Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Peter Sas]

Thanks for the Steinhart links! I must confess I found his "More Precisely" 
very useful

Op woensdag 2 september 2015 14:35:39 UTC+2 schreef spudb...@aol.com:
>
> Excellent website you have there, Peter. Let me present Eric Steinhart, 
> if you don't already know him? He is also a big fan of Josiah Royce.
>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfDB35y-5Z0
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTcQp1bTKHA
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Peter Sas 
> To: Everything List 
> Sent: Wed, Sep 2, 2015 8:02 am
> Subject: Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing 
> platform? What are the options?
>
> Hi Mike, 
>
> That film looks like a lot of fun... How can I see it? Can I order a copy 
> online? 
>
> Here by the way is my latest blog post on the platform problem in digital 
> physics and the relation to consciousness: 
> http://critique-of-pure-interest.blogspot.nl/2015/09/is-universe-self-computing-consciousness.html
>  
>
> Peter 
>
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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Peter Sas]

Hi Mike,

That film looks like a lot of fun... How can I see it? Can I order a copy 
online?

Here by the way is my latest blog post on the platform problem in digital 
physics and the relation to consciousness: 
http://critique-of-pure-interest.blogspot.nl/2015/09/is-universe-self-computing-consciousness.html

Peter

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Excellent website you have there, Peter. Let me present Eric Steinhart, if you 
don't already know him? He is also a big fan of Josiah Royce.



 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfDB35y-5Z0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTcQp1bTKHA

 

 

-Original Message-
From: Peter Sas 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Wed, Sep 2, 2015 8:02 am
Subject: Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? 
What are the options?


 
Hi Mike,  
  
That film looks like a lot of fun... How can I see it? Can I order a copy 
online?  
  
Here by the way is my latest blog post on the platform problem in digital 
physics and the relation to consciousness: 
http://critique-of-pure-interest.blogspot.nl/2015/09/is-universe-self-computing-consciousness.html
  
  
Peter  
  
 
  
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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[John Clark]

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015  Alberto G. Corona  wrote:

​>
>> ​> ​
>> How Aristotle could have disproved that, you fool?
>
>
​If Aristotle, the so called master of logic, didn't want to use logic to
disprove it he could have disproved it the same way
Galileo
​ did, with experiments using a inclined plane. Galileo used no technology
that was unavailable to Aristotle.

  John K Clark​

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Alberto G. Corona]

if you were capable of thinking a little bit you would know that Galileo
did not demonstrated that.  It is is one of many myths of science. There is
no way to demonstrate it  in the earth except in a large vacuum tube and
with high precision photography
 Galileo demonstrated that bodies accelerate constantly. All that shit is a
post-hoc construction like many absurd histories that unworty universitary
fools circulate around.

2015-09-01 19:00 GMT+02:00 John Clark :

>
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015  Alberto G. Corona  wrote:
>
> ​>
>>> ​> ​
>>> How Aristotle could have disproved that, you fool?
>>
>>
> ​If Aristotle, the so called master of logic, didn't want to use logic to
> disprove it he could have disproved it the same way
> Galileo
> ​ did, with experiments using a inclined plane. Galileo used no technology
> that was unavailable to Aristotle.
>
>   John K Clark​
>
>
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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[John Clark]

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015  Alberto G. Corona  wrote:

​> ​
> if you were capable of thinking a little bit you would know that Galileo
> did not demonstrated that.  It is is one of many myths of science. There is
> no way to demonstrate it  in the earth except in a large vacuum tube and
> with high precision photography
> ​ ​
>

​Don't be ridiculous! The entire point of using an inclined plane rather
than a straight drop is that things accelerate more slowly so Galileo
didn't need high speed photography, and a large
vacuum tube
​is not necessary to observe that a light wooden cylinder rolls down an
inclined plane just as fast as a heavy bronze cylinder does. Galileo
observed it and Aristotle had all the technological resources to observe it
too but he did not because Aristotle never bothered to look.


> ​> ​
> Galileo demonstrated that bodies accelerate constantly.
>

​Yes exactly, Galileo demonstrated that gravity makes things accelerate at
a constant rate regardless of their weight or composition. He discovered ​
​the law of odd numbers, he found that regardless of its weight or
composition if an object falls a distance of ​one unit in the first second
then in the next second it will fall 3 units and in the second after that
will fall 5 units a
nd in the second after that it
​will ​
fall
​7​
 units
​etc.​ T
here is no way
​​
​the law of odd numbers could be true​
 if heavy things fell faster than light things.   ​

Galileo
​also demonstrated that the period of a pendulum was unaffected by its
weight and depended only on its length, there is no way that could happen
if heavy things fell faster than light things.

Aristotle should have known all this but
​he ​
did not because the jackass never bothered to perform a few simple
experiments
​,​
 and he never used pure logic to realize his heavy things fall faster idea
was just silly.  ​




> ​> ​
> All that shit is a post-hoc construction like many absurd histories that
> unworty universitary fools circulate around.
>

​What is unworthy is the absurd ancestor worship of the ancient Greeks that
many on this list engage in.


​ John K Clark​

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Alberto G. Corona]

​>>
Aristotle
​ believed that heavy objects fell more quickly than light ones, *something
that could have been easily disproved* *even on his own day *but he
understood it so well, or thought he did, that he didn't bother to make any
observations on the matter.


How Aristotle could have disproved that, you fool?

2015-09-01 10:55 GMT+02:00 Alberto G. Corona :

> What most astonishes me of this modern world is how plain stupid nonsense
> can become common sense by repetition if that serve the purpose to
> denigrate the past.
>
>
> ​>>
> Aristotle
> ​ believed that heavy objects fell more quickly than light ones, *something
> that could have been easily disproved* *even on his own day *but he
> understood it so well, or thought he did, that he didn't bother to make any
> observations on the matter.
>
>
>
>
> 2015-09-01 5:14 GMT+02:00 meekerdb :
>
>> On 8/31/2015 3:19 PM, John Clark wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 2:14 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>>  ​
>>>
>>>
 ​ >>
 Aristotle
 ​ believed that heavy objects fell more quickly than light ones,
 something that could have been easily disproved even on his own day but he
 understood it so well, or thought he did, that he didn't bother to make any
 observations on the matter.

