Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
Le 06-nov.-06, à 03:46, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: It is not a question of existence but of definability. For example you can define and prove (by Cantor diagonalization) the existence of uncountable sets in ZF which is a first order theory of sets. Now uncountability is not an absolute notion (that is the Lowenheim-Skolem lesson). Careful: uncomputability is absolute. Bruno Well, 'existence' would certainly be a stronger notion of platonism than mere 'definability'. So Bruno, what would your answer be to the question of whether the universe is a computer or not? I think it all depends on how you define 'universe' and 'computer' ;) Personally, my answer is no, I don't think the universe is a computer. I define 'universe' to mean 'everything which exists' and computer to mean 'anything which is Turing computable'. Since I think uncomputables do exist, they are part of the universe and they are not Turing computable so the universe as a whole can't be a computer. I agree with you. Even the seemingly tiny universe of numbers is full of non computable stuff. Recall that Church thesis can be used to prove the existence of non computable objects in very few lines (as I have done more or less recently in posts to John and Tom). But one doesn't need to believe in uncomputables to doubt that the universe as a whole is a computer. There is also the problem of infinite quantities to contend with. Something which is computable is most likely finite (by holographic string principles), but if there exist things with infinite extent or quntification (like space for instance) it's hard to see how the universe as a whole could be defined as a computer. Hmmm... The very notion of general computability needs the infinite (the finite realm is *trivially* (obviously) computable). So infinite per se is not directly responsible of the non computability. It is the diagonalization closure of the computable realm (I can come back on this). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
With apologies that I have not been following the discussion under this subject header, but a question occurred to me that goes beyond the conventional notion of computation as regards 'computer/computing' operations. Are any models of 'theoretical' computers (or more properly: 'computation relation systems') assigned Cybernetic functions? And with such assignment, an evaluation of the secondary, tertiary, ad inducti, tiers and content of s/t/ai information? Jamie Rose --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
Thanks, Bruno, now I have an URL for the archive, pretty comprehensive, the puzzle still prevails (not as one YOU should be concerned about): 1. why did not show up the post in the mailing as sent? 2. how come the archive got it as [EMAIL PROTECTED] i.e. the old address, when the list turned into [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...? 3.and how did the list-address of my post change from - what I wrote in sending it as: To:everything-list@googlegroups.com into To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - the 'unfound', undeliverable one? Teleportation, of a return from a HP universe? John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Cc: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 6:36 AM Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7 Le 05-nov.-06, à 00:47, John M a écrit : Bruno, although I did not see in my list-post my comment to Marc's report about the German conference (sent before your and Saibal's posts) I may continue it (maybe copying the missing text below); Your message is in the archive though. See for example: http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@eskimo.com/maillist.html Saibal's : uncompoutable numbers, non countable sets etc. don't exist in first order logic,... is interesting: it may mean that the wholeness-view (like Robert Rosen's 'complexity' and my wholistiv views as well) do not compute with 1st order logic - what may not be fatal IMO. I use model a bit opposite to Skolem's text (sorry, I could not read your URL, my new comnputer does not (yet) have ppt installed) ? (Why would you need ppt?) - but as I decyphered Skolem's long text, it is a math-construct based on 'a theory'. A different model. My 'model' (and R. Rosen's) is an extract of the totality, a limited cut from the interconnectedness by topical, functional ideational etc. boundaries and THEORIES are based on that (usefully, if not extended beyond the margins of the model - limitedly observed to formulate them.) If this is beyond 1st order logic that is not the fault of such model-view - with uncomputable (impredicative) numbers and unlimited variables - rather shows a limitation of the domain called 1st order logic. (I put numbers in quotation, I used the word to apply it according to the here ongoing talks.) Rosen (a mathematician) also called it Turing un-emulable. Your explanation about the ZF uncountability and the uncomputability is intgeresting, I could not yet digest its meaning as how it may be pertinent to my thinking. To say more on this would need to explain more logic (with logic = a special branch of math). My point was just that it follows from Church Thesis that the classical notion of computability is absolute. Like Godel said this is a mathematical miracle, and my whole work entirely depends on that miracle (both the informal but rigorous UDA, and the formal AUDA). This is what is lacking in Tegmark for exemple, which take the mathematical reality for granted (I take only the arithmetical reality for granted). But even in the arithmetical frame, the fate of the universal machine will consist in discovering an absolutely non completely computable reality, and an infinity (transfinity) of relatively non countable structures. The mathematical advantage of comp is that it does not depends of the notion of order. I interview the PA machine in first order language because PA speaks fluently in that language, but I could interview machine talking higher order language as well (even infinitary language like when I interview angels (non turing emulable entity). I leave the original message below in case you have lost it. Bruno John M wrote - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 9:08 AM Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7 In conscience et mécanisme I use Lowenheim Skolem theorem to explain why the first person of PA see uncountable things despite the fact that from the 0 person pov and the 3 person pov there is only countably many things (for PA). I explain it through a comics. See the drawings the page deux-272, 273, 275 in the volume deux (section: Des lois mécanistes de l'esprit). It explains how a machine can eventually infer the existence of other machine/individual). Here: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume2CC/2%20%203.pdf Note also that the word model (in http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/logsys/low-skol.htm ) refers to a technical notion which is the opposite of a theory. A model is a mathematical reality or structure capable of satisfying (making true) the theorem of a theory. Like a concrete group (like the real R with multiplication) satisfy the formal axioms of some abstract group theory. (Physicists uses model and theory interchangeably, and this makes sometimes
