Marc,
I do not argue with 'your half' of the 'answer' you gave to the conference
announcement of Jürgen Schm , I just ask for the 'other part': what should
we call "a computer"?
'Anything' doing Comp? (meaning: whatever is doing it)?
Will the conference be limited to that technically embryonic gadget - maybe
even on a binary bases - we use with that limited software-input in 2006? a
Turing machine?
John M
----- Original Message -----
From: <marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden>
To: "Everything List" <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
>
> Ah the famous Juergen Schmidhuber! :)
>
> Is the universe a computer. Well, if you define 'universe' to mean
> 'everything which exists' and you're a mathematical platonist and grant
> reality to infinite sets and uncomputables, the answer must be NO,
> since if uncomputable numbers are objectively real (strong platonism)
> they are 'things' and therefore 'part of the universe' which are by
> definition not computable.
>
> But if by 'universe' you just mean 'physical reality' or 'discrete
> mathematics' or you refuse to grant platonic reality to uncomputables
> or infinite sets (anti-platonism or weaker platonism) then the answer
> could be YES, the universe is a computer.
>
> Cheers!
>
>
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Received on Fri Nov 03 2006 - 07:00:22 PST