>>>
>>> ​ > ​
>>> But he did observe that a rock fell faster than a leaf. He also believed
>>> that an active force was necessary to sustain motion because he observed
>>> that if you stopped pulling a wagon it came to a halt.
>>>
>>
>> ​
>> Pure logic can't prove that a physical theory is correct but it can prove
>> that it's wrong i
>> ​ f​
>> it's self contradictory and Aristotle's theory was.
>> ​ ​
>> If you take a heavy rock and tie it to a slightly lighter rock with some
>> string that has some slack in it and drop them then both rocks would fall
>> slower than the big rock alone because the slower moving lighter rock would
>> bog it down, but the tied together object
>> ​
>> would fall faster than the heavy rock because the new object is heavier
>> than the heavy rock alone.
>>
>>
>> Suppose he'd done this with a leaf and a rock.  He'd have found it
>> depended on whether they were just tethered together or tightly bound.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>> --
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Alberto.
>



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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Alberto G. Corona]

What most astonishes me of this modern world is how plain stupid nonsense
can become common sense by repetition if that serve the purpose to
denigrate the past.


​>>
Aristotle
​ believed that heavy objects fell more quickly than light ones, *something
that could have been easily disproved* *even on his own day *but he
understood it so well, or thought he did, that he didn't bother to make any
observations on the matter.




2015-09-01 5:14 GMT+02:00 meekerdb :

> On 8/31/2015 3:19 PM, John Clark wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 2:14 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>  ​
>>
>>
>>> ​ >>
>>> Aristotle
>>> ​ believed that heavy objects fell more quickly than light ones,
>>> something that could have been easily disproved even on his own day but he
>>> understood it so well, or thought he did, that he didn't bother to make any
>>> observations on the matter.
>>>
>>
>> ​ > ​
>> But he did observe that a rock fell faster than a leaf. He also believed
>> that an active force was necessary to sustain motion because he observed
>> that if you stopped pulling a wagon it came to a halt.
>>
>
> ​
> Pure logic can't prove that a physical theory is correct but it can prove
> that it's wrong i
> ​ f​
> it's self contradictory and Aristotle's theory was.
> ​ ​
> If you take a heavy rock and tie it to a slightly lighter rock with some
> string that has some slack in it and drop them then both rocks would fall
> slower than the big rock alone because the slower moving lighter rock would
> bog it down, but the tied together object
> ​
> would fall faster than the heavy rock because the new object is heavier
> than the heavy rock alone.
>
>
> Suppose he'd done this with a leaf and a rock.  He'd have found it
> depended on whether they were just tethered together or tightly bound.
>
> Brent
>
> --
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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[John Clark]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 11:14 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

​>>​
>> Pure logic can't prove that a physical theory is correct but it can prove
>> that it's wrong i
>> f​
>> it's self contradictory and Aristotle's theory was.
>> ​ ​
>> If you take a heavy rock and tie it to a slightly lighter rock with some
>> string that has some slack in it and drop them then both rocks would fall
>> slower than the big rock alone because the slower moving lighter rock would
>> bog it down, but the tied together object
>> ​
>> would fall faster than the heavy rock because the new object is heavier
>> than the heavy rock alone.
>
>

​> ​
> Suppose he'd done this with a leaf and a rock.
>

​It wouldn't change the fact that if it was done between a heavy rock and a
slightly lighter rock a logical contradiction is produced, and that
shouldn't happen under any circumstances, therefore his theory that ​heavy
things fall faster than light ones can not be correct. And if he'd actually
done the experiment with a light leaf and a heavy rock he might have
started to wonder what exactly made a leaf move on a windy day and why the
wind didn't move heavy rocks. But of course Aristotle never did any
experiments, he just sat on his ass and thought, and he didn't even do that
very well.

​  John K Clark​

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[meekerdb]

On 8/31/2015 3:19 PM, John Clark wrote:



On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 2:14 PM, meekerdb > wrote:

 ​


​ >>
Aristotle
​ believed that heavy objects fell more quickly than light ones, something 
that
could have been easily disproved even on his own day but he understood it 
so well,
or thought he did, that he didn't bother to make any observations on the 
matter.


​ > ​
But he did observe that a rock fell faster than a leaf. He also believed 
that an
active force was necessary to sustain motion because he observed that if 
you stopped
pulling a wagon it came to a halt.


​
Pure logic can't prove that a physical theory is correct but it can prove that 
it's wrong i
​ f​
it's self contradictory and Aristotle's theory was.
​ ​
If you take a heavy rock and tie it to a slightly lighter rock with some string that has 
some slack in it and drop them then both rocks would fall slower than the big rock alone 
because the slower moving lighter rock would bog it down, but the tied together object

​
would fall faster than the heavy rock because the new object is heavier than the heavy 
rock alone.


Suppose he'd done this with a leaf and a rock.  He'd have found it depended on whether 
they were just tethered together or tightly bound.


Brent

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 28 Aug 2015, at 16:01, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:




On Thursday, August 27, 2015, meekerdb  wrote:



 Forwarded Message 
Subject:	Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing  
platform? What are the options?

Date:   Wed, 26 Aug 2015 17:32:37 +1000
From:   Stathis Papaioannou 
Reply-To:   everything-list@googlegroups.com
To:	everything-list@googlegroups.com l...@googlegroups.com>




On 26 August 2015 at 17:21, 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.


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.


Major problem: the hard problem of consciousness.

Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness a problem in the  
computerless computation scenario?


Because then it's not clear why there should be the connection  
between brains and consciousness.  If they are both just  
computations, why do they have this tight causal relation. Why can't  
the consciousness be computed independently.  If it can't, if it  
depends on the brain being also computer - then you're back to the  
"hard problem".


