My comment on this thread is that surely what matters about the
projections that the conscious observers see of the multiverse is
information that those observers process. Without being overly
patronising about this, I suspect that theoretical computer science
gives us the complete theory regarding information and infomration
processing. Everything else (ie noncomputable entities) are simply
irrelevant to what observers can see.
>
> >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
>
>
>
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Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit,
University of NSW Phone 9385 6967
Sydney 2052 Fax 9385 6965
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
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Received on Wed Nov 03 1999 - 23:26:39 PST