Re: JOINING posts
I am a licensed Professional Engineer.
BSEE The University of Illinois - Champaign/Urbana; 1966
MSEE Syracuse University; 1970
Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu
A member of Mensa
From 1966 to about 1987 I worked in the power semiconductor/power
electronics industry. I published some papers on the subject such as in
the IEEE "Transactions on Electron Devices."
Since 1987 I have been chief engineer at a medium size aerospace
company. My most recent publication [coauthored with my brother] is in the
Winter 1997 U. C. Davis Law Review and is an application of complex system
ideas to illuminating the effects of the burgeoning of the law.
My interest in material relevant to the list dates back a rather long
time. About 10 years ago this interest increased due to a general
dissatisfaction with the statistical approach to the founding of
thermodynamics during a dab at writing a social science fiction novel. The
intended moral is somewhat reflected in the title of Brian Czech's book:
"Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train" though I propose a purposely cyclic
economy/population since "steady state" seems an empty but dangerous quest
for so many reasons. [Growth is the derivative of size and when it comes
to an economy entrepreneurs can find fertile ground when it is either
positive or negative and the required rule set can have low complexity -
the latter seemingly coinciding with an interpretation of Joseph Tainter's
"The collapse of Complex Societies". Being in the aerospace business I see
the negative marginal utility of new rules every day.] The social science
fiction approach to the moral seems a little bit like the possible
background driver for the book "The Mote in God's Eye" by Larry Niven and
Jerry Pournelle.
About four or five years ago this line of thought lead me to the idea that
our universe could be based on no net information. I was then pointed to
this list by participants on another list.
My current approach the issue of origins is to try to find our universe in
a zero information Everything type of ensemble. I am not looking for why
we are in our universe because I see any result - such as "our universe and
its close relations form some major fraction of the population" - as net
information in the Everything and therefore I reject such a search as a
departure from and incompatible with a zero information
foundation. Further I see machine based approaches such as a UD as also
requiring the Everything to have non zero information and so currently
reject them.
My current interests are to further refine my model based on the idea of a
zero information ensemble of counterfactuals, look for possible
observational evidence to support it, and see if I can make any predictions
with it. For example my discrete point space grid idea would be just a
ground condition - any number of excited conditions would be possible
including something a little like a "gas" of points. Thus I see no end to
the "particles" we will observe with ever higher energy machines, but I
currently see no place for an association of a "particle" and what we see
as gravity. I currently see no "Free Will" nor do I see a central [non
passive] role for an "observer". The rules of evolution of a universe -
which I see as a large lookup table applied locally to each of the discrete
points rather like a cellular automaton - would be strictly followed unless
a state to state transition corresponded with the injection of true noise
from the dynamic of the ensemble.
I see lookup tables [all alphabet and {if - then}'s] as below formal
systems so I do not see formal system mathematics or any of its member
systems as pointers to the correct base model whatever it may be. However,
the extension of the base model to particular universes can make good use
of such systems to the extent that such systems of mathematics are large
scale [spanning many rows of the table and many state to state iterations
and many cells within the automaton] approximations to the lookup
tables. Further the arrival at such a lookup table base involves a "logic"
in the sense that the components of the Everything must form a complete and
thus zero information set of counterfactuals.
My ultimate interest is in "life" and its nature and behavior especially
its possible dependence on and response to true noise in its universe and
how to build reasonably robust social systems that would attract all
varieties of "reasonable" people.
I feel this list has an excellent chance of eventually arriving at what
seems to me to be the collective goal - a simple explanation for what I
believe to be my environment. I also think the list needs a FAQ like
document of a sort that suits it. I made an attempt to write one but ran
out of time for awhile.
As to my reading I own at least 150 books with relevant content that I have
read or browsed.
