>From: "Joel Dobrzelewski" <dobrzele.domain.name.hidden>
>All of this may seem academic really, since we all know that any
>universal computer is as good as any other. [...]
>But there MAY be some reasons to want to know exactly which algorithm is
>really being run on the bottom...
You guys are going about it all wrong. Sure, some computers seem
simpler than others. But there's no one way to pick the simplest. So much
for zero information.
I have tolerated the talk of UDs because it's about equivalent to saying
that all programs should be run. But I have always advocated the latter.
The set of all is the simplest possibility, rather than choosing one
"simple" program. (Joel's 3 dimensional cellular automata are particularly
ridiculous to me. How could he think the 3-d is not anthropically chosen?)
I'll expand that to include "hardware" (i.e. the bottom algorithm). All
possible algorithms should exist: TMs, CAs, etc. The typical machine on the
bottom should therefore be of huge dimension, with a huge number of states,
etc. As usual, most programs are junk but some will implement universes, or
in this case, I should say that most parts of a typical computer are junk
but some are useful.
I don't think this solves the measure problem (which is the real issue),
but is it possible that the measure distribution of computations implemented
(see my page & Plank Syposium paper if you don't know what I mean by that)
by these infinitely varied bottom machines is somehow independent of the way
the machines themselves are described?
- - - - - - -
Jacques Mallah (jackmallah.domain.name.hidden)
Physicist / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
My URL:
http://hammer.prohosting.com/~mathmind/
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Received on Sat Jun 30 2001 - 13:10:25 PDT