Yes; I meant that it's no more or less a problem if there is no  
physical computer.


I see your point, and agree.

But strictly speaking, if there is no physical computer, we must  
explain also how and why beliefs in physical computer occurred, and  
seems persistently confirmed.


Now, if it is "easy" to establish the existence of computations  
supporting people believing in physical computers, the arithmetical  
first person indeterminacy makes that not enough to explain the  
internal stability of those dreams.


Then the quale part of the mind-"no-body" problem is not that  
difficult when we take into account the logic of correct machine self- 
reference, which introduces all the nuances needed, in their 3p  
justifiable (or not), and in their 3p expressible (or not) nuances.  
(The 8 stases). I guess I might need to come back on this.


Bruno






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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[John Clark]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 2:14 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
 ​
>
>
>> ​>>
>> Aristotle
>> ​ believed that heavy objects fell more quickly than light ones,
>> something that could have been easily disproved even on his own day but he
>> understood it so well, or thought he did, that he didn't bother to make any
>> observations on the matter.
>>
>
> ​> ​
> But he did observe that a rock fell faster than a leaf. He also believed
> that an active force was necessary to sustain motion because he observed
> that if you stopped pulling a wagon it came to a halt.
>

​
Pure logic can't prove that a physical theory is correct but it can prove
that it's wrong i
​f​
it's self contradictory and Aristotle's theory was.
​ ​
If you take a heavy rock and tie it to a slightly lighter rock with some
string that has some slack in it and drop them then both rocks would fall
slower than the big rock alone because the slower moving lighter rock would
bog it down, but the tied together object
​
would fall faster than the heavy rock because the new object is heavier
than the heavy rock alone.

​ John K Clark​

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 30 Aug 2015, at 19:35, John Clark wrote:




On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 2:16 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


​> ​The dogma did not come from Plato, nor even Aristotle,

​All the ancient greeks in your own words "​believe in what they  
understand, not necessarily in what they observe​" and that was the  
problem.​ Aristotle​ believed that heavy objects fell more  
quickly than light ones, something that could have been easily  
disproved even on his own day but he understood it so well, or  
thought he did, that he didn't bother to make any observations on  
the matter. In the same way Aristotle "understood" that women had  
fewer teeth than men so he never thought it necessary to actually  
count the teeth in his wife's mouth even though he was married  
twice. And that sort of thinking is exactly why science made such  
little progress for 2000 years, from the ancient Greeks to the  
renaissance​.​


But theology the science did not get through, and today, despite your  
critics on Aristotle, you continue to take his theology for granted,  
and apparently without noticing it. But then you have just made  
contradictory statements about this in your other post, making me  
unsure why I try to answer to you, ... probably to make some pause as  
I have a lot of works today-and-sequel.


Bruno





  John K Clark





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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Alberto G. Corona]

I don`t know the computation, but for sure that will you have the option of
running it on Linux or Windows

2015-08-26 9:21 GMT+02:00 Peter Sas peterjacco...@gmail.com:

 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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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[meekerdb]

On 8/30/2015 10:35 AM, John Clark wrote:



On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 2:16 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be 
mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


​  ​
The dogma did not come from Plato, nor even Aristotle,


​All the ancient greeks in your own words ​
believe in what they understand, not necessarily in what they observe
​  and that was the problem.​
Aristotle
​ believed that heavy objects fell more quickly than light ones, something that could 
have been easily disproved even on his own day but he understood it so well, or thought 
he did, that he didn't bother to make any observations on the matter.


But he did observe that a rock fell faster than a leaf. He also believed that an active 
force was necessary to sustain motion because he observed that if you stopped pulling a 
wagon it came to a halt.


In the same way Aristotle understood that women had fewer teeth than men so he never 
thought it necessary to actually count the teeth in his wife's mouth even though he was 
married twice. And that sort of thinking is exactly why science made such little 
progress for 2000 years, from

the ancient Greeks to the renaissance
​.​


There was a Greek school of philosophy that not only made careful observations but also 
quantified them.  It's generally thought to have been founded by Thales of Miletus who 
rejected explanations in terms of gods. It included Pythagoras who observed that the Earth 
must be a sphere because only a sphere could cast a circular shadow on the Moon in all 
different orientations. Aristarchus of Samos who estimated the size of the Earth, the 
distance to the Sun and measured the relative distance of the Sun and Moon. Most of these 
Greeks philosophers are only known from commentary on them made later by Aristotle and 
Plato.  The writings of Aristotle and Plato were preserved by copying because their 
physics and meta-physics respectively fit with Christianity.  Aristotle held that the 
Earth was at the center of the universe and that all things below the Moon were 
corruptible while things in the heavens were perfect and eternal.  Plato held that 
perception was illusory and that only pure thought could recollect the truths which were 
perfect and eternal.


Brent

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[John Clark]

On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 2:16 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 ​ ​
 The dogma did not come from Plato, nor even Aristotle,


​All the ancient greeks in your own words ​
believe in what they understand, not necessarily in what they observe
​ and that was the problem.​
Aristotle
​ believed that heavy objects fell more quickly than light ones, something
that could have been easily disproved even on his own day but he understood
it so well, or thought he did, that he didn't bother to make any
observations on the matter. In the same way Aristotle understood that
women had fewer teeth than men so he never thought it necessary to actually
count the teeth in his wife's mouth even though he was married twice. And
that sort of thinking is exactly why science made such little progress for
2000 years, from
the ancient Greeks to the renaissance
​.​

  John K Clark

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 28 Aug 2015, at 17:18, Mike White wrote:


Great topic Peter!