As to weather any of these seem to be an identifiable near precursor to my
c
Re: JOINING posts
Hi Saibal, At 0:26 +0200 1/06/2002, Saibal Mitra wrote: >I think that statistical physics, and especially renormalization group >techniques, are essential if one wishes to derive the physics that we >observe from abstract concepts like a measure defined on a set of computer >programs. As I said I agree with you. But do you really mean a measure defined on a set of computer programs, or a set of computer program *states*? In my setting it is the latter although it can and must eventually lead to a measure on consistent *sequences* of computer program states. (This is reminiscent of the passage made by Isham going from the Quantum logics of states to the quantum logics of histories). The states must be considered also as seen by the machines themselves, should I add. cf the 1-person/3-person distinction (which I attempt to capture by the variant of self-reference logics. I said we meet but of course we are not yet at the Stanley-Livingston Junction, but let us say we each begin to appear on our respective horizon :) Regards, Bruno
Re: JOINING posts
I am currently working on my Ph.D. project on statistical physics. I am familiar with renormalization group techniques and some specialized techniques for exactly solving models, like the Bethe Ansatz and the Yang-Baxter equation. I independently concluded that mathematical existence and physical existence are the same, by contemplating thought experiments with artificial intelligence. I think that I got this idea in 1994. I joined this list in the summer of 2000 and posted some of my thought experiments. I think that statistical physics, and especially renormalization group techniques, are essential if one wishes to derive the physics that we observe from abstract concepts like a measure defined on a set of computer programs. Let me conclude by giving some interesting references of books and articles that are not too technical: [1] Scaling and renormalization in statistical physics, J. Cardy, Cambridge University Press [2] Exactly Solved Models in Statistical Mechanics, R.J. Baxter, Academic Press, New York, 1982 [3] Renormalization Group Studies of Vertex Models, Saibal Mitra, http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9910031 [4] Determinism and Dissipation in Quantum Gravity, Erice lecture, Gerard 't Hooft, http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0003005 [5] Entropic Dynamics, Ariel Caticha, http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0109068
Re: JOINING posts
On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 05:02:06PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: > - Computability and Logic, by George Boolos and Richard Jeffrey (Cambridge > University Press (third ed. 1989). I noticed that a fourth edition just came out in March of this year. This seems to be THE book for learning metamathematics (and how it relates to the computability stuff I learned in my theory of computation class) that I was searching for before seeing Bruno's recommendation. Thanks! > Unfortunately most mathematicians, including the only > local logician, were allergic to Godel's theorem! (not so rare attitude) Can you elaborate on that please? What specificly were they objecting to? > I mentionned often the Boolos 1993 as the classical treatise of the (modal) > Godelian logics of self-reference (also known as "logics of > provability", mainly > the modal logics G and G* and their children). Unfortunately at this point (after reading Boolos's _The Logic of Provability_) I still don't get what logics of provability have to do with the mind/body problem. Please hurry up with your English paper. :)
Re: JOINING posts
Hi All, Wei Dai wrote (in part): >Perhaps it would help if list members each posts a short biography of >themselves, and tell us their intellectual backgrounds. What fields are >you familiar with, what relevant books/papers have you read, etc.? This >way, if you don't understand someone's post, you can look up his JOINING >post in the archive and figure out what background he is assuming. I got >this idea from the SL4 mailing list; maybe it will work here as well. OK. I am a belgium mathematician from Brussels University (born in Germany 1955). I got a PhD thesis at the french University of Lille (you can download it from my URL). The subject of the thesis is ..., well almost the very subject of this list: it is a deductive argument showing that if we take very seriously the computationnalist hypothesis in the cognitive science, then the mind body problem is partially reduced into a derivation of the physical laws from the platonic existence of *all* computations. A consequence is that physics becomes a branch of "machine's psychology". How did I find this? My starting obsessive question was "How long lives an amoeba?", or "Does an amoeba survive its self-replication?". I made public my first "theory" in 1963 (at school), where I answered positively the last question. After that, my poor mind transforms itself into a battlefield where two different approaches concerning the amoeba question evolve. The first approach was biological and mainly mechanist and discrete, the second approach was chemical and based on the idea that a continuum exists, which put a doubt on the biological discreteness. So I got conflicting craving for biology and chemistry. My first bible-book was the book by Watson "Molecular Biology of the Gene" (its french version). Its chapter "The cells obey to the chemical laws" leads me to Pauling books on chemistry. But I got a feeling that despite appearances biology was more fundamental that physics. I was