On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 03:05:48PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >
> >A UD can generate the set of all random strings, but it still needs to
> >select a single string to be equivalent to a Geiger counter.
> >AFAIK,
> >this is impossible for a Turing machine ...
>
>
> Not if the UD (which is a turing machine) copies you each time it
> generates one bit of the random strings.
I had a smart response here, and I just realised I had misinterpreted
the word "copy" here, so I just deleted it. "Copy" in English also
means to send something (envoyer) ("I copied him in on the
conversation"), as well as to reproduce something.
Yes you are quite right (under COMP, and under the more regular meaning
of "copy"). However, I don't think this is how a Geiger counter works...
> This is the idea of getting the quantum indeterminacy as a particular
> case of the comp first person indeterminacy. I think it is the idea of
> Everett and everything-like theories.
>
> >but rather trivial from a
> >real, physical machine.
>
> Accepting not only weak-materialism (existence of primitive matter) and
> the quantum theory that is accepting the existence of primitive matter
> and that it obeys to the quantum. But this is the kind of things we are
> trying to explain (from simpler things, like numbers and/or comp etc.).
>
This is one point where I depart from your metaphysics. Traditional
aristotelianism asserts existence of matter, and that psyche emerges
from that. You assert the existence of numbers, and of psyche, and
show how matter arises from that.
I think both are needed. The psyche supervenes on matter, and the
properties of matter depend on the psyche. All of which exists because
numbers exist. There is a name for such a concept - "strange loop". I
thought this name was due to Stewart and Cohen, but it appears
Hofstadter got there first in GEB.
The reason I have come to this position is that try as I might, I
cannot remove the Anthropic Principle as an axiom. I would dearly love
someone to show that it is a consequence of other assumptions, or can
be derived from such by means of a simple, obvious assumption. But
most people I talk to don't even see the problem (perhaps because
they're still grounded in Aristotelian ways...)
>
>
> >I can do it on my computer, for example,
> >showing it to be capable of more than a Turing machine.
>
> Only if your computer is interfaced with a quantum generator (assuming
> the quantum theory).
>
But it is. Its called a keyboard. (The faster you type, the more
genuine randomness is generated). Do a Google search on /dev/random,
or on "Havege"*. There is also a fantastically complicated quantum
random generator that consists of an arrangement of spinning disks
interacting with a volume of air-AT_SYMBOL- (OK perhaps not proven quantum, but
our best theories that describe the operation of the device, ie Chaos
theory, indicates quantum influence).
*
.domain.name.hidden{Seznec-Sendrier03,
author = {Andr\'e Seznec and Nicolas Sendrier},
title = {{HAVEGE}: A user-level software heuristic for generating empirically strong random numbers},
journal = {{ACM} Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation},
year = 2003,
volume = 13,
pages = {334--346}
}
-AT_SYMBOL-
.domain.name.hidden{Jakobsson-etal98,
author = {Jakobsson, M. and Shriver, E. and Hillyer, E. and Juels, A.},
title = {A Practical Secure Physical Random Bit Generator},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 5th {ACM} Conference on Computer and Communications Security},
pages = {103--111},
year = 1998,
address = {San Francisco},
month = {November}
}
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
Cheers
--
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Received on Thu Feb 09 2006 - 18:23:36 PST