I recently worked on a film called Digital Physics in which the  
protagonist, Khatchig, chases the answer to some of these questions  
and I've been trying to keep following these concepts ever since. I  
can't tell you exactly which one of your possibilities Khatchig  
supports in his quest to prove DP but it's exactly what you're  
talking about and I have a feeling the film touches on a number of  
them.  Cellular Automaton, Simulations, Computers, Wolfram, Fredkin,  
Kolmogorov Complexity, Free Will, etc... it's all in there. Maybe  
you guys can make heads or tails of the science in the movie.  I'm  
still trying to!


Digital physics (the idea that the universe is produced by one program  
or some equivalence class of a program) ) === computationalism


But computationalism = the negation of digital physics (see my URL  
for reference, or the post in this list).


So Digital physics === the negation of digital physics

So Digital physics is logically impossible.

Digital physics is an attempt to save as much as possible of Aristotle  
theology in the naturalist frame, but it cannot work. We have to  
backtrack on Plato.


Bruno




Agree or disagree with Khatchig's science, I thought this group  
would enjoy the story and the universe it explores so I've included  
the trailer below. You can also check out the film's website here...  
there's a Science Corner page on the site has a collection of  
links and videos to some of the top contributors on the topic you  
might enjoy.


And if you like what you see, you can scroll to the bottom of the  
website and sign up for the Mailing List. We've just been accepted  
to two film festivals in October and we'll be making the film  
available on VOD by the end of the year so it's a great time to  
start getting updates. Thanks for your interest and thanks for  
supporting Digital Physics!


https://youtu.be/Q216LjDzeJw

On Friday, August 28, 2015 at 10:01:27 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:


On Thursday, August 27, 2015, meekerdb meek...@verizon.net wrote:



 Forwarded Message 
Subject:	Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing  
platform? What are the options?

Date:   Wed, 26 Aug 2015 17:32:37 +1000
From:   Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com
Reply-To:   everything-list@googlegroups.com
To:	everything-list@googlegroups.com everything- 
l...@googlegroups.com




On 26 August 2015 at 17:21, Peter Sas peterjacco...@gmail.com 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.


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.


Major problem: the hard problem of consciousness.

Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness a problem in the  
computerless computation scenario?


Because then it's not clear why there should be the connection  
between brains and consciousness.  If they are both just  
computations, why do they have this tight causal relation. Why can't  
the consciousness be computed independently.  If it can't, if it  
depends on the brain being also computer - then you're back to the  
hard problem.


Yes; I meant that it's no more or less a problem if there is no  
physical computer.



--
Stathis Papaioannou

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Thursday, August 27, 2015, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:




  Forwarded Message  Subject: Re: If the universe is
 computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options? Date:
 Wed, 26 Aug 2015 17:32:37 +1000 From: Stathis Papaioannou
 stath...@gmail.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','stath...@gmail.com'); 
 Reply-To:
 everything-list@googlegroups.com
 javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','everything-list@googlegroups.com'); To:
 everything-list@googlegroups.com
 javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','everything-list@googlegroups.com');
 everything-list@googlegroups.com
 javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','everything-list@googlegroups.com');



 On 26 August 2015 at 17:21, Peter Sas peterjacco...@gmail.com
 javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','peterjacco...@gmail.com'); 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.


 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.


 Major problem: the hard problem of consciousness.


 Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness a problem in the computerless
 computation scenario?

 Because then it's not clear why there should be the connection between
 brains and consciousness.  If they are both just computations, why do they
 have this tight causal relation. Why can't the consciousness be computed
 independently.  If it can't, if it depends on the brain being also computer
 - then you're back to the hard problem.


Yes; I meant that it's no more or less a problem if there is no physical
computer.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 Aug 2015, at 21:14, John Clark wrote:



On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 5:59 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:


I don't know why people want hardware for computation,

​I know, it's because in the history of the world​ ​NOBODY has  
ever been able to perform one single calculation without using  
hardware. No hardware = no calculation.


Consult Turing or Church, or a textbook on computability, for the  
definition of computation. Their existence are demonstrated to be  
realized or implemented in arithmetic (RA is already enough).






​ ​Once you assume the basic laws of the natural numbers,  
(mainly the laws of addition and multiplication), then, all  
computations exist


​That's backwards. We know for a fact that computations exist  
because we've observed them,


Assuming that observation is an ontological criteria, that is assuming  
Aristotelianism, which I do not assume, and actually is refuted in the  
computationalist frame.





but we don't know for​ ​fact that the natural numbers exist, in  
fact nobody has been able to observe an infinite number of  
anything.​


Platonists believe in what they understand, not necessarily in what  
they observe or believe to observe. Platonists are aware that we can  
dream doing observation of things which do not exist.


Bruno





  John K Clark




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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[smitra]

I'm not assuming QM, the goal is to derive it, perhaps only  as an 
approximation. It would be better if QM only turns out to be 
approximately true, because then one can attempt to predict what 
experimental signatures there are.


Saibal


On 27-08-2015 18:47, Bruno Marchal wrote:

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 

Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[John Clark]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 9:45 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
​


​ ​
 in the history of the world
 ​ ​
 *NOBODY* has ever been able to perform one single calculation without
 using hardware. No hardware = no calculation.



​ ​
 Consult Turing or Church,


​Consult Fortune ​magazine for a list of computer hardware companies with
zero manufacturing costs because they had no need to
actually manufacture anything out of matter.


 ​ ​
 or a textbook on computability, for the definition of computation.


​And ​
in the
​entire ​
history of the world
​ ​
*NOBODY* has ever been able to perform one single calculation
​with a definition. ​


​
 ​​
 ​Once you assume the basic laws of the natural numbers, (mainly the laws
 of addition and multiplication), then, all computations exist


 ​ ​
 ​That's backwards. We know for a fact that computations exist because
 we've observed them,


 ​ ​
 Assuming that observation is an ontological criteria,


​In other words assuming that the scientific method can be a useful tool
for finding out more about how the world works, and that assumption has
worked pretty well up to now. ​


 ​ ​
 that is assuming Aristotelianism,


​To hell with Aristotle and to hell with all those damn overrated ancient
Greeks! ​

​I said it before I'll say it again, Aristotle was the worst physicists who
ever lived. ​And Plato sucked too.

