Stephen writes
> > What properties do you have in mind that pure platonic algorithms
> > seem to lack? Anything, that is, besides *time* itself?
>
> How about an explanation as to how an "illusion" of time obtains
> (assuming the theory of Platonic forms if correct)?
I can't speak for advocates of a timeless Platonia, because I am
not one. I have not yet been reconciled to timelessness.
But here is what I think they would say (at least a simplified
version of what they'd perhaps say):
Future states contain some information about past states in an
unambiguous way that past states do not contain about future states.
For example, a future version of a photographic plate contains
information about the incidence of a particle upon it.
In the same way, photons moving outward from a source collectively
contain information about their source, but not about their
destination. By gradually going to more advance versions of
photographic plates and carbon chemistry, it is seen that
evolution allows for amoebas and other creatures who contain
information about their past chemical environments.
Now taking an amoeba for example, all the possible states of
it exist in Platonia. 10^10^45 or so of them, if we are to
believe Bekenstein. But if you observe the 10^10^45 carefully,
you will find a tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny
set of them somewhere that seem to tell a story.
The "story" thus told is the life-history of the amoeba,
including every possible thing that can happen to it.
(Now I myself have some objections to this account---though
I reckon it can all be fixed up by a UD, that it by focusing
instead on programs that themselves produce sequences of states
---but I have the same sort of objection that I've always had
to Hilary Putnam's claims about all computations (within certain
huge bounds) taking place in a single rock.)
Lee
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Received on Thu Jun 22 2006 - 23:09:07 PDT