Re: Introduction (Digital Physics)

From: Karl Stiefvater <qarl.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 11:20:44 -0500

OOOOOO oh dear. i can't resist the temptation to jump
O O O into the fray. please feel free to ignore me.
OOOOO
OOOOOO Joel wrote:
OOO
OOOOO O > Ahhh... but does that little program ever
 O OO > return a value? Does it ever finish?
OOO OOOO
OOO O O it doesn't need to finish, if you're clever.
OOOOOO
OO O suppose you want to perform a calculation.
OOOOOOOO suppose you want to know "2pi". although the
 OO pi-program will never complete, you can use it
OOOOOO O to create a 2pi-program (which spits out
O OOOOO 2pi a digit at a time.) neither of these
OOO O programs terminate - but over time the
O O OO produce better and better approximations.
OOOO O
OO OOOO in any (computable) calculation, you'll always
OOO OO be able to defer the problem of completion until
OOOO O the "end".
OOOO O
OOOO and you've already conceded that the universe
OO OO is allowed to run forever. in this respect, the
OOOO universe is the "end".
OOOO OO
OOOOOOO damn. sorry. that wasn't terribly clear.
O O
OOOOOO
OOOOO -k
Received on Tue Jun 26 2001 - 09:23:13 PDT