Re: Universal prior - Go FORTH and Run Backward

From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat Nov 13 10:43:33 1999

Russell Standish wrote:

>Thanks for the ref. Word files can be converted easily into postscript
>(or some people can also convert it into PDF - same diff). However, it
>would be better for you to convert the file and ship the postscript,
>rather than shipping the Word file as different versions of Word seem
>to produce incosistent results.
>
>Nevertheless, I'd be interested in the paper (whether Word or ps).


And in PDF? (a solution appears in the horizon for putting it in PDF
format in my URL)


>> I have still a question for Russell, what is the meaning of
>> giving a "physical existence" to a mathematical structure ? This is
>> not at all a clear statement for me.
>
>I am using it in the sense of Tegmark - essentially saying that some
>structure really _does_ exist. A bit like saying Platonic forms really
>_do_ exist.

OK. But I reserve platonic existence to numbers and their (intricate
enough) relations. The "whole of math" is not a well defined
being, it seems to me. See also my post to Chris.
And there is a difference which remains to explain between the
atemporal universal Turing machine and the apparently
contingencial concrete universal computer I am using right now.

A lot of people seems to take mathematical reality for granted.
They should realise that the very mathematical discovery of the
computer (by Post, Turing, Church, Markov, etc.) comes from
works in the foundation of math, when all attempt to define the
"whole math" appears to be inconsistent ... or incomplete.

Regards,

Bruno
Received on Sat Nov 13 1999 - 10:43:33 PST