21–30 of 155 posts
This reminds me of a joke idea I read somewhere: You can encode the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica using a single mark on a simple stick! Just encode the text as a ascii codes after the decimal dot of a zero. (0.656168.. etc). Then just mark that ratio of the sticks length and you're done...
This reminds me of a joke idea I read somewhere: You can encode the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica using a single mark on a simple stick! Just encode the text as a ascii codes after the decimal dot of a zero. (0.656168.. etc). Then just mark that ratio of the sticks length and you're done...
Reality, in being geometrical, is infinitely informationally dense (with a discrete conception of information).
This distinction between geometrical space and time, and discrete algorithmic computability is unbridgeable.
And hence there is an extemely firm footing on which to reject: AI, brain scanning readers, teleporters, etc and most sci-fi computationalim.
Almost nothing can be simulated, as in, realised by a merely computational system.
EDIT: I replaced "transcendental" with "normal" after reading Scarblac's comment below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28699622 -- many important transcendental numbers, including π (Pi), are thought to be (but have not been proven to be!) normal.
This reminds me of a joke idea I read somewhere: You can encode the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica using a single mark on a simple stick! Just encode the text as a ascii codes after the decimal dot of a zero. (0.656168.. etc). Then just mark that ratio of the sticks length and you're done...
You can do it easier than that -- just make a stick of length .65168 meters. (Same idea, just the "full 1 meter stick" is defined elsewhere, not by the length of the stick).
This reminds me of a joke idea I read somewhere: You can encode the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica using a single mark on a simple stick! Just encode the text as a ascii codes after the decimal dot of a zero. (0.656168.. etc). Then just mark that ratio of the sticks length and you're done...
I don't see this as a joke, but a radical and important point. Reality, in being geometrical, is infinitely informationally dense (with a discrete conception of information). This distinction between geometrical space and time, and discrete algorithmic computability is unbridgeable. And hence there is an extemely firm footing on which to reject: AI, brain scanning readers, teleporters, etc and most sci-fi computation…
This reminds me of a joke idea I read somewhere: You can encode the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica using a single mark on a simple stick! Just encode the text as a ascii codes after the decimal dot of a zero. (0.656168.. etc). Then just mark that ratio of the sticks length and you're done...
I don't see this as a joke, but a radical and important point. Reality, in being geometrical, is infinitely informationally dense (with a discrete conception of information). This distinction between geometrical space and time, and discrete algorithmic computability is unbridgeable. And hence there is an extemely firm footing on which to reject: AI, brain scanning readers, teleporters, etc and most sci-fi computation…
Fun read. But if we allow ourselves as much precision as we need, we don't even need a parameter. Any constant that is a normal number should suffice. Such constants already contain every possible sequence of digits you could muster -- i.e., they already contain every possible dataset. EDIT: I replaced "transcendental" with "normal" after reading Scarblac's comment below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28699622…
E.g. I can't imagine that pi with all the '1' digits replaced by '2' isn't transcendental, but it clearly doesn't contain every sequence of digits.
I think you mean normal numbers.
This reminds me of a joke idea I read somewhere: You can encode the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica using a single mark on a simple stick! Just encode the text as a ascii codes after the decimal dot of a zero. (0.656168.. etc). Then just mark that ratio of the sticks length and you're done...
I don't see this as a joke, but a radical and important point. Reality, in being geometrical, is infinitely informationally dense (with a discrete conception of information). This distinction between geometrical space and time, and discrete algorithmic computability is unbridgeable. And hence there is an extemely firm footing on which to reject: AI, brain scanning readers, teleporters, etc and most sci-fi computation…
This reminds me of a joke idea I read somewhere: You can encode the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica using a single mark on a simple stick! Just encode the text as a ascii codes after the decimal dot of a zero. (0.656168.. etc). Then just mark that ratio of the sticks length and you're done...
I don't see this as a joke, but a radical and important point. Reality, in being geometrical, is infinitely informationally dense (with a discrete conception of information). This distinction between geometrical space and time, and discrete algorithmic computability is unbridgeable. And hence there is an extemely firm footing on which to reject: AI, brain scanning readers, teleporters, etc and most sci-fi computation…
So assuming continuous space/time and discrete information then I'd agree, but as far as we know space/time aren't continuous, but just appear that way to us. It doesn't seem like we know for sure that it is discrete, but at the least I'd say it's solid evidence that stuff like brain scanning is definitely in the realm of possibility.
This answer from the Physics StackExchange nicely covers how time/space could appear continuous to us even if they are in fact discrete at lower levels. Also some interesting discussion in the other answers https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/35676
This reminds me of a joke idea I read somewhere: You can encode the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica using a single mark on a simple stick! Just encode the text as a ascii codes after the decimal dot of a zero. (0.656168.. etc). Then just mark that ratio of the sticks length and you're done...
I don't see this as a joke, but a radical and important point. Reality, in being geometrical, is infinitely informationally dense (with a discrete conception of information). This distinction between geometrical space and time, and discrete algorithmic computability is unbridgeable. And hence there is an extemely firm footing on which to reject: AI, brain scanning readers, teleporters, etc and most sci-fi computation…