suspecting the existence of a more abstract biology capable of explaining the form of the physical laws, and that it should be so if we want ever been able to understand the nature of reality and where did it come from. In 1971 I discover Logic in "Alice in Wonderland" and soon after I discover books on Godel's theorems containing an abstract (matter independent) explanation of self-replication processes. The Godelian logic of self-reference appears to be a good candidate for the abstract biology and psychology I was searching. This solved my Chemist/Biology hesitation, and I decided to do math at university. Unfortunately most mathematicians, including the only local logician, were allergic to Godel's theorem! (not so rare attitude) I will submit different project for a thesis in 1977, including a work showing that the bacteria Escherichia Coli was essentially Turing equivalent. Although biologists and engineers were interested, the mathematicians were negative (to say the least), so much that I get a depression which leads me to Buddhism and Taoism for years, earning my life by teaching mathematics or working for private societies (biotechnology), and using my free-time for meditation and chineese calligraphy, but also more and more chemistry (again) and quantum chemistry. 10 years later, biologists, physicians (!) and engineers from Brussels, but also a logician from Liege (other city in Belgium) will "force" me to publish a paper in a proceeding for a meeting at Toulouse around artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and they will provide me a financement for doing a thesis. The paper "Theoretical computer science and philosophy of mind" (which includes the result of my thesis except theorem 14) will be published in 1988 at Toulouse (precise french ref in my thesis). It contains the comp and quantum suicide argument, the movie graph argument (one year before Maudlin, I've been lucky!). The logical technical part has been shortened for length reasons, though. I will published those missing part in 1991 and 1992: Amoeba, planaria and dreaming machine, Mechanism and Personal Identity. (ref in the thesis). Then I will be asked to submit the thesis at Brussels. Due to the continued harrasment by the same Godel-allergic mathematicians I will eventually (1998) submit it at the french university of Lille. I'm still working at IRIDIA at Brussels University. I finance myself like almost everybody at IRIDIA (cf my URL). Although I got a price for the thesis one year after (in 1999), I know it will still take some time before people get familiar with the idea. I know that in this list some people have had very similar intuition and I encourage them to work them out---despite academical difficulties in front of novelties. Strictly speaking the background needed for my work is -Mathematical Logic, Quantum Mechanics and some Cognitive Science. A shortcut for the logic part of the thesis are the following two books: - Formal Logic its scope and limits, by Richard
Re: JOINING posts
Good idea Wai! Here are a few words describing my background. I graduated from McGill University in Montreal with a master degree in Electronic Engineering in 1968. My career has spanned many different fields including electronic hardware design, CPU design, embedded processors, software design, Kalman filtering and navigation, artificial intelligence, smart automous vehicles for military air or ground applications. More lately I invented a dedicated processor for performing genome analysis. Since 1992 I have been working for myself, initially because of the downturn in the economy due to the end of the cold war, and now because of my age - age is as detrimental to engineers in the eyes of human resources managers as it is to women in a beauty contest. Now I have my own research and development company Quantics, which, at times, is making money and at other times, struggling, depending on the contracts. It's nice to have a loving and comprehending wife with a solid profession during the hard times. In the course of my work I have come up with many new patentable idea, some of which generated money. Because of the nature of my work, I find that I must be very familar with the patenting process. For years, I have been filing my own patents. However, I am finding that marketing is much tougher than inventing. I am well on my way to become a patent agent and soon it shall be possible for me to do like Albert and work in a patent office or work for myself as a patent agent. I have always been interested in philosophy and physics. The idea of Quantum immortality came to me independently around 1990 after some meditation about Schroedinger's cat. I started writing a book on the matter. In the course of my research on that book, I came across the everything list, David Deutsh and and Tegmark's idea. George Levy Wei Dai wrote: > > I find that I often have trouble understanding posts on this mailing list, > given the wide range of intellectual ground that it covers. It seems that > people sometimes assume a background in an academic field, and I'm not > even sure what the field is, or how to get up to date or at least familiar > with it. On the other hand, sometimes a poster is just a crank and isn't > making any sense at all. It can be hard to tell the difference. > > Perhaps it would help if list members each posts a short biography of > themselves, and tell us their intellectual backgrounds. What fields are > you familiar with, what relevant books/papers have you read, etc.? This > way, if you don't understand someone's post, you can look up his JOINING > post in the archive and figure out what background he is assuming. I got > this idea from the SL4 mailing list; maybe it will work here as well. > > To begin with myself, I work as a cryptographic engineer, which means I > design and implement computer security mechanisms, with a focus on the > cryptographic parts. I have a BA in computer science, and have taken > courses in linguistics, theory of computation, number theory, algebra, > probability theory, and game theory. > > I think I first encountered the idea that all possible universes exist in > the novel _Permutation City_ by Greg Egan, and then in Tegmark and > Schmidhuber's papers. I started this mailing list after reading both of > those papers. > > I've scanned through _An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its > Applications_, Ming Li and Paul Vitanyi, and read parts of it in enough > detail to have found several previously unreported errors. It's about > algorithmic information theory, and I personally think it is the single > most important book for list members to read. > > Here are some other books that I've read outside of formal education that > seem relevant. > > _The Selfish Gene_, Richard Dawkins. Theory of evolution. > _Gödel, Escher, Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid_, Douglas Hofstadter. On > self-reference. > _Maxwell's Demon: Entropy, Information, Computation_. Entropy and the > physics of computation. > _Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure and Ontology_, Stewart Shapiro. > > I'm finding that I don't have enough knowledge about foundations of > mathematics, foundations of decision theory, and quantum mechanics. I'm > currently reading the following books to rectify the situation: > > _The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory_, James Joyce > _A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics_, John S. Townsend > _Foundations Without Foundationalism : A Case for Second-Order Logic_, > Stewart Shapiro > > Ok, who wants to go next?
Re: JOINING posts
I have not posted to this list before, but I have read many posts with interest. Professionally, I do modeling and simulation of air transportation systems, including some applications of agent-based modeling, game theory and decision analysis. I have a few publications in these areas. I have a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy (Carnegie-Mellon) and M.S. in Physics (Cornell). I participate in Santa Fe Institute meetings a couple of times per year and have a general interest in complex adaptive systems. Although I'm not a Buddhist scholar by any means, I'm a practicing Buddhist and have a basic knowledge of some Buddhist philosophical schools. Personally, I am interested in ontology, and in linking Buddhist philosophy to Western scientific ideas. I've read or perused various books and articles (Dennett, Chalmers, Wheeler,... plus various Buddhist texts) relevant to this. Thanks to everyone on the list, Len Wojcik Arlington, VA US Wei Dai wrote: > > I find that I often have trouble understanding posts on this mailing list, > given the wide range of intellectual ground that it covers. It seems that > people sometimes assume a background in an academic field, and I'm not > even sure what the field is, or how to get up to date or at least familiar > with it. On the other hand, sometimes a poster is just a crank and isn't > making any sense at all. It can be hard to tell the difference. > > Perhaps it would help if list members each posts a short biography of > themselves, and tell us their intellectual backgrounds. What fields are > you familiar with, what relevant books/papers have you read, etc.? This > way, if you don't understand someone's post, you can look up his JOINING > post in the archive and figure out what background he is assuming. I got > this idea from the SL4 mailing list; maybe it will work here as well. > > To begin with myself, I work as a cryptographic engineer, which means I > design and implement computer security mechanisms, with a focus on the > cryptographic parts. I have a BA in computer science, and have taken > courses in linguistics, theory of computation, number theory, algebra, > probability theory, and game theory. > > I think I first encountered the idea that all possible universes exist in > the novel _Permutation City_ by Greg Egan, and then in Tegmark and > Schmidhuber's papers. I started this mailing list after reading both of > those papers. > > I've scanned through _An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its > Applications_, Ming Li and Paul Vitanyi, and read parts of it in enough > detail to have found several previously unreported errors. It's about > algorithmic information theory, and I personally think it is the single > most important book for list members to read. > > Here are some other books that I've read outside of formal education that > seem relevant. > > _The Selfish Gene_, Richard Dawkins. Theory of evolution. > _Gödel, Escher, Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid_, Douglas Hofstadter. On > self-reference. > _Maxwell's Demon: Entropy, Information, Computation_. Entropy and the > physics of computation. > _Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure and Ontology_, Stewart Shapiro. > > I'm finding that I don't have enough knowledge about foundations of > mathematics, foundations of decision theory, and quantum mechanics. I'm > currently reading the following books to rectify the situation: > > _The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory_, James Joyce > _A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics_, John S. Townsend > _Foundations Without Foundationalism : A Case for Second-Order Logic_, > Stewart Shapiro > > Ok, who wants to go next?
