Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
Stephen Paul King wrote: Dear Russell, Neat! I have been thinking of this idea in terms of a very weak anthropic principle and a communication principle. Roughtly these are: All observations by an observer are only those that do not contradict the existence of the observer and any communication is only that which mutually consistent with the existence of the communicators. I will read you paper again. ;-) Yes! That's exactly it. Now how about this. Observers are not constrained to observe a single path through potential-state space, but rather, are constrained to only observe )and communicate via) one of the paths (or all of the paths) that remain consistent with existence. So there is room for (a limited form of) free will and limited observation of quantum uncertainty in these theories, if necessary. Eric
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
Dear Stephen, please see my note after the copy of your post John Mikes - Original Message - From: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED]; James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 8:34 PM Subject: Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's? Dear Eric, I like your idea! But how do we reconsile your notion with the notion expressed by Russell: From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 5:12 PM Subject: Re: not-sets, not-gates, and the universe There is no problem is saying that all computations exist in platonia (or the plenitude). This is a zero information set, and requires no further explanation. One definition of information is a difference that makes a difference. If we take the substrate to be the capacity for there to be difference as you propose we obviously can not consider Platonia or the Plenitude do be it. If we take these two ideas seriously, is there any way that we can have both? Kindest regards, Stephen I defined information as difference acknowledged (by no specified acknowledger) because not all information DO make a difference, yet an unrecognized difference is no information. With the Plenitude (a version as the basis for my narrative leading to our universe) I have a question: Is no information not an information? (Or: is no difference an information about identicity?) JM
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
Dear John, It seems that you are saying that information is only information to a recognizer of such. If this is so, how do we define such? As to the notion of no information as information, this seems to fall under the definition of counterfactuals. (Hal Ruhl might have a thought to add to this.) I remember reading somewhere that the fact that no detection event occurring in a QM situation is still an informative event. I believe that the so-called non-demolition measurements are related. Any thoughts? Kindest regards, Stephen - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED]; James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 11:40 AM Subject: Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's? Dear Stephen, please see my note after the copy of your post snip I defined information as difference acknowledged (by no specified acknowledger) because not all information DO make a difference, yet an unrecognized difference is no information. With the Plenitude (a version as the basis for my narrative leading to our universe) I have a question: Is no information not an information? (Or: is no difference an information about identicity?) JM
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
Dear Ben, I agree completely with that aspect of Bruno's thesis. ;-) It is the assumption that the 0's and 1's can exist without some substrate that bothers me. If we insist on making such an assuption, how can we even have a notion of distinguishability between a 0 and a 1?. To me, its analogous to claiming that Mody Dick exists but there does not exists any copies of it. If we are going to claim that all possible computations exists, then why is it problematic to imagine that all possible implementations of computations exists as well. Hardware is not an epiphenomena of software nor software an epiphenomena of hardware, they are very different and yet interdependent entities. Additionally, the 1-uncertainty notion seems to require a neglect of the no-cloning theorem of QM or, equivalently, that its ok for TMs to construct (via UDA) QM theories of themselves and yet not be subject to the rules of the theory. Could we not recover 1-uncertainty from the Kochen-Specker theorem of QM itself? Kindest regards, Stephen - Original Message - From: Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 1:50 PM Subject: RE: The class of Boolean Algebras are a subset of the class of Turing Machines? Among other things, Bruno is pointing out that if we assume everything in the universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's, the distinction btw subjective and objective reality is lost, and there's no way to distinguish simulated physics in a virtual reality from real physics. I accept this -- there is no way to make such a distinction. Tough luck for those who want to make one!! ;-) -- Ben G
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