​ ​
 Platonists believe in what they understand, not necessarily in what they
 observe


​And that philosophy was dogma from the time of the ancient Greeks to the
renaissance, and that is precisely why science made such little progress
during those 2000 years.

 John K Clark





 ​

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Mike White]

Great topic Peter!

I recently worked on a film called *Digital Physics* in which the 
protagonist, Khatchig, chases the answer to some of these questions and 
I've been trying to keep following these concepts ever since. I can't tell 
you exactly which one of your possibilities Khatchig supports in his quest 
to prove DP but it's exactly what you're talking about and I have a feeling 
the film touches on a number of them.  Cellular Automaton, Simulations, 
Computers, Wolfram, Fredkin, Kolmogorov Complexity, Free Will, etc... it's 
all in there. Maybe you guys can make heads or tails of the science in the 
movie.  I'm still trying to!

Agree or disagree with Khatchig's science, I thought this group would enjoy 
the story and the universe it explores so I've included the trailer below. 
You can also check out the film's website here 
http://www.digitalphysicsmovie.com/... there's a Science Corner 
http://www.digitalphysicsmovie.com/science-corner/ page on the site has 
a collection of links and videos to some of the top contributors on the 
topic you might enjoy. 

And if you like what you see, you can scroll to the bottom of the website 
and sign up for the Mailing List. We've just been accepted to two film 
festivals in October and we'll be making the film available on VOD by the 
end of the year so it's a great time to start getting updates. Thanks for 
your interest and thanks for supporting Digital Physics!

https://youtu.be/Q216LjDzeJw

On Friday, August 28, 2015 at 10:01:27 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:



 On Thursday, August 27, 2015, meekerdb meek...@verizon.net javascript: 
 wrote:




  Forwarded Message  Subject: Re: If the universe is 
 computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options? Date: 
 Wed, 26 Aug 2015 17:32:37 +1000 From: Stathis Papaioannou 
 stath...@gmail.com Reply-To: everything-list@googlegroups.com To: 
 everything-list@googlegroups.com everything-list@googlegroups.com 



 On 26 August 2015 at 17:21, Peter Sas peterjacco...@gmail.com 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. 


 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.
  

 Major problem: the hard problem of consciousness.


 Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness a problem in the computerless 
 computation scenario?

 Because then it's not clear why there should be the connection between 
 brains and consciousness.  If they are both just computations, why do they 
 have this tight causal relation. Why can't the consciousness be computed 
 independently.  If it can't, if it depends on the brain being also computer 
 - then you're back to the hard problem.


 Yes; I meant that it's no more or less a problem if there is no physical 
 computer.


 -- 
 Stathis Papaioannou


-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Bruno Marchal]

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 

Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 Aug 2015, at 22:22, meekerdb wrote:


On 8/26/2015 3:31 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 26 Aug 2015, at 12:06, Peter Sas wrote:

Personally my brain stack overflows at about 3 or 4 levels of  
being aware that I am aware that ... I am aware. I think it would  
require infinite memory to truly be aware of an infinite number of  
steps in such a recursive relation.


Maybe the infinite hierarchy doesn't have to be thought/remembered  
in full. Royce notes that the simple intention to be completely  
self-aware is enough: the infinite hierarchy is logically implied  
in the intention. Oskar Becker has a slightly different approach:  
he says that as soon as one notices the endlessness of 1, 2, 3  
etc. one is already beyond the natural numbers and has reached the  
first transfinite ordinal (small omega=N) which collects all the  
natural numbers into one set. And then of course one can continue:  
omega+1, omega+2...etc. Noting the endlessness of that series one  
has grasped the next transfinite ordinal (omegaxomega). And so  
on...  Becker notes that Cantor's generation principles can be  
recast as principles inherent in the structure of self-awareness.  
I think that's a strong point.





That is very well known in recursion theory (alias theoretical  
computer science).



We can both collapse the infinite regression, by using the second  
recursion of Kleene, which I often explain with the diagonal Dx =  
T(xx) == DD = T(DD) methode to get self-reference.


Then this can be used to define properly the constructive ordinal.  
The first non constructive ordinal, which is also the set of all  
constructive ordinal is omega_1^CK (for Church and Kleene). Then  
reflexive machine can name ordinal beyond omega_ 1^CK, but using a  
non recursive naming procedure. Machines and humans suffer from the  
same limitation there (provably so if we assume computationalisme).


iahibajj.png

MATHEMATICIANS GONE WILD


Yes, it is one of the consequence of incompleteness.

A (first order logical) theory is consistent iff it has a model (a  
semantic, a reality verifying the saying of the theory)


By incompleteness, to make a mathematical semantic of a theory (like  
PA, ZF) you need a richer theory (like ZF, ZF + kappa). And to get a  
mathematical semantic for ZF + kappa, you need much more and you go  
can go wild, because the mathematical reality *is* wild. Now,  
personally I don't really believe in sets, but I do believe in the  
consistency of ZF and plausibly ZF + kappa. But sets are better seen  
as epistemological constructs once in the frame of the  
computationalist hypothesis.


When a Gödel-Löbian Post-Church-Turing-Markov little machine, like PA,  
just tries to understand itself, it can get that if comp is true its  
3p Nous are Pi_2 complete (for the first order modal extensions), or  
(for the true Noùs) Pi_1 complete in the oracle of ... God  
(arithmetical truth, the set of the Gödel number of the sentences  
valid in the Model (N, 0, +, x).

But for the 1p truth it is even more inexhaustible, ineffable, etc.

Damascius wrote thousand of pages that you can sum up in one sentence  
just saying that about *that*, even one sentence is already too much,  
and as such, can only completely miss the point.


With computationalism, it is obvious, I think, that the study of the  
high cardinals (mathematical logic) is part of the study of machine's  
theology.


