Re: Fw: Something for Platonists

From: Wei Dai <weidai.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 14:22:38 -0400

> But in fact, the only thing that privileges the set of all
> computational operations that we see in nature, is that they are instantiated by
> the laws of physics.

I would dispute this. The set of computable operations may also be
privileged in that only a universe with laws of physics that instantiate
all of these operations and none others can evolve intellegence (or
alternatively these universes have the greatest chance of evolving
intelligence).

> It is only through our knowledge of the physical world
> that we know of the di.erence between computable and not computable. So
> it's only through our laws of physics that the nature of computation can be
> understood. It can never be vice versa."

So Deutsch is basically saying that we should not rule out the possibility
that we may discover a new law of physics that will allow us to solve the
halting problem, for example. I agree with this, given that we don't
know that what I wrote above is actually true (instead of just a
possibility).
Received on Mon Jun 23 2003 - 14:23:28 PDT