Re: The Meaning of Life

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:04:38 -0800

Mark Peaty wrote:
> Brent: 'Remember that Bruno is a logician.'
>
> MP: :-) Yes, this much is easy to infer. The full scope of what this
> might MEAN however, is little short of terrifying ... ;-)
>
> MP: Infinity, infinite, infinitely big or small; these are challenging
> concepts at the best of times and made very interesting to the point of
> mind-boggling in the contexts of QM and relativity theory. In QM, there
> is apparently NOT an infinitely small level of existence that could be
> reached by any kind of measurement due to the shortest length and
> shortest durations denoted by the Planck length and Planck time. I
> personally wonder whether there is room to criticise this limitation.
> The underlying concept of Process Physics [let me call that PP from now
> on] directly challenges the idea.
>
> MP: My point about measurement is to do with the fact that in seeking to
> get as exact a copy as possible, not just a working model, it is
> possible that the digital representations of salient features might need
> more decimal places than the recording and/or transmission systems can
> provide.

Lawrence Krauss wrote a book called "The Physics of Star Trek" in which he discusses the "transporter" on the Enterprise. He calculates that to measure the location of the atoms in a human body in order to recreate it (as in 'Bean me up Scotty') would take an enormous amount of energy - something like converting the mass of the Earth to energy. However, all that is needed for the arguments that appear on this list is to recreate a rough, functioning copy of the body plus a detailed reproduction of memory and a brain that functioned approximately the same. That much might not be too hard. After all, as Stathis points out, you're not the same atoms you were a week ago - and I've already forgotten what I had for lunch day before yesterday.

Brent Meeker

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Received on Thu Jan 04 2007 - 15:26:11 PST

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