But set theory is extensional, and flats the intensional nuances, but  
then we have the mathematical representation theorems which can be  
used to handle in the 3p extensional way the 1p-intensional nuances.


Bruno





Brent

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[John Clark]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 5:59 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

I don't know why people want hardware for computation,


​I know, it's because in the history of the world​

​NOBODY has ever been able to perform one single calculation without using
hardware. No hardware = no calculation.


 ​ ​
 Once you assume the basic laws of the natural numbers, (mainly the laws of
 addition and multiplication), then, all computations exist


​That's backwards. We know for a fact that computations exist because we've
observed them,  but we don't know for​

​fact that the natural numbers exist, in fact nobody has been able to
observe an infinite number of anything.​

  John K Clark

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Fwd: Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[meekerdb]

 Forwarded Message 
Subject: 	Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are 
the options?

Date:   Wed, 26 Aug 2015 17:32:37 +1000
From:   Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com
Reply-To:   everything-list@googlegroups.com
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com everything-list@googlegroups.com





On 26 August 2015 at 17:21, Peter Sas peterjacco...@gmail.com 
mailto:peterjacco...@gmail.com 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.


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.


   Major problem: the hard problem of consciousness.


Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness a problem in the computerless 
computation scenario?

Because then it's not clear why there should be the connection between brains and 
consciousness.  If they are both just computations, why do they have this tight causal 
relation. Why can't the consciousness be computed independently.  If it can't, if it 
depends on the brain being also computer - then you're back to the hard problem.


Brent

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[smitra]

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. 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.


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.


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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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Peter,

I have not much time, but why to assume a (primary) physical universe.  
There are no evdience for that. Also if my body is a machine, the  
universe cannot be a machine, unless I am the universe (which I doubt).


Computation is a pre -mathematical concept, and actually, an  
arithmetical concept. Once you assume the basic laws of the natural  
numbers, (mainly the laws of addition and multiplication), then, all  
computations exist (in a sense cloase to prime number exists: NOT in  
a speical metaphysical sense), and the apperance of a physical  
universe is a consequence of how the numbers perceive the infinitely  
many number relations which run their computations. The physical  
reality would be, (if my body is a machine) an internal aspect of  
arithmetic seen from inside (and taking our relative personal  
indeterminacy into account). A priori computationalism entails that  
neither Reality, nor the physical reality needs to be computational.


Then I can argue that computationalism explains consciousness, as  
another modality of self-presence in arithmetic. Consciousness is the  
knowledge of one 1-self, and we get it for free by just applying the  
most calssical definition of knowledge to Gödel's (machine's)  
provability predicate. And the theory is testable, as physics is  
explained in all details by that theory of consciousness, so we can  
compare with nature (and its fits pretty well, I would say).


I don't know why people want hardware for computation, as there is no  
evidence for hardware, nor can it explain anything (by the UDA  
result). Computability is a purely arithmetical notion. It is a  
theorem that all machines' dream exist in arithmetic. It is an open  
problem if that define a universe, a multiverse, or only a multi-dream.


You have NUMBER = CONSCIOUSNESS = PHYSICAL APPEARANCES = HUMAN  
CONSCIOUSNESS


Best,

Bruno



On 26 Aug 2015, at 10:02, Peter Sas wrote:

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 

Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 26 August 2015 at 17:21, Peter Sas peterjacco...@gmail.com 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.


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.


 Major problem: the hard problem of consciousness.


Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness a problem in the computerless
computation scenario?


 (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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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 Aug 2015, at 12:06, Peter Sas wrote:

Personally my brain stack overflows at about 3 or 4 levels of being  
aware that I am aware that ... I am aware. I think it would require  
infinite memory to truly be aware of an infinite number of steps in  
such a recursive relation.


Maybe the infinite hierarchy doesn't have to be thought/remembered  
in full. Royce notes that the simple intention to be completely self- 
aware is enough: the infinite hierarchy is logically implied in the  
intention. Oskar Becker has a slightly different approach: he says  
that as soon as one notices the endlessness of 1, 2, 3 etc. one  
is already beyond the natural numbers and has reached the first  
transfinite ordinal (small omega=N) which collects all the natural  
numbers into one set. And then of course one can continue: omega+1,  
omega+2...etc. Noting the endlessness of that series one has grasped  
the next transfinite ordinal (omegaxomega). And so on...  Becker  
notes that Cantor's generation principles can be recast as  
principles inherent in the structure of self-awareness. I think  
that's a strong point.





That is very well known in recursion theory (alias theoretical  
computer science).



We can both collapse the infinite regression, by using the second  
recursion of Kleene, which I often explain with the diagonal Dx =  
T(xx) == DD = T(DD) methode to get self-reference.


Then this can be used to define properly the constructive ordinal. The  
first non constructive ordinal, which is also the set of all  
constructive ordinal is omega_1^CK (for Church and Kleene). Then  
reflexive machine can name ordinal beyond omega_ 1^CK, but using a non  
recursive naming procedure. Machines and humans suffer from the same  
limitation there (provably so if we assume computationalisme).





On the other hand, if there is an absolute self-awareness grounding  
reality as such, then maybe it must have infinite memory... I don't  
know, this account is still too undeveloped to say anything more  
specific in it.



The entire machine's theology completely rest upon the fact that we  
can collapse infinite regression. It is truly amazing, but the  
technical idea is very simple. It is a variant of Cantor  
Diagonalization. So even the physical reality appearance is a product  
of that collapsing of level. The first person view, technically,  
uncollapse it and build constructive names: it is a logic of an  
unamebale subject which extends itself. It is a bit solipsist,  
nationalist and dangerous ... for the others.



What about when a being is not contemplating its self-awareness and  
merely living in the moment? Is it not conscious at those times?


