Re: Zuse's thesis web site
Thanks for your comments, Hal! Your point on the dovetailer is well taken. I modified the text: If Zuse's thesis is correct, then which is our universe's program? It may come as a surprise to some that we already know at least one algorithm that does compute our universe (and several others)... Ed Clark has a nice review page on Wolfram's book: http://www.math.usf.edu/~eclark/ANKOS_reviews.html It includes Scott Aaronson's interesting review which also addresses the issue of Bell's inequality. Best, Juergen http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/digitalphysics.html Juergen Schmidhuber writes: I welcome feedback on a little web page on Zuse's 1967 thesis (which states that the universe is being computed on a cellular automaton): http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/digitalphysics.html That's very interesting; I was not aware of Zuse. Unfortunately I don't know German so I can't read his paper. Regarding the question of the compatibility of CA models with relativity and QM, Wolfram looks into this in some detail. He essentially abandons a simple CA model in favor of a more complex network of interacting nodes, which has some features similar to the Lorentz transformation of relativity. Then to address the EPR style long-distance correlations of QM, he proposes that while the network is mostly local, it has occasional nodes which get stretched apart and are connected to distant nodes. These are rare but allow for the type of information flow necessary to reproduce long-distance QM correlations. All in all it is a pretty ad hoc and unconvincing model. I tried to read the t'Hooft paper referenced here but it was over my head. It also struck me though as not really addressing the discrepancy between long-distance correlations and local CA models. It seems very much an open and difficult question to me to show how a local CA model can reproduce relativity and QM. One issue which CA models tend to ignore is the MWI. Most CA models are built as hidden variable theories which define a single universe. Some multiverse models have that structure as well. But it seems to me that this is an entirely unnecessary restriction. If a CA can model a universe, it can model a multiverse, and likewise with any other computing model like TMs. The MWI is fully deterministic, which may make it a more attractive target for modelling with a deterministic computational theory than attempting to reproduce the statistical phenomena of QM, essentially via hidden variables. Any hidden variable theory, CA based or not, has two strikes against it from the beginning due to the the many well known difficulties of Bell inequalities and EPR correlations. Regarding entropy, it is pointed out that entropy does not grow in a CA model. Wolfram discusses this as well. While entropy technically does not grow, you can get phenomena that look very much like entropy growth in a CA model. Eventually you will get a Poincare recurrence if the universe is finite. But if you start in a sufficiently simple state, there are many CA models which will mimic entropy growth into a more complex state. And this may be close enough to explain our universe. Alternatively, of course the MWI as a deterministic theory also does not have entropy growth. As mentioned above, computational models of our universe might well do better to aim towards an MWI world. As far as the claim that we already know the algorithm that runs our universe, and it is the UD: I think this is amusing but ultimately misleading. It's true that a dovetailer which runs all programs will indeed run our own universe's program (assuming it has one), but I think it is a misuse of terminology to say that the UD is the algorithm that is running our universe. I would reserve that phrase to refer to the specific program that generates our universe and no others. It will be a tremendous accomplishment of physics and philosophy when that program is discovered, but it is misleading to give the impression that we already know what it is. I think a better terminology here would be something like, we don't need to know the specific program that describes our universe in order to imagine how to program a computer that would in fact generate our experiences, at least in theory. And then go on and explain about running all programs at once, etc. Hal Finney
Re: Zuse's thesis web site
I agree as shown in a number of my posts that our universe is a CA [a 3d face centered cubic grid of regions containing points that can not leave that region is my best estimate so far], however one that is subject to an external random oracle. My model attempts to show that all universes are subject to this oracle. Such a CA is not closed so has no fixed map. The oracle effects the rules as well as the local cell update event so there would be no locality/non locality lack of ability to support issue as far as I can see. Hal
Zuse's thesis web site
I welcome feedback on a little web page on Zuse's 1967 thesis (which states that the universe is being computed on a cellular automaton): http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/digitalphysics.html Juergen Schmidhuber
Re: Zuse's thesis web site
Juergen Schmidhuber writes: I welcome feedback on a little web page on Zuse's 1967 thesis (which states that the universe is being computed on a cellular automaton): http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/digitalphysics.html That's very interesting; I was not aware of Zuse. Unfortunately I don't know German so I can't read his paper. Regarding the question of the compatibility of CA models with relativity and QM, Wolfram looks into this in some detail. He essentially abandons a simple CA model in favor of a more complex network of interacting nodes, which has some features similar to the Lorentz transformation of relativity. Then to address the EPR style long-distance correlations of QM, he proposes that while the network is mostly local, it has occasional nodes which get stretched apart and are connected to distant nodes. These are rare but allow for the type of information flow necessary to reproduce long-distance QM correlations. All in all it is a pretty ad hoc and unconvincing model. I tried to read the t'Hooft paper referenced here but it was over my head. It also struck me though as not really addressing the discrepancy between long-distance correlations and local CA models. It seems very much an open and difficult question to me to show how a local CA model can reproduce relativity and QM. One issue which CA models tend to ignore is the MWI. Most CA models are built as hidden variable theories which define a single universe. Some multiverse models have that structure as well. But it seems to me that this is an entirely unnecessary restriction. If a CA can model a universe, it can model a multiverse, and likewise with any other computing model like TMs. The MWI is fully deterministic, which may make it a more attractive target for modelling with a deterministic computational theory than attempting to reproduce the statistical phenomena of QM, essentially via hidden variables. Any hidden variable theory, CA based or not, has two strikes against it from the beginning due to the the many well known difficulties of Bell inequalities and EPR correlations. Regarding entropy, it is pointed out that entropy does not grow in a CA model. Wolfram discusses this as well. While entropy technically does not grow, you can get phenomena that look very much like entropy growth in a CA model. Eventually you will get a Poincare recurrence if the universe is finite. But if you start in a sufficiently simple state, there are many CA models which will mimic entropy growth into a more complex state. And this may be close enough to explain our universe. Alternatively, of course the MWI as a deterministic theory also does not have entropy growth. As mentioned above, computational models of our universe might well do better to aim towards an MWI world. As far as the claim that we already know the algorithm that runs our universe, and it is the UD: I think this is amusing but ultimately misleading. It's true that a dovetailer which runs all programs will indeed run our own universe's program (assuming it has one), but I think it is a misuse of terminology to say that the UD is the algorithm that is running our universe. I would reserve that phrase to refer to the specific program that generates our universe and no others. It will be a tremendous accomplishment of physics and philosophy when that program is discovered, but it is misleading to give the impression that we already know what it is. I think a better terminology here would be something like, we don't need to know the specific program that describes our universe in order to imagine how to program a computer that would in fact generate our experiences, at least in theory. And then go on and explain about running all programs at once, etc. Hal Finney
