Osher Doctorow wrote:
>
> From: Osher Doctorow osher.domain.name.hidden, Sat. Sept. 21, 2002 11:38PM
>
> Hal,
>
> Well said. I really have to have more patience for questioners, but
> mathematics and logic are such wonderful fields in my opinion that we need
> to treasure them rather than throw them out like some of the Gung-Ho
> computer people do who only recognize the finite and discrete and mechanical
> (although they're rather embarrassed by quantum entanglement - but not
> enough not to try to deal with it in their old plodding finite-discrete
> way).
>
> Mathematics and Physics are Allies, more or less equal. I prefer not to
> call the concepts of one inferior directly or to indirectly indicate
> something of the sort, unless they really are contradictory or something
> very, very, very close to that more or less. As for a computer, maybe
> someday it will be *all it can be*, but right now I have to quote a retired
> Assistant Professor of Computers Emeritus at UCLA (believe it or not,
> bureaucracy can create such a position - probably the same bureaucratic
> mentality that created witchhunts and putting accused thieves' heads into
> wooden blocks so that they could be flogged by passers-by in olden times),
> who said: *Computers are basically stupid machines.* We knew what he
> meant. They're very vast stupid machines, and sometimes we need speed,
> like me getting away from the internet or I'll never get to sleep.
>
> Osher Le Doctorow (*Old*)
>
...
> >
> > So I disagree with Russell on this point; I'd say that Tegmark's
> > mathematical structures are more than axiom systems and therefore
> > Tegmark's TOE is different from Schmidhuber's.
> >
> > I also think that this discussion suggests that the infinite sets and
> > classes you are talking about do deserve to be considered mathematical
> > structures in the Tegmark TOE. But I don't know whether he would agree.
> >
> > Hal Finney
> >
>
If you are so sure of this, then please provide a description of these
"bigger" objects that cannot be encoded in the ASCII character set and sent via
email. You are welcome to use any communication channel you wish -
doesn't have to be email. And if you can't describe what you're
talking about, why should I take them seriously?
Now from my point of view, the continuum exists, of course, but it
exists as a collection of descriptions which make use of primitive
concepts like "limit". Each of these descriptions can be encoded in
ASCII (or any other encoding system). I am open to the proposition
that there is no enumeration of the set of all descriptions of the
continuum - and indeed the enumeration of the set of all descriptions
takes c steps to execute :)
Anyone who is familiar with my postings would never categorise me as
being a "discrete bigot".
Cheers
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile)
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 (")
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
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Received on Sun Sep 22 2002 - 18:15:06 PDT