In my view one cannot live in the present without self- 
consciousness. Maybe this is lame argument, but I think this is  
suggested by the similarity of the words present and self- 
presence... I would say: the self-presence of the absolute self- 
awareness is just what the present is... It is difficult to explain  
this, but intuitively it feels right to me... And then there are is  
also the claim that there is no (phenomenal) consciousness without a  
measure of self-awareness... Kant originally advanced this idea, but  
many present-day cognitive scientists accept it as well...


I kind of agree. Consciousness needs a reference to oneself, but that  
reference has not to be conscious. Then self-consciousness is the same  
+ one loop of self-reflection more.


RA is conscious, but PA is both conscious and self-conscious. RA is  
just a typical Universal Machine, and PA is a typical Universal  
Machine able to know that she is universal (I call them Löbian, as  
they are characterized by a theorem in arithmetic due to Löb).


I still don't know if PA is not already a bit delusional. His soul is  
already falling, maybe.


Bruno






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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 Aug 2015, at 12:47, Peter Sas wrote:


Hi Bruno,

I am not assuming a primary physical universe... precisely not. The  
idea is that self-awareness is ontologically primary and that this  
self-awareness, through its recursive structure, is awareness of all  
natural numbers (and possibly beyond) and thus it computes. We could  
then say it computes the physical universe, so that the latter comes  
out as a computation done by this absolute self-awareness.


You dismiss the problem of hardware/computing platform, but your own  
mathematical platonism serves to explain what the platform is. You  
assume the existence of numbers and then say that that existence  
facilitates the computations. In your account, the platonic realm of  
arithmetic IS the hardware/computing platform.


The physical does not arise from a computation, but from the internal  
logic of the space of all computations. The physical arise from a  
measure on those computations as expected from the first person  
indeterminacy internal to all such computations. Hardware can be  
redefined by what win such measure statistics. It is something  
emerging. It will be confusing to say that arithmetic is the hardware,  
as arithmetic is not physical, and the emerging hardware will be  
physical, even if it is not primarily physical.







I, on the other hand, do not want to take the ideal existence of  
numbers for granted. I want an explanation why they exist.


We can prove that this is impossible. You need to assume one universal  
system (in the Turing sense). Then I take the numbers+addmult.   
because most people are familiar with this. It is not obvious that it  
is already Turing universal, though.
From logic, the numbers + addition, you cannot yet derive the  
multiplication law. The creative explosion occurs only when you have  
the numbers (or equivalent) addition, *and* multiplication. That gives  
the universal dovetailing, that is, the (arithmetical) implementation  
of all computation.






Here I think the idea of absolute self-awareness, with its infinite  
recursivity,


A notion like recursivity assumes the natural numbers.




offers a powerful explanation of what the numbers are and why they  
are there,


It is logically equivalent with the numbers + addition + multiplication.





and why they are involved in computational processes. It's a matter  
of what is ontologially most basic.


Notion like self, awareness, recursion, are more complex than addition  
and multiplication of natural numbers.





Here the idea of self-awareness strikes me as very attractive. Its  
circularity allows it explain itself.


I agree with you, but assuming computationalism needs the assumption  
of numbers or Turing equivalent. Without them, we don't get any  
universal system.





You probably have to talk me again through your idea of obtaining  
1st person knowledge by applying Plato's definition of knowledge to  
Gödel -- I've forgotten the details I'm ashamed to admit...


I am aware there is a long work to do to get all this right. People  
does not really know about mathematical logic. I will think about how  
explaining this, but the basic thing is that the logic (provable(p)   
p) is different from the logic of provable(p), despite it is true (but  
non provable by the machine) that provable(p) entails p. That  
difference is a consequence of incompleteness, and it attach a non  
nameable knower to all (correct) machine. It obeys a logic of  
knowledge, and verify many principles usually accepted for the soul.  
It is Plotinus' inner God.






I would say: Self-consciousness = Recursivity = Number =  
Computation = Physical appearances = Human consciousness


The problem for me is that I want to explain consciousness, and that I  
do think computer science explains it from the numbers (+addMult).


I can even explain why the soul cannot believe in comp, and why the  
soul does believe that consciousness is more fundamental than the  
numbers, but that is a feature coming from our own embedding in  
arithmetic or Turing equivalent.  What you do is to single out the  
first person from the third person, but this is problematical in  
science in general, and the reason why it looks like what you say can  
be explained by simple third person notions on which everyone agree  
like addition and multiplication (which is not the case for more  
complex notion like consciousness, self-awareness and even recursion).



Bruno




Op woensdag 26 augustus 2015 12:12:24 UTC+2 schreef Bruno Marchal:
Hi Peter,

I have not much time, but why to assume a (primary) physical  
universe. There are no evdience for that. Also if my body is a  
machine, the universe cannot be a machine, unless I am the universe  
(which I doubt).


Computation is a pre -mathematical concept, and actually, an  
arithmetical concept. Once you assume the basic laws of the natural  
numbers, (mainly the laws of addition and multiplication), then, all  

Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Peter Sas]

Hi Bruno,

I am not assuming a primary physical universe... precisely not. The idea is 
that self-awareness is ontologically primary and that this self-awareness, 
through its recursive structure, is awareness of all natural numbers (and 
possibly beyond) and thus it computes. We could then say it computes the 
physical universe, so that the latter comes out as a computation done by 
this absolute self-awareness.

You dismiss the problem of hardware/computing platform, but your own 
mathematical platonism serves to explain what the platform is. You assume 
the existence of numbers and then say that that existence facilitates the 
computations. In your account, the platonic realm of arithmetic IS the 
hardware/computing platform.

I, on the other hand, do not want to take the ideal existence of numbers 
for granted. I want an explanation why they exist. Here I think the idea of 
absolute self-awareness, with its infinite recursivity, offers a powerful 
explanation of what the numbers are and why they are there, and why they 
are involved in computational processes. It's a matter of what is 
ontologially most basic. Here the idea of self-awareness strikes me as very 
attractive. Its circularity allows it explain itself.

You probably have to talk me again through your idea of obtaining 1st 
person knowledge by applying Plato's definition of knowledge to Gödel -- 
I've forgotten the details I'm ashamed to admit...

