Osher Doctorow wrote: > > From: Osher Doctorow [EMAIL PROTECTED], Sat. Sept. 21, 2002 11:38PM > > Hal, > > Well said. I really have to have more patience for questioners, but > mathematics and logic are such wonderful fields in my opinion that we need > to treasure them rather than throw them out like some of the Gung-Ho > computer people do who only recognize the finite and discrete and mechanical > (although they're rather embarrassed by quantum entanglement - but not > enough not to try to deal with it in their old plodding finite-discrete > way). > > Mathematics and Physics are Allies, more or less equal. I prefer not to > call the concepts of one inferior directly or to indirectly indicate > something of the sort, unless they really are contradictory or something > very, very, very close to that more or less. As for a computer, maybe > someday it will be *all it can be*, but right now I have to quote a retired > Assistant Professor of Computers Emeritus at UCLA (believe it or not, > bureaucracy can create such a position - probably the same bureaucratic > mentality that created witchhunts and putting accused thieves' heads into > wooden blocks so that they could be flogged by passers-by in olden times), > who said: *Computers are basically stupid machines.* We knew what he > meant. They're very vast stupid machines, and sometimes we need speed, > like me getting away from the internet or I'll never get to sleep. > > Osher Le Doctorow (*Old*) >
... > > > > So I disagree with Russell on this point; I'd say that Tegmark's > > mathematical structures are more than axiom systems and therefore > > Tegmark's TOE is different from Schmidhuber's. > > > > I also think that this discussion suggests that the infinite sets and > > classes you are talking about do deserve to be considered mathematical > > structures in the Tegmark TOE. But I don't know whether he would agree. > > > > Hal Finney > > > If you are so sure of this, then please provide a description of these "bigger" objects that cannot be encoded in the ASCII character set and sent via email. You are welcome to use any communication channel you wish - doesn't have to be email. And if you can't describe what you're talking about, why should I take them seriously? Now from my point of view, the continuum exists, of course, but it exists as a collection of descriptions which make use of primitive concepts like "limit". Each of these descriptions can be encoded in ASCII (or any other encoding system). I am open to the proposition that there is no enumeration of the set of all descriptions of the continuum - and indeed the enumeration of the set of all descriptions takes c steps to execute :) Anyone who is familiar with my postings would never categorise me as being a "discrete bigot". Cheers ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Director High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile) UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 (") Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED] Room 2075, Red Centre http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------