Re: The universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's?

From: Stephen Paul King <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 15:28:49 -0500

Dear Ben,

    I agree completely with that aspect of Bruno's thesis. ;-) It is the
assumption that the 0's and 1's can exist without some substrate that
bothers me. If we insist on making such an assuption, how can we even have a
notion of distinguishability between a 0 and a 1?.
    To me, its analogous to claiming that Mody Dick "exists" but there does
not exists any copies of it. If we are going to claim that "all possible
computations" exists, then why is it problematic to imagine that "all
possible implementations of computations" exists as well. Hardware is not an
"epiphenomena" of software nor software an "epiphenomena" of hardware, they
are very different and yet interdependent entities.
    Additionally, the 1-uncertainty notion seems to require a neglect of the
no-cloning theorem of QM or, equivalently, that its ok for TMs to construct
(via UDA) QM theories of themselves and yet not be subject to the rules of
the theory. Could we not recover 1-uncertainty from the Kochen-Specker
theorem of QM itself?

Kindest regards,

Stephen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Goertzel" <ben.domain.name.hidden>
To: "Stephen Paul King" <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>;
<everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 1:50 PM
Subject: RE: The class of Boolean Algebras are a subset of the class of
Turing Machines?


>
> Among other things, Bruno is pointing out that if we assume everything in
> the universe consists of patterns of arrangement of 0's and 1's, the
> distinction btw subjective and objective reality is lost, and there's no
way
> to distinguish "simulated physics in a virtual reality" from "real
physics."
>
> I accept this -- there is no way to make such a distinction. Tough luck
for
> those who want to make one!! ;-)
>
> -- Ben G
Received on Tue Nov 26 2002 - 15:30:22 PST