Re: JOINING posts
Dear All, I've been lurking for a while while I try to figure out something useful to contribute, but figured you should at least know I'm here... I'm a postdoctoral research fellow at Cambridge (UK), working in palaeontology - specifically, the early evolution of various invertebrate groups, and the relationship of physiochemical environmental factors to evolutionary patterns. I also have an outside interest in such matters as self-organised criticality, in relation to the origin and evolution of life. I have a slightly mathematical background, in that I intended to pursue theoretical physics before discovering as an undergrad that I enjoyed looking at fossils even more. I have practically no background in computing. My interest in this area lies primarily in the philosophical perspective, and I admit, in a somewhat less rigorous style than I've experienced here. Saibal invited me to this list after reading some comments on another message board discussing whether information merely describes physicality, or actually defines it. My approach to the area is largely non-mathematical, involving mainstream philosophy, and a large pinch of oriental philosophical/religious aspects combined with parapsychology. As you can imagine, it has been difficult trying to usefully find a way into the discussions! As a brief introduction to the sorts of things I've been reading, try: Penrose, R. The emperors's new mind. Capra, F. The Tao of Physics Dennett, D. Consciousness Explained Evolution books by Steve Jones, Dawkins, Gould etc., as well as a large number of specialised papers on Proterozoic and early Phanerozoic evolution. Complexity and chaos-based books, including those by Kauffman, Lewin and Gleick Various oriental texts, but particularly the Wen Tzu, Tao Te Ching, poems of Li Po, "Cultivating Stillness" David-Neel, A. With mystics and Magicians in Tibet Plus several of the "classic" books on philosophy - Hume, Berkeley, Descartes, and anything else I can find, for background. For the parapsychological side, try the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (very mixed content, but some definitely interesting bits - I recommend browsing) As you can tell, this is a slightly unorthodox selection. However, I am, like you, a professional scientist, so please try to think of it merely as a different approach to the same problems, rather than a frivolous pursuit to be immediately dismissed! I look forward to the point when I can follow your arguments fully enough to be able to join in... All the best, Joe Botting - Department of Earth Sciences University of Cambridge Downing Street Cambridge CB2 3EQ Phone: ( +44 ) 1223 333400 Fax: ( +44 ) 1223 333450
Re: JOINING posts
My formal education ended back in the beginnings of the seventies with a finished MA in sociology and an invitation to get a doctors degree at the University of Stockholm. But life got in the way. When my wife died two years ago I decided to write a book in order to understand better some of my thinkings during all those years. I finished the book in seven months and have since been trying to get it published. That has proven very hard since Swedish is a small language. Max Tegmark, who is swedish, even though he works in USA has read my manuscript and promised to write a forward if I could get a bookcompany to publish it. He said he was impressed and thought that my work was a fascinating hike in the territory between philosophy and physics and that it was full of original ideas! Unfortunately I don´t suppose many on this list is fluent in swedish, but to give you an idea where I´m at I can show you the bibliography from the book: Bibliografi Barrow, John D.: Universums födelse, Natur och Kultur, Stockholm 1995 Blackmore, Susan: The Meme Machine, Oxford University Press, New York 1999 Casti, John L.: Searching for certainty, Scribners, London 1992 Close, Frank: Lucifer´s Legacy, Oxford University Press, New York 2000 Davies, Paul: Superforce, Unwin Paperbacks, London 1985 Davies, P.C.W.; Brown J. (eds.): Superstrings - A Theory of Everything?