Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness

From: Hal Finney <hal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 13:12:29 -0700 (PDT)

Stephen Paul King writes:
> I think that your characterization would be accurate if you could
> somehow substitute each and every verb, such as "generate", "execute",
> "compare", "detect", "create", which depend on some form of transitional
> temporality with nouns that have a non-temporal connotation, after all all
> of this computational structure is postulated to exist in a TIMELESS
> Platonic realm where any notion of temporality and change is non-existent.

That's a good point. Another way to think of it is that all bit strings
exist, timelessly; and some of them implicitly specify computer programs;
and some of those computer programs would create universes with observers
just like us in them. You don't necessarily need the machinery of
the computer to run the program, it could be that the existence of the
program itself is sufficient for what we think of as reality.

Then the same argument applies: each computer program is actually only
a finite length; and a computer program of n bits is a prefix of 1/2^n
of the bit strings; hence it is reasonable to say that such a program
has a measure of 1/2^n. Then we can argue that our own universe is a
relatively small program (Wolfram estimates about 2000 bits) and so it
is not all that unlikely that we observe such a universe.

So, in this sense, the Platonic existence of bit strings is enough to
explain our experience of the world.

Hal Finney
Received on Fri May 06 2005 - 16:17:57 PDT