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What is the universe computing?
Loading ...Over the years, it has been debated in the meta-popular culture that we might be living in a simulation. I wrote about this “Matrixical” notion earlier. And again, Seth Lloyd from MIT, asserts that the universe is a computer.
So if the universe is a computer, what is it computing? Its own evolution, apparently, according to the laws of physics. That might not be too obscure actually, because the most general definition of the term “computer” would be “a system that takes a set of input and deterministically produces a set of output.”
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out. What do you reckon?
Posted under Personal, Technology, Thoughts and Quotes | Posted on Sun, 13th Jan 2008 11:04 am
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As I have argued elsewhere, the universe cannot be a computer/program or just “mathematical structure” pace Max Tegmark for the following reason: true randomness cannot be produced by mathematical processes, because mathematics is a logical system. All presumptive randomness from “random variables†etc. is either just declared output without producing the goods, or the “goods†(genuinely random sequences) must be put in by hand, as by digits of roots etc. The decay of specific muons (not to be confused with the percentages left over time, I mean the actual “hits†themselves) in a computer model would require highly contrived arrangements to be put in by hand, like carefully selected roots and reseeding and all that to avoid artifacts that would blow the output as being phony. That’s all she wrote, really. The universe is “mystical” to some extent because of genuine randomness (and, if there’s something special about “material existence” such that modal realism is wrong, the also because of the bare fact it exists.)
tyrannogenius
Hi Neil. Thanks for dropping in and sharing your views.