Re: Turing vs math

From: Gilles HENRI <Gilles.Henri.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 16:16:46 +0200

>Gilles:
>
>>But the assumption
>>that the reality itself is a computation is indeed a very strong,
>>restrictive and unneccessary one.
>
>But it is compatible with the data! The restriction makes the explanation
>of the universe less complex. Why add more than necessary?
>
>>Occam's razor deals with the world of
>>approximate theories, not with the physical world itself.
>
>Why assume the physical world is non-computable, in absence of any evidence?

sorry I don't agree. Again there is no up to now formal exact description
of the world. The hypothesis of computability is a very strong one, since
it strongly restricts the number of possible worlds. Even if current
approximate theories are computable, it is not necessary (or even useful)
to assume that the reality is at a finite level...

>
>>I think you should just read again some ancient Greek philosophs who had
>>already understood the difference with the reality and the description that
>>we give from it..
>
>Ancient Greek philosophers may be of interest for historic reasons but
>they don't offer any insights on "realities" and their "descriptions"
>beyond those obvious for any kid with virtual reality experience.
>
>Theoretical computer science offers a new philosophy based on formal
>descriptions of realities and their descriptions and their observers.
>No vague blabla anymore.

up to now, theoretical computer science has brought no information about
the world! The formal systems handled by computer theory are at best
approximations of physical theories (which are all continuous up to now),
that are at turn approximations of the real (unknown) world...As there is
no physical theory that can claim to reproduce the results of any
experiment, there is a fortiori no computation that can claim to reproduce
"exactly" the world. You can play with toy "universes" (which are in fact
mere computations) but it will never help you to predict anything about our
real world...

Gilles
Received on Wed Oct 27 1999 - 07:28:39 PDT