As I mentioned in an earlier post, titled quantum computational cosmology why don't we assume/guess that the substrate (the fundamental concept of the universe or multiverse) is simply a capacity for there to be difference, but also, a capacity for all possible differences (and thus necessarily all possible configurations of differences) to potentially exist. If we assume that all possible configurations of differences can potentially exist and that that unexplained property (i.e. the capacity to manifest any configuration of differences) is THE nature of the substrate, then a computation can just be defined as a sequence of states selected from all of the potential difference-configurations inherent in the substrate. I don't even think that this notion of a computation requires energy to do the information processing. My main notion in the earlier post was that some selections of a sequence of the substrate's potential states will corresponds to order-producing computations (computations which produce emergent structure, systems, behaviour etc). Such an order-producing sequence of substrate potential-states might be considered to be the observable universe (because the order generation in that sequence was adequate to produce complex systems good enough to be sentient observers of the other parts of that state-sequence). If we number the states in that selected order-producing sequence of substrate states from the first-selected state to the last-selected state, we have a numbering which corresponds to the direction of the time arrow in that observable universe. My intuition is that the potential-states (i.e. potentially existing configurations of differences) of the substrate may correspond to quantum states and configurations of quantum entanglement, and that selection of meaningful or observable sequences of potential states corresponds to decoherence of quantum states into classical states. Eric Stephen Paul King wrote: It is the assumption that the 0's and 1's can exist without some substrate that bothers me. If we insist on making such an assuption, how can we even have a notion of distinguishability between a 0 and a 1?. To me, its analogous to claiming that Mody Dick exists but there does not exists any copies of it. If we are going to claim that all possible computations exists, then why is it problematic to imagine that all possible implementations of computations exists as well. Hardware is not an epiphenomena of software nor software an epiphenomena of hardware, they are very different and yet interdependent entities.
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
Dear Eric, I like your idea! But how do we reconsile your notion with the notion expressed by Russell: From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 5:12 PM Subject: Re: not-sets, not-gates, and the universe There is no problem is saying that all computations exist in platonia (or the plenitude). This is a zero information set, and requires no further explanation. One definition of information is a difference that makes a difference. If we take the substrate to be the capacity for there to be difference as you propose we obviously can not consider Platonia or the Plenitude do be it. If we take these two ideas seriously, is there any way that we can have both? Kindest regards, Stephen - Original Message - From: Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 4:36 PM Subject: Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's? As I mentioned in an earlier post, titled quantum computational cosmology why don't we assume/guess that the substrate (the fundamental concept of the universe or multiverse) is simply a capacity for there to be difference, but also, a capacity for all possible differences (and thus necessarily all possible configurations of differences) to potentially exist. If we assume that all possible configurations of differences can potentially exist and that that unexplained property (i.e. the capacity to manifest any configuration of differences) is THE nature of the substrate, then a computation can just be defined as a sequence of states selected from all of the potential difference-configurations inherent in the substrate. I don't even think that this notion of a computation requires energy to do the information processing. My main notion in the earlier post was that some selections of a sequence of the substrate's potential states will corresponds to order-producing computations (computations which produce emergent structure, systems, behaviour etc). Such an order-producing sequence of substrate potential-states might be considered to be the observable universe (because the order generation in that sequence was adequate to produce complex systems good enough to be sentient observers of the other parts of that state-sequence). If we number the states in that selected order-producing sequence of substrate states from the first-selected state to the last-selected state, we have a numbering which corresponds to the direction of the time arrow in that observable universe. My intuition is that the potential-states (i.e. potentially existing configurations of differences) of the substrate may correspond to quantum states and configurations of quantum entanglement, and that selection of meaningful or observable sequences of potential states corresponds to decoherence of quantum states into classical states. Eric Stephen Paul King wrote: It is the assumption that the 0's and 1's can exist without some substrate that bothers me. If we insist on making such an assuption, how can we even have a notion of distinguishability between a 0 and a 1?. To me, its analogous to claiming that Mody Dick exists but there does not exists any copies of it. If we are going to claim that all possible computations exists, then why is it problematic to imagine that all possible implementations of computations exists as well. Hardware is not an epiphenomena of software nor software an epiphenomena of hardware, they are very different and yet interdependent entities.
