From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Edgar L. Owen
Chris,
>>For a computational universe to even exist it must be consistently
>>logico-mathematical. If it weren't the inconsistencies would cause it to tear
>>itself apart and thus it couldn't exist.
However it is a fact that our own human created computational systems, can and
do incorporate random inputs (in fact sometimes relying on them) and function
increasingly well in noisy environments. And this is in spite of our
fundamental computer chip architecture being highly fault intolerant – but the
fundamental logic is much easier because of this very high signal to noise
ratio.
To build a computer with current chip architecture approaching the complexity
of a human brain you would need a power flux measured in the GWs – the human
brain is trillions of times more efficient than our modern computers.
This argues for the brain itself as a guiding template for the understanding if
evolved computational systems. And if there is one thing that pops out when
studying the brain it is just how very noisy it is…. Continuously crackling
with neuro-electric activity. We are only beginning to seriously attempt to
emulate the brain and to understand its error correction routines, to
understand quorum based algorithms etc.
When I cast around for an example of computationalism in action I am drawn to
the human brain as an exemplar, template what have you. Human made computers
are not nearly as evolved; I predict that in time there is going to be a
radical shift in chip architecture to much lower energy levels to flip a gate
(inevitably also vastly lowering signal to noise) that will be based on massive
parallelism and quorum decisional algorithms to clean the signal up… to discern
the signal in the forest of noise.
It is what we excel at… the human brain. It is the by far the best exemplar of
computationalism that we have available to us.
This is where the math comes from. If a computational universe exists, and ours
does, it must be structured logico-mathematically.
You assume that math proceeds from a computational universe, but then how do
you accomplish computations without math?
But this does NOT men all human H-math exists, it just means that a fundamental
logico-mathematical structure I call R-math (reality math) exists. Just the
minimum that is necessary to compute the actual universe is all that is needed.
I prefer to use shared language as much as possible. What exactly do you mean
by reality math? Define it in a more rigorous manner. What are its fundamental
elements and operators? Is it simple binary arithmetic operated through relays
of the seven or so basic logic gates {AND, OR, NOT, NAND, NOR, XOR, XNOR} ?
If you want to coin a term “R-math” show some rigor and define it in terms of
math. What subset of math is R-math?
Beyond the fuzzy “minimum that is necessary”, which I get.
All the rest is H-math, and we can't assume that H-math is part of R-math. In
fact it is provably different.
Show me your proof then. And please, if you could do so using the language of
math.
The big mistake Bruno makes is assuming that H-math is R-math. It isn't. H-math
is a generalized approximation of R-math, which is then vastly extended far
beyond R-math.
I do not see how you arrive at this conclusion that Bruno assumes that the
superset of all possible math (which is what I am assuming you are intending by
your personal jargon H-math) “is” the minimum necessary set of math (by which
I suspect you intend to mean when you use this term you have coined -- R-math)
Is, is such a generic word; it is hard to pin it down to any concrete meaning
in terms of the statement you just made hear. You say Bruno assumes H-math “is”
R-math (to use your jargon, which I personally find distracting and
unnecessary)… How so? What exactly, precisely, concretely, in detail do you
mean when you say “is”?
If your “is” includes “emerges from” in the embrace of its meaning then sure…
and I do as well in that case. Complex systems emerge from simpler underlying
systems; or looking at it the other way complex systems are reducible to being
fully explained in terms of simpler systems.
Look at nature – the untold numbers of molecules all made from just 92 elements
(leaving trans-uranic elements aside); all elements all baryonic matter is made
from just six kinds of quarks and two kinds of leptons. All the colors of the
rainbow all the waves on the radio dial – all photons. The incredible tapestry
of life – from an alphabet of four letters. All our digital culture based on
bits.
Complexity emerges.
If that is what you mean by “is” then include me as well.
If you mean something else then help me out and substantively define it in
specific terms. Pin it down to a clear and unambiguously stated proposition.
In the computational theory of reality I present in my book, information is not
physical, but it is real and is the fundamental component of reality,
Information is what computes physicality, or more accurately what is
interpreted as physicality in the minds of organismic beings in their personal
simulations of reality.
Okay. You are more of a Platonist then.
Yet this information does need a substrate in which to manifest. This substrate
is simply the existence space of reality itself, what I call ontological
energy, which is not a physical energy, but simply the locus (non-dimensional)
of the presence of reality, the living happening of being.
Hold on there… you just gave that information a substrate (internal
inconsistency is not the hallmark of a successful argument) You need to
rephrase your proposition to state that information exists upon a substrate
“the existence space of reality” – such amorphous language is not helpful for
me to understand what you are trying to say. And please no more jargon – I get
enough jargon at work (in software). Speak English please J
What precisely, specifically do you intend by “the existence space of reality”?
