Hi Norman,
A TM in our universe can simulate you living in a virtual universe. If your
universe is described by the same laws of physics as ours, then most
physicists believe that the TM would have to work in a nonlocal way from
your perspective.
Is this a problem? I don't think so, because the TM doesn't exist in your
universe, it exists in our universe and it doesn't violate locality here.
The TM generates your universe in which locality cannot be violated. So, I
don't see the problem.
Saibal
----- Original Message -----
From: "Norman Samish" <ncsamish.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 08:44 PM
Subject: Re: What Computationalism is and what it is *not*
> Hal Finney,
>
> You say, ". . . the Church Thesis, which I would paraphrase as saying that
> there are no physical processes more computationally powerful than a
Turing
> machine, or in other words that the universe could in principle be
simulated
> on a TM. I wouldn't be surprised if most people who believe that minds
can
> be simulated on TMs also believe that everything can be simulated on a
TM."
>
> I'm out of my depth here, but this doesn't make sense to me. My
> understanding is that the Turing Machine is a hypothetical device. If one
> could be built that operated at faster-than-light or infinite speed, maybe
> it could, in principle, simulate the universe. However, this isn't
> possible. Does this mean that the Church Thesis, hence computationalism,
> is, in reality, false?
>
> Norman Samish
>
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Received on Mon Sep 05 2005 - 18:25:59 PDT