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A Computer Scientist’s View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999)

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Re: A Computer Scientist’s View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999)

#31

Post by ThomPete »

adrianN wrote: post #15
adjkant wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find all of this really hard to take seriously when we work on the assumption that the design of the universe could be understood by a human. Why would something so small relative to the whole assume that its thoughts were high enough to comprehend the entire universe? I love philosophy, but let's actually spend our time and energy asking questions that do have meaning, because any small meaning to us is more impor…

So far we're doing a decent job of understanding the design of the universe. Most things you interact with follow the rules we figured out so well that you'd be really hard pressed to find an experiment to find a difference between prediction and reality. That makes many people confident that we can figure out the missing pieces as well.

design requires intent.

Re: A Computer Scientist’s View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999)

#32

Post by ozy »

goldenkey wrote: post #29
ozy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"computers will pop up that copy themselves" That is interesting idea. But do they pop up because the simulator provides the compute? Or because the simulator allows for the construction of structures that can compute? I don't think you mean the first, as that is not too interesting to your goal. The latter is unlikely. How many possible configurations are there, and how many of those can compute? Let alone compute +…

Yes both. The sim provides the dynamics that allow for computers to exist. At a basic level, even simple phenomena are computations. RNA polymerase performs a computation when it copies. And we can go really low level, pretty much everything is a computation - of course, not all computations are equivalently great for life. You are assuming this universe ends. In a type of heat death or singularity (choose your poiso…

Every simulator of any kind can be described as "compute". The question is, can the simulated environment itself support a new level of compute? And if so, how independent is that compute?

Redstone in minecraft supports compute, but is not fully independent. That is, the "laws of physics" of minecraft include special rules for redstone.

RNA polymerase is fully independent, the "laws of physics" do not have special rules for RNA.

So that last thing is the interesting bit in your effort, correct?

Now you seem to hope that the second level compute comes about randomly. But for that to do anything before the end of time, the ration between:

  random states that compute / all possible random states
must be reasonable. And even then, one could argue that how those random states come about should be such that it is nothing special in the "laws of physics", or it is still "cheating".

What I am trying to point out, in our universe, the big bang was a shitload of energy in low entropy state. Due to gravity it started self organising. And due to many other self organising effects, we got to self copying ...

Re: A Computer Scientist’s View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999)

#33

Post by lightlazer »

goldenkey wrote: post #2

I'm actually working on a project that explores the concept of information storage / movement duality to create life. https://scrollto.com/life-a-universe-simulation/ Send an email to the address listed in my profile if you'd like to be a part of the project.

So you are going to try build the Autoverse in Permutation City? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City

Re: A Computer Scientist’s View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999)

#34

Post by NikolaeVarius »

goatlover wrote: post #26
tmsldd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider that our brain is a computer, then your argument isn't valid.

Our brain isn't a computer. That's the most recent metaphor we've used to try and make sense of the three pound organ in our heads.

Computers were literally the name of people who number crunched for a living. Human brains are by definition the original computer

Re: A Computer Scientist’s View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999)

#36

Post by psyc »

ThomPete wrote: post #30
goatlover wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our brain isn't a computer. That's the most recent metaphor we've used to try and make sense of the three pound organ in our heads.

We are pattern recognizing feedback loops with memory. How is that not like a computer?

Like is the operative word.

Also: https://imgur.com/a/Bg9WH

Re: A Computer Scientist’s View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999)

#37

Post by tmsldd »

goatlover wrote: post #26
tmsldd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider that our brain is a computer, then your argument isn't valid.

Our brain isn't a computer. That's the most recent metaphor we've used to try and make sense of the three pound organ in our heads.

Counter Argument: Please answer the question: 1+1=? Congratulations, you are a computer.

(And that's probably a very difficult question, considering you had to acquire the concept of symbolism, numbers and relationships)

Re: A Computer Scientist’s View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999)

#38

Post by adrianN »

ThomPete wrote: post #31
adrianN wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far we're doing a decent job of understanding the design of the universe. Most things you interact with follow the rules we figured out so well that you'd be really hard pressed to find an experiment to find a difference between prediction and reality. That makes many people confident that we can figure out the missing pieces as well.

design requires intent.

You're technically correct. s/design/structure/?

Re: A Computer Scientist’s View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999)

#39

Post by Ono-Sendai »

vecter wrote: post #10

> It can be shown that there is no algorithm that can generate the shortest program for computing arbitrary given data on a given computer [2, 9, 1]. In particular, our physicists cannot expect to find the most compact description of our universe. This seems wrong to me. There exists no general algorithm to find the shortest program to compute arbitrary data, but we can surely find specific shortest programs to compu…

the general problem is uncomputable. but for some specific data outputs we may be able to find the shortest program.

Re: A Computer Scientist’s View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999)

#40

Post by goldenkey »

ozy wrote: post #32
goldenkey wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes both. The sim provides the dynamics that allow for computers to exist. At a basic level, even simple phenomena are computations. RNA polymerase performs a computation when it copies. And we can go really low level, pretty much everything is a computation - of course, not all computations are equivalently great for life. You are assuming this universe ends. In a type of heat death or singularity (choose your poiso…

Every simulator of any kind can be described as "compute". The question is, can the simulated environment itself support a new level of compute? And if so, how independent is that compute? Redstone in minecraft supports compute, but is not fully independent. That is, the "laws of physics" of minecraft include special rules for redstone. RNA polymerase is fully independent, the "laws of physics" do not have special ru…

I am well aware. The simulation runs on a turing machine..a computer. That's different from turing completeness. Turing-completeness means a turing machine can be built inside of the simulation.

Fully independent? Nothing is fully independent of the universe it resides in.

Cheating doesnt mean much. Cheating is making AI from the top-down if thats the case. Because its the extreme opposite end of emergence. And plenty of work is being done on that now. So if you manage to get life by "cheating", fuck it. It's life. It's a milestone.

There's other ways to avoid total chaos besides gravity. There's just got to be a delicate balance of stability of structure yet the ability to destroy structure and extract potential in order to compute, ie make new structure.

Yes, it's an ambitious thing.. But its a question of whether life is a product of information and computation, or a product of more specific principles. Who really knows.

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