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
It works because no observer can possibly see the whole of the Plenitude, only subsets. The subsets do contain information. Of course, people who believe in an omniscient God will have trouble with this :). Cheers Stephen Paul King wrote: Dear Eric, I like your idea! But how do we reconsile your notion with the notion expressed by Russell: From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 5:12 PM Subject: Re: not-sets, not-gates, and the universe There is no problem is saying that all computations exist in platonia (or the plenitude). This is a zero information set, and requires no further explanation. One definition of information is a difference that makes a difference. If we take the substrate to be the capacity for there to be difference as you propose we obviously can not consider Platonia or the Plenitude do be it. If we take these two ideas seriously, is there any way that we can have both? Kindest regards, Stephen - Original Message - From: Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 4:36 PM Subject: Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's? As I mentioned in an earlier post, titled quantum computational cosmology why don't we assume/guess that the substrate (the fundamental concept of the universe or multiverse) is simply a capacity for there to be difference, but also, a capacity for all possible differences (and thus necessarily all possible configurations of differences) to potentially exist. If we assume that all possible configurations of differences can potentially exist and that that unexplained property (i.e. the capacity to manifest any configuration of differences) is THE nature of the substrate, then a computation can just be defined as a sequence of states selected from all of the potential difference-configurations inherent in the substrate. I don't even think that this notion of a computation requires energy to do the information processing. My main notion in the earlier post was that some selections of a sequence of the substrate's potential states will corresponds to order-producing computations (computations which produce emergent structure, systems, behaviour etc). Such an order-producing sequence of substrate potential-states might be considered to be the observable universe (because the order generation in that sequence was adequate to produce complex systems good enough to be sentient observers of the other parts of that state-sequence). If we number the states in that selected order-producing sequence of substrate states from the first-selected state to the last-selected state, we have a numbering which corresponds to the direction of the time arrow in that observable universe. My intuition is that the potential-states (i.e. potentially existing configurations of differences) of the substrate may correspond to quantum states and configurations of quantum entanglement, and that selection of meaningful or observable sequences of potential states corresponds to decoherence of quantum states into classical states. Eric Stephen Paul King wrote: It is the assumption that the 0's and 1's can exist without some substrate that bothers me. If we insist on making such an assuption, how can we even have a notion of distinguishability between a 0 and a 1?. To me, its analogous to claiming that Mody Dick exists but there does not exists any copies of it. If we are going to claim that all possible computations exists, then why is it problematic to imagine that all possible implementations of computations exists as well. Hardware is not an epiphenomena of software nor software an epiphenomena of hardware, they are very different and yet interdependent entities. A/Prof Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 () Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centrehttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
Dear Russell, Bingo! But can a method of definig the subsethood be defined? What distinguishes one subset from another? Kindest regards, Stephen - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED]; James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 10:21 PM Subject: Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's? It works because no observer can possibly see the whole of the Plenitude, only subsets. The subsets do contain information. Of course, people who believe in an omniscient God will have trouble with this :). Cheers
Fw: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
- Original Message - From: James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; echo-CI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 8:56 PM Subject: Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's? Stephen, Eric is taking the quest to its logical conclusion. Even Steve Wolfram hints that pure space is the source of all instantiation. So the only question that needs resolution is specifying the natural of the architecture of that space - and - identifying how it brings entities forces, particles into being. And that requires identifying the characteristics of that realm of 'could be' .. the one I've labeled in discussions as Potentia. Jamie Stephen Paul King wrote: Dear Eric, I like your idea! But how do we reconsile your notion with the notion expressed by Russell: From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 5:12 PM Subject: Re: not-sets, not-gates, and the universe There is no problem is saying that all computations exist in platonia (or the plenitude). This is a zero information set, and requires no further explanation. One definition of information is a difference that makes a difference. If we take the substrate to be the capacity for there to be difference as you propose we obviously can not consider Platonia or the Plenitude do be it. If we take these two ideas seriously, is there any way that we can have both? Kindest regards, Stephen - Original Message - From: Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 