Re: Let There Be Something

From: Hal Finney <hal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 12:39:27 -0800 (PST)

Russell Standish writes:
> Lack of convincing is perhaps due to lack of understanding. Even I do
> not fully understand the true worth of my "derivation". It seems to me
> that I show that any physical theory that takes into account
> observation must have that Hilbert space structure, with that form of
> the Born rule. Yet there may well be special conditions that nobody
> has yet spotted that limit the claims. OTH, it cannot produce
> something like the classic Schroedinger equation for the hydrogen
> atom, which as we know must be strictly false as it ignores
> relativistic effects.

What about other universes, such as Conway's Life universe? It has
nothing like QM. Does your argument predict that life is impossible
in Life? We know that it is possible to create computers there - I
think self-replicating machines as well. Can we really argue from such
general premises that there is no way that living organisms could exist
in that universe?

I am skeptical that we can reach such strong and specific conclusions
from such broad and general assumptions.

Hal Finney
Received on Thu Nov 03 2005 - 15:40:59 PST