Re: Turing Machines Have no Real Time Clock (Was The Game of Life)

[David Lloyd-Jones]

Hal Finney writes:


> Russell Standish, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, writes:
> > Why do you think the only possibilities are that the universe is
> > either discrete or continuous? For example, the space Q^4 (4-D space
> > built from rational numbers) is neither.
>
> Rational numbers are continuous, by the typical definition.  Between
> any two rational numbers there is another (and therefore, an infinite
> number of others).

Hunh? This is certainly true, but on the other hand between any two rational
numbers there are also an infinite number of irrationals.

But even if this were not the case, the fact that any two rationals have
other rationals in between would not make Hal's claim of continuity true;
rather it would prove the opposite, discontinuity.

Seems to me we have here a demonstration that, as in physical reality,
continuity cannot exist. What could it possibly mean?

   -dlj.

RE: Everything is Just a Memory

[Marchal]

Fritz Griffith wrote:

>>James Higgo wrote:
>>
>> >I don't see the need for alternative theories. And like Liebnitz's 
>>monads,
>> >each containing an entire world, there is no need for communication 
>>between
>> >observer moments.
>>
>>BM: Hard for me to swallow that literally. My question for you and Fritz
>>Griffith: how do you define observer moment, *precisely* ?
>
>Well, as precise as I can make my definition:
>
>An observer moment is your experience of everything at a certain moment that 
>lasts for a duration of one plancke-time.  Your current thought, 
>understandings, knowledge, emotion - everything that makes up your 
>perception of you and your universe, concious and subconcious (in other 
>words, the exact state of your brain) is looked at in one single moment of 
>plancke time.
>
>Now, if you can accept that an observer moment must contain the perception 
>of a smooth, consistant flow of time, and that it perceives to exists in one 
>moment within this time, as I have been trying to explain in previous posts 

OK. I have an intuitive understanding of what you are saying and I am
open to such kind of inspiration. But my demand of an explanation is far
greater. In particular I reject anything based on any empirical
experience and experiments except as inspiration. To be sure I accept only
natural numbers and their effective relations. More generally
I don't take for granted any of the following words:

<>

Eventually all these world should be defined in term of arithmetical
relations before I understand your definition.

>- then I ask you, how do you know that you do not simply exist as this 
>single observer moment, believing, subconciously, that you actually lived 
>right up until this moment, and that in an instant that moment will pass?

How do I know ...? I just don't know that (and with comp, I don't believe
it either).

Bruno