Every information system I have ever worked with, seen or read about relies on
a substrate. I cannot just accept a statement like that; if you seek to
convince me then you will need to provide a clearly stated set of concise
arguments – each following from the one before that provides a specific proof
of this proposition.
A good way to visualize this is that ontological energy is like a perfectly
still sea of water, and the various waves, currents, eddies etc. that can arise
within the water are all the forms of information that make up and compute the
universe. They have no substance of their own other than the underlying water
(existence) in which they arise.
Okay now we are sounding Buddhist – but I do get the metaphor. What you seem to
be implying is that formless, undefinable existence is the ultimate substrate.
Or am I misinterpreting you?
And of course the nature of water determines what forms can arise within it
just as the underlying nature of existence determines the types of information
forms that can arise within our universe.
Okay then – what is the “nature” of this “water”?
In this theory EVERYTHING without exception is information only. It is only
abstract computationally interacting forms that continually compute the current
information state of the universe.
Why do you need this formless sea? And if so can you say what gave rise to it?
In fact, if one observes reality with trained eyes, one can actually directly
observe that the only thing out there is just various kinds of information.
After all ANYTHING that is observable is by definition information..... Only
information is observable, ONLY information exists... It is the fact that this
information exists in the actual realm of existence that makes it real and
actual and enables it to compute a real information universe.
Okay. But then why do you then go on to say that all information itself emerges
as the ripples traveling through a formless sea? Is not the formless sea the
foundation of all that is; rather than information emerging out of it?
Chris
Edgar
On Friday, February 28, 2014 2:20:23 AM UTC-5, cdemorsella wrote:
Personally the notion that all that exists is comp & information – encoded on
what though? – Is not especially troubling for me. I understand how some cling
to a fundamental material realism; after all it does seem so very real. However
when you get right down to it all we have is measured values of things and
meters by which we measure other things; we live encapsulated in the experience
of our own being and the sensorial stream of life and in the end all that we
can say for sure about anything is the value it has when we measure it.
I am getting into the interesting part of Tegmark’s book – I read a bit each
day when I break for lunch – so this is partly influencing this train of
thought. By the way enjoyed his description of quantum computing and how in a
sense q-bits are leveraging the Level III multiverse to compute every possible
outcome while in quantum superposition; a way of thinking about it that I had
never read before.
Naturally I have been reading some of the discussions here, and the idea of
comp is something I also find intuitively possible. The soul is an emergent
phenomena given enough depth of complexity and breadth of parallelism and
vastness of scale of the information system in which it is self-emergent.
Several questions have been re-occurring for me. One of these is: Every
information system, at least that I have ever been aware of, requires a
substrate medium upon which to encode itself; information seems describable in
this sense as the meta-encoding existing on some substrate system. I would like
to avoid the infinite regression of stopping at the point of describing systems
as existing upon other and requiring other substrate systems that themselves
require substrates themselves described as information again requiring some
substrate… repeat eternally.
It is also true that exquisitely complex information can be encoded in a very
simple substrate system given enough replication of elements… a simple binary
state machine could suffice, given enough bits.
But what are the bits encoded on?
At some point reductionism can no longer reduce…. And then we are back to where
we first started…. How did that arise or come to be? If for example we say that
math is reducible to logic or set theory then what of sets and the various set
operations? What of enumerations? These simplest of simple things. Can you
reduce the {} null set?
What does it arise from?
Perhaps to try to find some fundamental something upon which everything else is
tapestried over is unanswerable; it is something that keeps coming back to itch
my ears.
Am interested in hearing what some of you may have to say about this universe
of the most simple things: numbers, sets; and the very simple base operators --
{+-*/=!^()} etc. that operate on these enumerable entities and the logical
operators {and, or, xor}
What is a number? Doesn’t it only have meaning in the sense that it is greater
than the number that is less than it & less than the one greater than it? Does
the concept of a number actually even have any meaning outside of being thought
of as being a member of the enumerable set {1,2,3,4,… n}? In other words ‘3’
by itself means nothing and is nothing; it only means something in terms of the
set of numbers as in: 2<3<4… <n-1<n
And what of the simple operators. When we say a + b = c we are dealing with
two separate kinds of entities, with one {a,b,c} being quantities or values and
{+,=} being the two operators that relate the three values in this simple
equation.
The enumerable set is not enough by itself. So even if one could explain the
enumerable set in some manner the manner in which the simple operators come to
be is not clear to me. How do the addition, assignment and other basic
operators arise? This extends similarly to the basic logic operators: and, or,
xor, not – as well.
Thanks
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