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1988 Dawkins, Richard: The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin Books, London 1988 Dawkins, Richard: Livets flod, Natur och Kultur, Stockholm 1996 Dennet, Daniel C.: Consciousness Explained, Penguin Books, London 1992 Dennet, Daniel C.: Darwin´s Dangerous Idea, Touchstone, New York 1996 Dennet, Daniel C.: Kinds of Minds - Toward an Understanding of Consciousness, BasicBooks, New York 1996 Deutsch, David: The Fabric of Reality, Penguin Books, London 1997 Gell-Mann, Murray: Kvarken och Jaguaren, ICA-förlaget, Västerås 1994 Greene, Brian: The elegant universe, W.W. Norton & Company, New York 1999 Guttmann Y.M.: The concept of probability in statistical physics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999 Hawking, Stephen W.: Kosmos - En kort historik, Rabén Prisma, Stockholm 1992 Hawking, Stephen W.: Svarta hål och universums framtid, Rabén Prisma, Stockholm 1994 Hoffmeyer, Jesper: Livstecken, Bonnier Alba, Stockholm 1997 Hutten, Ernest H.: The Ideas of Physics, Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 1967 Jaynes, Julian: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1982 Livio, Mario: The Accelerating Universe, John Wiley & Sons, New York 2000 Monod, Jacques: Slump och nödvändighet, Aldus/Bonniers, Stockholm 1972 Smolin, Lee: Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2000 Wick, David: The Infamous Boundary, Springer-Verlag, New York 1995 Artiklar David Deutsch: Comment on "'Many Minds' Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics by Michael Lockwood", British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 222-8 (1996) David Deutsch: Proceedings of the Royal Society A455, 3129-3197 Quantum Theory of Probability and Decisions (1999) David Deutsch: Proceedings of the Royal Society A456, 1759-1774 Information Flow in Entangled Quantum Systems (2000) David Deutsch, Artur Ekert, Rossella Luppachini: Machines, Logic and Quantum Physics, Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 3, 3 (September 2000) David Deutsch: The Structure of the Multiverse, opublicerad artikel som blev framsidesstoff i New Scientist (14 Juli 2001) Horava & Witten: Eleven-dimensional supergravity on a manifold with boundary, Nucl. Phys. B475 (1996) Khoury, Ovrut, Steinhard, Turok: The Ekpyrotic Universe: Colliding Branes and the Origin of the Hot Big Bang, arXiv:hep-th/0103239 (Mars 2001) Tegmark & Wheeler: 100 Years of the Quantum, Scientific American (Februari 2001) Max Tegmark: Is ``the theory of everything'' merely the ultimate ensemble theory?, Annals of Physics 270, 1-51 (November 1998) Michael Brooks: Enlightenment in the barrel of a gun, The Guardian (1997) Anne Runehov: Mind, Brain, Quantum & Time: A Lockwoodian perspective, Magisteruppsats vis Stockholms Universitet Filosofiska Institutionen (1999) Steane & van Dam: Quantum entanglement looks like telepathy when three physicist get together on a game show, Physics Today 35-39, (Februari 2000) Webbpublikationer E. T. Jaynes: Probability Theory: The Logic of Science, fragment till ett bokmanuskript från Juni 1994, PDF-format på webbadressen bayes.wustl.edu (Augusti 2001) Christoph Schiller: Motion Mountain - Hiking beyond space and time along the concepts of modern physics, lärobok i fysik under utarbetande, PDF-format på webbadressen dse.nl/motionmountain/welcome.html (Augusti 2001) - Original Message - From: "Wei Dai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2002 7:47 PM Subject: JOINING posts > I find that I often have trouble understanding posts on this mailing list, > given the wide range of intellectual ground that it covers. It seem
Re: JOINING posts
This is an excellent idea Wai. I guess we look up the thread called
"JOINING POST" to the info.
