----- Original Message -----
From: Higgo James <james.higgo.domain.name.hidden>
To: 'Alastair Malcolm' <amalcolm.domain.name.hidden>
Cc: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: 06 July 1999 11:10
Subject: RE: Devil's advocate against Max Tegmark's hypothesis
> Can you provide any evidence for your extravagant, dualist assertion that
> the program must differ from the computer?
I certainly don't assert the necessity of that anywhere. Perhaps you could
point out precisely where you think I do - maybe there is some
misunderstanding somewhere.
> Why is another universe required?
If the generated universe is somehow specified by the output bit string,
then it cannot be the same as the program and TM (combined if you prefer),
which in turn must operate in some dimension analogous to what we think of
as time (for a step-by-step computation to take place). It seems reasonable
to use the term 'universe' for this realm (as Schmidhuber does), but in any
case it requires an explanation just as ours does.
> As for flying rabbits, one appeared on my ceiling as I was reading your
> post, but as it was only there for 10E-43 seconds, I did not notice it.
The
> odds against it remaining there for two consecutive Planck times are
> vanishingly small.
Flying rabbits from contrived universes (ie from some of the more complex
mathematical structures which should outnumber our own (presumed) one if the
challenge to Tegmark's hypothesis is correct) do not have to obey the
Uncertainty Principle.
Alastair
Received on Wed Jul 07 1999 - 12:33:12 PDT