Dear Russell:
At 5/2/01, you wrote:
>Incidently, I didn't mean to imply that this sort of modeling of
>Knowlegde was inappropriate, only that there was no discussion as to
>why one would want to model it in this particular way. Its really the
>same as when Hal Ruhl (and I admit I'm putting words in his mouth
>here, although its consistent with my understanding of his position)
>models the universe by cellular automata. Yes I can agree its a
>consistent model, and possibly one that's testable. However, I fail to
>see why one would want to do that. Good physical models ought to have
>some understandable basis (explanatory power perhaps).
Indeed one could at first cut consider my model to be a collection of
differently configured cellular automata "hopping" from acceptable sub
pattern to acceptable sub pattern on a huge preexisting meta pattern.
However, I try to show that none of these can be deterministic cascades
i.e. single valued non halting machines with static definitions.
As to the usefulness of deterministic cellular automata to model physics I
cite Tommaso Toffoli's paper: "Occam, Turing, von Neumann, Jaynes: How much
can you get for how little (A conceptual introduction to cellular
automata)" at:
http://www.interjournal.org/cgi-bin/manuscript_abstract.cgi?345678901
I do try to build a derivation of our universe's physics on my somewhat
different base.
>Perhaps the way out of this mess is to say that I'me really talking
>about belief, rather than knowledge, however that would imply that
>knowledge is devoid of meaning, since it is impossible to establish
>with certainty whether any particular fact is true. Even Mathematical
>proof is contingent upon belief of the efficacy of the formal proof,
>something that has been called into doubt, particularly for more
>complex proofs like Fermat's last theorem, or the 4 colour theorem.
>
>I don't mean to be picky, but its just these sorts of considerations
>and misunderstandings that throw me off the track every time.
>
> Cheers
I think there are rather few universal [true?] facts in my model but that
awaits my making it comprehensible. Most truth and meaning will be the
self referential province of individual cellular "actors" ["actors"
indicating non deterministic constructs].
Hal
Received on Tue May 01 2001 - 20:07:42 PDT