In the words of Tegmark, let’s assume that the physical world is
completely mathematical; and everything that exists mathematically exists
physically.
I have been thinking
along these lines since my days at university - where it occurred to me that
any alternative is mystical.
However,
Universe that makes a minimum of "sense", otherwise, our psyque would
eventually break down, and we would, essentially, cease to be.
cheers
- Original Message -
From: David Barrett-Lennard
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 7:45 PM
Subject: Is the universe computable?
How can a past which has been well behaved prevent strange things from
happening in the future?
An interesting idea.
Where can I read a more comprehensive justification of this
distribution?
If a number of programs are isomorphic the inhabitants naturally won't
know the difference. As to whether we call this one program or lots of
programs seems to be a question of taste and IMO shows th
Russell,
>My personally preferred solution to this problem is described in my
>paper "Why Occam's Razor".
I agree that extra bits in the "program" would tend to appear as noise
rather than some miracle like a fire breathing dragon. Is it then
assumed that the magnitude of this noise is unlikely
I have a feeling some of these points of view are not falsifiable (and
therefore somewhat meaningless). An individual that is about to
experience a QM immortality episode can't perform additional experiments
to answer (philosophical) questions about his identity. The only
observable is the surviv
r and drop the idea of
"many worlds"?
- David
-Original Message-
From: Matt King [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, 8 November 2003 3:37 AM
To: David Barrett-Lennard
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Quantum accident survivor
Hello David,
David Barrett-Lennard wrote:
>P
I'm trying to define "identity"...
Let's write x~y if SAS's x and y (possibly in different universes) have
the same identity. I propose that this relation must be reflexive,
symmetric and transitive. This neatly partitions all SAS's into
equivalence classes, and we have no ambiguity working out
Hi Eric,
> In fact, I believe we should define another relation of personal
identity,
> which is NOT symmetric.
I agree that this has greater relevance to QTI, but note that saying
that "identity" is not symmetric is at odds with most people's usage of
the word. Eg you can't say "x,y have the s
> I might still occasionally face accidents where I had
> to be very lucky to survive, but the lower the probability there is of
> surviving a particular type of accident, the less likely I am to
> experience events leading up to such an accident.
So if someone is on a cliff about to commit suic
Although the initial experiments to create life in the laboratory looked
promising (with creation of some important organic molecules) little
else has been achieved despite all sorts of cocktails of basic compounds
and energy sources. It has been argued that life is extremely unlikely
to come abou
I have been wondering whether there is something significant
in the fact that our laws of physics are mostly time symmetric, and we have a
law of conservation of mass/energy.
Does this suggest that our universe is associated with a reversible (and
information preserving) computation?
These weird QM effects only show up in small systems that aren't
affected by the 2nd law of thermodynamics. In such systems, the laws
of physics are time symmetric. Given that, it seems to me that QM
weirdness is trivially explained by the lack of our usual conception of
cause and effect. Neit
Sent: Thursday, 13 November 2003 9:59 AM
To: David Barrett-Lennard
Subject: Re: Reversible computing
I think the answer to your question is yes (assuming I understand you
correctly). Information and probability are closely linked (through
algorithmic information theory - AIT for those acronym
it relates to my study of Hitoshi Kitada's theory of Time, and would
like to learn about what you have found about them.
Kindest regards,
Stephen
- Original Message -----
From: David Barrett-Lennard
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 8:36 PM
Subject: Reversib
frame of reference.
See http://chaos.fullerton.edu/~jimw/general/inertia/
- David
-Original Message-
From: scerir [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, 13 November 2003 4:22 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: "spooky action at a distance"
David Barrett-Lennard
> Isn&#
I'm sure we all agree that QM on its own is not the full story. Ditto
with GR. Has anyone claimed to come up with a self consistent, complete
description of our universe? Saying that "all universes exist which
follow the MWI" is putting too much faith in a partial (and perhaps
merely approximat
By small I meant "small number of particles".
- David
-Original Message-
From: scerir [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, 13 November 2003 6:06 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: "spooky action at a distance"
David Barrett-Lennard
> According to QM, in
The set of everything U is ill defined.
Given set A, we expect to be able to define the subset { x is element of
A | p(x) } where p(x) is some predicate on x.
Therefore given U, we expect to be able to write S = { x an element of U
| x is not an element of x }
Now ask whether S is an element of
Jesse said...
> Does anyone know, are there versions of philosophy-of-mathematics that
> would
> allow no distinctions in infinities beyond countable and uncountable?
I
> know
> intuitionism is more restrictive about infinities than traditional
> mathematics, but it's way *too* restrictive for my
> Therefore the reals would have to include all kinds of numbers that
have
> no
> finite description at all. I am not sure I believe such things exist,
and
> for a similar reason I am not sure I believe that every member of the
> hypothetical "power set of the integers" exists either.
Hi Jesse,
I
We observe that our universe uses a reversible
computation, yet our brains only
appear to use irreversible computation.
It seems important to ask why. Is it possible for SAS’s to live in a universe that is directly associated
with an irreversible computation? If
so then why are we spec
Russell said...
