--- On Thu, 10/30/08, Pei Wang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [C]. "Because of B, the universe can be simulated in > Turing Machine". > > This is where I start to feel uncomfortable.
The theory cannot be tested directly because there is no such thing as a real Turing machine. But we can show that the observable universe has finite information content according to the known laws of physics and cosmology, which assumes finite age, size, and mass. In particular, the Bekenstein bound of the Hubble radius gives an exact number (2.91 x 10^122 bits). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe This does not mean you could model the universe. It would be impossible to build a memory this large. Any physically realizable computer would have to be built inside our observable universe. But that is not a requirement for Occam's Razor to hold. I realize we don't have a complete theory of physics. In particular, quantum mechanics has not been unified with general relativity. I also realize that even if we did have a complete theory, we couldn't prove it. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
