even though it is already on the
list:
===
"
Physical theories are also made for our convenience and they do not tell
physical objects what to do.
Instead we study physical objects, and try to reason about what laws make
sense and describe the phenomenon we observe.
It is no different with mathematical theories (a.k.a. axioms and
theorems). Mathematicians study mathematical objects, and reason about
what laws make sense to describe the phenomenon we observe. When they find
sufficient justification, they can amend or extend the fundamental theories
(axioms), or even throw them out altogether.
"
===
>
> *>(k^2 - kx - x^2)^2 - 1 = 0 --> (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34,
> 55, 89, ... )*
> *In this Fibbonacci relation, F_n = F_(n-1) + F_(n-2)*
> *Can we then say, that each element has a "memory" of its two previous
> successors?*
>
Memory" of its two previous successors? A element can't can't even remember
what set its supposed to be in unless that information somehow encoded in
matter that obeys the laws of physics.
> *>If that analogy is too much of a stretch for you, what about the "Game
> of Life" equation, which contains as its solutions the states of an
> evolving game of life simulation. To compute this evolution, we need a
> memory of the state to track its evolution. *
>
That is very true, you need a memory if you want the Life pattern to
evolve, and that memory is in the the form of electrical charges in
billions of capacitors imprinted on a RAM chip.
>
> *You started with "0" universes exist", "0" is "1 thing", so then 1
> exists. *
>
The concept "exists
"
has meaning only because of contrast, some things exist and some don't, if
there was everything then a statement about the existence or nonexistence
of X would contain no information because it would tell you nothing you
didn't already. The same thing would be true if there were nothing.
>
> *>So you believe there is a largest prime?*
>
I even believe there is a largest integer, it is so large that it would be
impossible to add 1 to it. And if the Bekenstein bound is true, and most
physicists think it is, then the entire universe can only contain 10^124
bits of information, so beyond a certain point every integer is a prime
because the very universe itself can't find any factors for them. They are
finite but so large that there is no way to even know what their last digit
is much less their factors.
John K Clark
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