As for me, I studied mathematics and physics at an undergrad
level. Whilst still at high school, I was studying quantum mechanics
and general relativity, and started my science degree wanting to
research beyond these theories. By the time I finished my BSc, I had
decided that "reductionism" has gone too far, and that there was a
whole world of "mesoscale" or "complex" physics that was opening
up. As a result I moved into nonequilibrium statistical physics for my
PhD. The field of Complex Systems basically took off at this time.
At age 19, I toyed with an idea (no doubt inspired by Corewars from
Martin Gardiner's column) of evolving small self-reproducing creatures
as a means of understanding evolution. By the time I had finished my
formal requirements for entering scientific research (ie a PhD), Tom
Ray had achieved this task with Tierra. So after my PhD I got into
artificial life, and I developed my own evolutionary model called
Ecolab. As a result I've taken part in some of the big intellectual
debates of the 90s in complex systems, including self-organised
criticality as an explanation of punctuationlism, complexity trends
through evolution and explanations of diversity growth during the
history of the biosphere.
During the mid-90s I started musing over the MWI and the anthropic
principle, and realised that the univserse was not just some accident
of creation, but the result of an evolutionary process. These thoughts
finally culminated in my paper "Evolution in the Multiverse", where
the MWI is analogous to variation in Darwin's theory of evolution, and
the Anthropic principle is analogous to selection.
Whilst riding a bicycle, I would speculate on what would be happening
in the "neighbouring" universes where I was a little faster or slower,
and that car that nearly missed me actually hit me and killed me. I
realised at that time I would never know, and came up with my own
formulation of what has become known as the Quantum Theory of
Immortality.
About this time, David Deutsch's book Fabric of Reality appeared, which
I bought and devoured. It is truly an excellent book, although has its
failings like any work. Later, I saw the New Scientist article about
Max Tegmark, and I thought - here's someone with guts! As they say,
most of the rest is history, documented in the Everything and FOR
lists.
As a result of discussions on this list, I have written a paper "Why
Occams Razor", which develops these ensemble theories to the point of
deriving all the postulates of quantum mechanics, except the
correspondence principle. The paper was first written 2.5 years ago,
and is in its 3rd revision. It is very difficult to get this sort of
stuff published, but I'm perservering, because I suspect this will be
one of the most important papers I'll write.
I have to say I have little time for deliberate obfuscation, whether
by excessive use of obscure verbal terms, or execessive mathematical
rigour. However, I do believe that mathematical concepts and terms are
about our only chance of comprehending and communicating this subject
area. For this reason, I am disappointed at the approach the FOR list
takes of banning all mathematical description.
Relevant References:
Stuart Kauffman:
"The Origins of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution"
This is quite a well written book, curiously aside from the description of
Kauffman's own contribution to the field, the NK model. One problem is
that many readers of this book assume that Kauffman invented the whole
field.
Murray Gell-Mann: The Quark and the Jaguar
Tom Ray's Tierra: http://www.isd.atr.co.jp/~ray/tierra/index.html
Ecolab: http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks/ecolab/
Li & Vitanyi (Thanks Wai Dai)
Bruno Marchal's thesis: (which I read in French, but got confused by
modal logic :)
Roy Frieden: Physics from Fisher Information
Standish, R.K. (2000) ``Evolution in the Multiverse'' Complexity
International, 7. http://www.csu.edu.au/ci
Standish, R.K. (2001) ``On Complexity and Emergence'' Complexity
International, 9. http://www.csu.edu.au/ci
Standish, R.K. (2002) ``Why Occam's Razor'' arXiv: physics/0001020
A/Prof Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile)
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 (")
Australia[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Room 2075, Red Centrehttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