Re: To observe is to......EC
Hi, Having got deeper into the analysis, what I have found is that EC is literally an instantated lamba calculus by Church. So all I have to do is roughly axiomatise EC in Church's form and I'm done. So that is what I am doing. I'll be directly referring to church's original work. Once that is done I can use Godel's incopmpleteness theorem to show vitual theorems in EC (=virtual matter). Computationally it will be a functional language like Haskell, not an object/state based language, that correcttly depicts how EC works in a cellular automata. But that cellular automata will be having no experiences and I think I can prove it. Remember what I want to do is apply EC to a set of integrative levels in brain material and show its prediction of virtual bosons as the virtual matter of experience. bear with me regards, Colin Hales --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
Addition to my lost and found 1st post in this topic to Marc: I wonder how would you define besides 'universe' and 'computer' the IS ? * I agree that 'existence' is more than a definitional question. Any suggestion yet of an (insufficient?) definition? (Not Descartes' s I think therefore I think I am and so on) John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 6:44 AM Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7 Le 06-nov.-06, à 03:46, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: It is not a question of existence but of definability. For example you can define and prove (by Cantor diagonalization) the existence of uncountable sets in ZF which is a first order theory of sets. Now uncountability is not an absolute notion (that is the Lowenheim-Skolem lesson). Careful: uncomputability is absolute. Bruno Well, 'existence' would certainly be a stronger notion of platonism than mere 'definability'. So Bruno, what would your answer be to the question of whether the universe is a computer or not? I think it all depends on how you define 'universe' and 'computer' ;) Personally, my answer is no, I don't think the universe is a computer. I define 'universe' to mean 'everything which exists' and computer to mean 'anything which is Turing computable'. Since I think uncomputables do exist, they are part of the universe and they are not Turing computable so the universe as a whole can't be a computer. I agree with you. Even the seemingly tiny universe of numbers is full of non computable stuff. Recall that Church thesis can be used to prove the existence of non computable objects in very few lines (as I have done more or less recently in posts to John and Tom). But one doesn't need to believe in uncomputables to doubt that the universe as a whole is a computer. There is also the problem of infinite quantities to contend with. Something which is computable is most likely finite (by holographic string principles), but if there exist things with infinite extent or quntification (like space for instance) it's hard to see how the universe as a whole could be defined as a computer. Hmmm... The very notion of general computability needs the infinite (the finite realm is *trivially* (obviously) computable). So infinite per se is not directly responsible of the non computability. It is the diagonalization closure of the computable realm (I can come back on this). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.13.28/518 - Release Date: 11/4/2006 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: To observe is to......EC
TEST: resend...some sort of bounce thing happened with the mailer Hi, Having got deeper into the analysis, what I have found is that EC is literally an instantated lamba calculus by Church. So all I have to do is roughly axiomatise EC in Church's form and I'm done. So that is what I am doing. I'll be directly referring to church's original work. Once that is done I can use Godel's incopmpleteness theorem to show vitual theorems in EC (=virtual matter). Computationally it will be a functional language like Haskell, not an object/state based language, that correcttly depicts how EC works in a cellular automata. But that cellular automata will be having no experiences and I think I can prove it. Remember what I want to do is apply EC to a set of integrative levels in brain material and show its prediction of virtual bosons as the virtual matter of experience. bear with me regards, Colin Hales --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
Addition to my lost and found 1st post in this topic to Marc: I wonder how would you define besides 'universe' and 'computer' the IS ? * I agree that 'existence' is more than a definitional question. Any suggestion yet of an (insufficient?) definition? (Not Descartes' s I think therefore I think I am and so on) John There's only 1 thing which is intrinsic to the idea of 'being' that I can think of: Regardless of the scale (choices = quark, atom, human, planet, galaxy), if you are to 'be' whatever it is that comprises that which you are 'being', you automatically define a perspective on the rest of the universe. It does not mean that perspective is visible, only that the perspective is innate to the situation. SoI am made of one little chunk of the universe, you another and so on. My chunk is not your chunk and vice versa. If I am an atom then I get a view of the rest of the universe (that is expressing an un-atom). The rest of the universe has a perspective view of the atom. This division of 'thing' and 'un-thing' within the universe is implicit to the situation. The division is notional from an epistemological stand point, where we 'objectify' to describe. That does not alter the 'reality' of the innate perspective 'view' involved with 'being' the described. make sense? Colin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---