> In answer to the original question, I would conjecture that an
> evolutionary process is the only process capable of generating
> complexity. Since we need a certain amount of complexity to be
> conscious, it follows that the simplest universes are ensembles of
> possibilities, o
en and very close to being "flat".
Kindest regards,
Stephen
- Original Message -
From: David Barrett-Lennard
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2003 9:14 PM
Subject: Move versus assign
We observe that our universe uses a reversible computation, yet
Jesse said
> So, although the set of all well-defined finite descriptions must
clearly
> be
> "countable" in the traditional sense where arbitrary mappings are
allowed,
> it is not countable if only finite-describable mappings are allowed,
> although it can easily be shown to be smaller than anoth
Hi Bruno,
How successful would you say has been the idea to derive QM from number
theory?
What proportion of physicists are aware of this idea?
How does it relate to the Russell Standish derivation of QM?
David
> -Original Message-
> From: Bruno Marchal [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sen
Georges Quenot wrote:
> Also I feel some confusion between the questions "Is the universe
> computable ?" and "Is the universe actually 'being' computed ?".
> What links do the participants see between them ?
An important tool in mathematics is the idea of an isomorphism between
two sets, which a
Jesse Mazer wrote,
> Isn't there a fundamental problem deciding what it means for a given
> simulated object to implement some other computation?
Yes, but does this problem need to be solved? I have no problem with
the idea that some "physical object" (in one computation) can be
"interpreted"
Let X be some predicate condition on the universes in the multiverse. I
think Hal is assuming that if all the following are true
1. X can be described in a compact form (ie it doesn't fill up a
book with detailed data)
2. X is true for our universe
3. AUH => P(X)=0
then we ded
Hi Eugin,
> I see, we're at the "prove that the Moon is not made from green cheese
> when
> nobody is looking" stage.
>
> I thought this list wasn't about ghosties'n'goblins.
> Allright, I seem to have been mistaken about that.
You seem to be getting a little hot under the collar!
Here is a jus
Hi Eugen,
> Yeah. I'm saying that, say,
>
0xf2f75022aa10b5ef6c69f2f59f34b03e26cb5bdb467eec82780c2ccdf0c8e100d38f20
d9
> f3064aea3fba00e723a5c7392fba0ac0c538a2c43706fdb7f7e58259
> didn't exist in this universe (with a very high probability, it being
a
> 512
> bit number, generated from physical sys
Hi Eric,
> >>0xf2f75022aa10b5ef6c69f2f59f34b03e26cb5bdb467eec82780
> >> didn't exist in this universe (with a very high probability, it
being a
> >> 512 bit number, generated from physical system noise) before I've
> >> generated it. Now it exists (currently, as a hex string (not
> necessarily
> >
Eugen said...
> I was using a specific natural number (a 512 bit integer) as an
> example for
> creation and destruction of a specific integer (an instance of a class of
> integers). No more, no less.
>
That's plenty to bring out our difference of opinion. cf "creation and
destruction of a speci
Why is it assumed that a multiple "runs" makes any difference to the
measure?
If the computation is reversible we could run the simulation backwards -
even though the initial state make seem contrived because it leads to a
low entropy at the end of the computation. Given that the simulated
bein
I'm wondering whether the following demonstrates that a computer that can
only generate "thoughts" which are sentences derivable from some underlying
axioms (and therefore can only generate "true" thoughts) is unable to think.
This is based on the fact that a formal system can't understand sentenc
wthorne wrote:
> >How would they ever know that I wonder?
> >"Well let's see. I'm conscious and I'm not fallible. Therefore"
;-)
> >
> >David Barrett-Lennard wrote:
> >
> >>I'm wondering whether the following demonstrates that a c
Does this help...
Let f(x) be a predicate on positive integer x.
Let pn = |{ x <= n | f(x) }| / n
(ie the fraction of the first n positive integers that satisfy the
predicate)
I propose that we define the probability of f as P(f) = p if pn
converges to p.
This allows us to say the probabilit
Kory said...
>
> At 1/21/04, David Barrett-Lennard wrote:
> >This allows us to say the probability that an integer is even is 0.5,
or
> >the probability that an integer is a perfect square is 0.
>
> But can't you use this same logic to show that the cardinality o
uary 2004 8:30 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: Is the universe computable
>
> At 1/21/04, David Barrett-Lennard wrote:
> >Saying that the probability that a given integer is even is 0.5 seems
> >intuitively to me and can be made precise (see my last post).
>
&
It seems that it is meaningless to talk about an absolute measure on the
ensembles for the multiverse.
However, we can make real progress by simply appealing to principles of
symmetry. For example, when an atom emits a photon it seems reasonable to
assume there is 50/50 chance of measuring "up"
This group tends to relate concepts back to MWI. Perhaps CI is a useful way
to think as well...
At a given point in time, a thinking entity is only aware of a small subset
of its surroundings. This suggests an ensemble of all mathematical
possibilities that are consistent with that mind in that
Consider the following experiment...
On a computer we generate a million numbers at random, and we write a
program that tests whether the numbers are stored in ascending order, and if
not causes the experimenter to be killed.
A device that measures the polarisation of photons from a light source
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