Re: Let There Be Something

From: Stephen Paul King <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 07:49:14 -0500

Hi Russell,

    Can atoms exist in a 2D universe? AFAIK, physics is very different when
constrained to only 2D. My point is that the notion of computation is
meaningless if there is no possibility of a stable structure on and in which
to implement the computation. Platonic Numbers or bit-strings have no
ability to do anything by themselves (by definition!) and thus appeals to
their existence are vacuous.

Onward!

Stephen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Russell Standish" <r.standish.domain.name.hidden>
To: "Stephen Paul King" <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>
Cc: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 2:22 AM
Subject: Re: Let There Be Something


Game of Life is an example 2D system capable of universal
computation. I'm not sure this implies consciousness is possible in
2D, but it needs to be considered.

I think Turing machines are impossible in 1D, however...

Cheers

On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 10:52:39PM -0500, Stephen Paul King wrote:
> Hi George,
>
> It seems to me that the notion of "storing" and communication 1 bit
> explicitly requires some form of stable structure over multiple queries.
> Does this not lead to the requirement of some form of physicality, a
> physicality that is epiphenomena at best in the ideal monism (everything
> is Numb3rs) theory?
>
> As to the question of the smallest dimension that can support life and
> consciousness; this has been considered by many people. My own ideas
> consider the smallest dimension that allows for the greatest diversity of
> forms, forms available to instantiate and represent ideal Forms. We find
> that in 3 dimensions there exists at least a countable infinity of
> topologically distinct objects that require non-trivial computational
> resources to sort and categorize.
>
> Onward!
>
> Stephen
Received on Sat Nov 05 2005 - 07:51:20 PST