I would say: Self-consciousness = Recursivity = Number = Computation = 
Physical appearances = Human consciousness

Ciao,
Peter


Op woensdag 26 augustus 2015 12:12:24 UTC+2 schreef Bruno Marchal:

 Hi Peter,

 I have not much time, but why to assume a (primary) physical universe. 
 There are no evdience for that. Also if my body is a machine, the universe 
 cannot be a machine, unless I am the universe (which I doubt).

 Computation is a pre -mathematical concept, and actually, an 
 arithmetical concept. Once you assume the basic laws of the natural 
 numbers, (mainly the laws of addition and multiplication), then, all 
 computations exist (in a sense cloase to prime number exists: NOT in a 
 speical metaphysical sense), and the apperance of a physical universe is a 
 consequence of how the numbers perceive the infinitely many number 
 relations which run their computations. The physical reality would be, (if 
 my body is a machine) an internal aspect of arithmetic seen from inside 
 (and taking our relative personal indeterminacy into account). A priori 
 computationalism entails that neither Reality, nor the physical reality 
 needs to be computational.

 Then I can argue that computationalism explains consciousness, as another 
 modality of self-presence in arithmetic. Consciousness is the knowledge of 
 one 1-self, and we get it for free by just applying the most calssical 
 definition of knowledge to Gödel's (machine's) provability predicate. And 
 the theory is testable, as physics is explained in all details by that 
 theory of consciousness, so we can compare with nature (and its fits pretty 
 well, I would say).

 I don't know why people want hardware for computation, as there is no 
 evidence for hardware, nor can it explain anything (by the UDA result). 
 Computability is a purely arithmetical notion. It is a theorem that all 
 machines' dream exist in arithmetic. It is an open problem if that define 
 a universe, a multiverse, or only a multi-dream. 

 You have NUMBER = CONSCIOUSNESS = PHYSICAL APPEARANCES = HUMAN 
 CONSCIOUSNESS

 Best,

 Bruno



 On 26 Aug 2015, at 10:02, Peter Sas wrote:

 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 
 

Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Peter Sas]

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

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 3:02 AM, Peter Sas peterjacco...@gmail.com wrote:

 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.


Personally my brain stack overflows at about 3 or 4 levels of being aware
that I am aware that ... I am aware. I think it would require infinite
memory to truly be aware of an infinite number of steps in such a recursive
relation.

What about when a being is not contemplating its self-awareness and merely
living in the moment? Is it not conscious at those times?

Jason


 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

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[Peter Sas]

Personally my brain stack overflows at about 3 or 4 levels of being aware 
that I am aware that ... I am aware. I think it would require infinite 
memory to truly be aware of an infinite number of steps in such a recursive 
relation.

Maybe the infinite hierarchy doesn't have to be thought/remembered in full. 
Royce notes that the simple intention to be completely self-aware is 
enough: the infinite hierarchy is logically implied in the intention. Oskar 
Becker has a slightly different approach: he says that as soon as one 
notices the endlessness of 1, 2, 3 etc. one is already beyond the 
natural numbers and has reached the first transfinite ordinal (small 
omega=N) which collects all the natural numbers into one set. And then of 
course one can continue: omega+1, omega+2...etc. Noting the endlessness of 
that series one has grasped the next transfinite ordinal (omegaxomega). And 
so on...  Becker notes that Cantor's generation principles can be recast as 
principles inherent in the structure of self-awareness. I think that's a 
strong point.

On the other hand, if there is an absolute self-awareness grounding reality 
as such, then maybe it must have infinite memory... I don't know, this 
account is still too undeveloped to say anything more specific in it.


What about when a being is not contemplating its self-awareness and merely 
living in the moment? Is it not conscious at those times?

In my view one cannot live in the present without self-consciousness. Maybe 
this is lame argument, but I think this is suggested by the similarity of 
the words present and self-presence... I would say: the self-presence 
of the absolute self-awareness is just what the present is... It is 
difficult to explain this, but intuitively it feels right to me... And then 
there are is also the claim that there is no (phenomenal) consciousness 
without a measure of self-awareness... Kant originally advanced this idea, 
but many present-day cognitive scientists accept it as well...

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Re: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What are the options?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Shooting for a physical location? Now we head of (my choice) into 
Conjecture-Land. Two possibilities, submitted for your scorn and disapproval. 
One is that since the universe is said by astronomers to be somewhere in the 
zone of 26-80 light-years, in extant, and we can only detect what is within the 
Hubble Volume, it could be there, perhaps as dark matter, dark energy and 
together, dark flow. At the other end of the scale, there is the possibility, 
within each Planck Cell/Width, that exist as either processing, storage, or 
both. 

Your ideas seems excellent to me (maybe that's a back-handed compliment 
considering who it comes from, Me?) Your concepts are echoed, separately, by 
professor, Ben Goertzel, a true computer scientist, at the University of 
Singapore, and Professor Eric Steinhart, who is a philosophy prof at Patterson 
University, in New Jersey-he has a comp-sci background. Tipler, I have asked a 
question or two, over the years, you did not mention Seth Lloyd at MIT-who also 
is a computationalism. Steinhart, in his papers, gets deep in the 
logical-rational weeds on all this. Also with theological implications-not 
necessarily Christian theological either. 

Even in Amoeba, Marchal doesn't go in this direction, as with a formal 
structure, and all that. Maybe he will someday? What we exist in may not 
strictly be a Sim, but a computation that yields that reality, from which  we 
evolved from. That for us, real is real, and pain, is pain, and love, is love, 
and comets are comets. The substrate or super-structure of the 
universe/multiverse though, is 'more real' as it exists outside our program, so 
we are right back to Platonism again.
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Peter Sas peterjacco...@gmail.com
To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, Aug 26, 2015 3:21 am
Subject: If the universe is computational, what is the computing platform? What 
are the options?


 
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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