4:36 PM Subject: Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's? As I mentioned in an earlier post, titled quantum computational cosmology why don't we assume/guess that the substrate (the fundamental concept of the universe or multiverse) is simply a capacity for there to be difference, but also, a capacity for all possible differences (and thus necessarily all possible configurations of differences) to potentially exist. If we assume that all possible configurations of differences can potentially exist and that that unexplained property (i.e. the capacity to manifest any configuration of differences) is THE nature of the substrate, then a computation can just be defined as a sequence of states selected from all of the potential difference-configurations inherent in the substrate. I don't even think that this notion of a computation requires energy to do the information processing. My main notion in the earlier post was that some selections of a sequence of the substrate's potential states will corresponds to order-producing computations (computations which produce emergent structure, systems, behaviour etc). Such an order-producing sequence of substrate potential-states might be considered to be the observable universe (because the order generation in that sequence was adequate to produce complex systems good enough to be sentient observers of the other parts of that state-sequence). If we number the states in that selected order-producing sequence of substrate states from the first-selected state to the last-selected state, we have a numbering which corresponds to the direction of the time arrow in that observable universe. My intuition is that the potential-states (i.e. potentially existing configurations of differences) of the substrate may correspond to quantum states and configurations of quantum entanglement, and that selection of meaningful or observable sequences of potential states corresponds to decoherence of quantum states into classical states. Eric Stephen Paul King wrote: It is the assumption that the 0's and 1's can exist without some substrate that bothers me. If we insist on making such an assuption, how can we even have a notion of distinguishability between a 0 and a 1?. To me, its analogous to claiming that Mody Dick exists but there does not exists any copies of it. If we are going to claim that all possible computations exists, then why is it problematic to imagine that all possible implementations of computations exists as well. Hardware is not an epiphenomena of software nor software an epiphenomena of hardware, they are very different and yet interdependent entities.
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
In my paper Why Occam's Razor, I identify a postulate called the projection postulate, which in words is something like An observer necessarily projects out an actual from the space of possibilities Mathematically, this corresponds to choosing a subset from the set of all descriptions. My paper shows in essence P+T+K = QM (projection postulate + time postulate + Kolmogorov probability axioms implies quantum mechanics). Apparently (not that I'm any expert on these matters) Kant tried to derive Classical dynamics by introducing this as a necessary prior, so its quite possible that this idea is not at all new. Cheers Stephen Paul King wrote: Dear Russell, Bingo! But can a method of definig the subsethood be defined? What distinguishes one subset from another? Kindest regards, Stephen A/Prof Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 () Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centrehttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
Stephen, Eric is taking the quest to its logical conclusion. Even Steve Wolfram hints that pure space is the source of all instantiation. So the only question that needs resolution is specifying the natural of the architecture of that space - and - identifying how it brings entities forces, particles into being. And that requires identifying the characteristics of that realm of 'could be' .. the one I've labeled in discussions as Potentia. Jamie Stephen Paul King wrote: Dear Eric, I like your idea! But how do we reconsile your notion with the notion expressed by Russell:
Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?
Dear Russell, Neat! I have been thinking of this idea in terms of a very weak anthropic principle and a communication principle. Roughtly these are: All observations by an observer are only those that do not contradict the existence of the observer and any communication is only that which mutually consistent with the existence of the communicators. I will read you paper again. ;-) Kindest regards, Stephen - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Eric Hawthorne [EMAIL PROTECTED]; James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 10:53 PM Subject: Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's? In my paper Why Occam's Razor, I identify a postulate called the projection postulate, which in words is something like An observer necessarily projects out an actual from the space of possibilities Mathematically, this corresponds to choosing a subset from the set of all descriptions. My paper shows in essence P+T+K = QM (projection postulate + time postulate + Kolmogorov probability axioms implies quantum mechanics). Apparently (not that I'm any expert on these matters) Kant tried to derive Classical dynamics by introducing this as a necessary prior, so its quite possible that this idea is not at all new. Cheers Stephen Paul King wrote: Dear Russell, Bingo! But can a method of definig the subsethood be defined? What distinguishes one subset from another? Kindest regards, Stephen -- -- A/Prof Russell StandishDirector High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 () Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centre http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 -- --
