Top scientist asks: is life all just a dream?
The Times: Professor Sir Martin Rees is to suggest that "life, the universe and everything" may be no more than a giant computer simulation with humans reduced to bits of software. Rees, Royal Society professor of astronomy at Cambridge University, will say that it is now possible to conceive of computers so powerful that they could build an entire virtual universe. The possibility that what we see around us may not actually exist has been raised by philosophers many times dating back to the ancient Greeks and appears repeatedly in science fiction. In a television documentary, What We Still Don't Know, to be screened on Channel 4 next month, he will say: "Over a few decades, computers have evolved from being able to simulate only very simple patterns to being able to create virtual worlds with a lot of detail. "If that trend were to continue, then we can imagine computers which will be able to simulate worlds perhaps even as complicated as the one we think we're living in. "This raises the philosophical question: could we ourselves be in such a simulation and could what we think is the universe be some sort of vault of heaven rather than the real thing. In a sense we could be ourselves the creations within this simulation." http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1358588,00.html
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
I forgot to point out that the definitional information for the [All,Nothing] pair cancels because the inverse definition i.e. the [Nothing, All] pair is the same system. Hal
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
Hi John: At 11:27 AM 11/18/2004, you wrote: Hal: makes sense to me - with one question: I take: "ALL" stands for the totality (wholeness as I say) and your -- "is" is confined to whatever we do, or are capable (theoretically) to know - whether already discovered or not. It is more than that. The All is all information. In that case the 'definitional pair' wouold be anthropocentric? I try to make it as generalized as I can but there is the limits of an unavoidable inside perspective. (It would not make sense, if you consider it as the 'infinite computer' rather than "us"). * That would really equate ALL and NOTHING, because in the nothing the "is not" component includes all. Not a pair? The All and the Nothing are nearly identical in that they both contain no information since all information is equivalent to having no information. The only left over issue is the defining information for each and this is the same [they are a definitional pair] and so it too sums to no information. The result is a zero information system that allows computer simulations [noisy ones] of some multiverses and a rationale for a dynamic i.e. the computers run. Hal
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
Hal: makes sense to me - with one question: I take: "ALL" stands for the totality (wholeness as I say) and your -- "is" is confined to whatever we do, or are capable (theoretically) to know - whether already discovered or not. In that case the 'definitional pair' wouold be anthropocentric? (It would not make sense, if you consider it as the 'infinite computer' rather than "us"). * That would really equate ALL and NOTHING, because in the nothing the "is not" component includes all. Not a pair? John Mikes - Original Message - From: "Hal Ruhl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 7:29 PM Subject: Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model > In my [is, is not] definitional pair the "is not" component is the All > minus the "is" component. > > Thus the "is not" member is not simply unwinged horses or the like. In > most of these pairs I suspect the "is not" component has no apparent > usefulness [to most SAS [if they exist]]. Be that as it may both members > of the [All, Nothing] pair seem to have usefulness. > > Hal > > > >
