Subject: Frank Tipler's Ideas on the Computed Universe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM5yepZ21pI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1ae5xgrD5M
Jack Sarfatti In 1995 Tipler wrote "The divergence of information coded in the biosphere means that a computer of sufficient power will eventually exist in the far future. I have argued in my book that life’s drive to total knowledge in the far future will cause our far future descendants to carry out this emulation of their distant ancestors. After all, we are now attempting to reproduce our ultimate biological ancestor, the first living cell from which all life on Earth descended. We would be the first rational beings from which all rational beings in the far future would be descended, so in reproducing us in these far future computers, life in the far future would just be learning about their history. So the laws of physics will not only be for us in the sense of requiring the biosphere to survive, they are for us in the sense that they will eventually allow every human who has ever lived have a second chance at life. Notice that this ‘life goes on forever’ picture really makes use only of the integers. At any one time, the complexity of the universe is finite. In fact, we could now be an emulation in a digital computer! But since we have no way of reaching the computer from inside the emulation, we could just regard the emulation as fundamental. This would mean regarding physical reality as a subset of mathematical reality. This is the Platonic universe: physical reality is not ‘real’ ultimately; only number—the integers comprising the true ultimate reality— is actually real. What does mathematics tell us about this ultimate integer reality?"
Ian Yekhlef In 'the Physics of Immortality' Tipler doesn't really give a convincing argument against Penrose's ideas in an emperors new mind. We have to explain Chalmers Zombies ( see his ideas on consciousness :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo&feature=related
Jack Sarfatti Tipler's cosmological model is completely wrong in my opinion. It's inconsistent with Tamara Davis's 2004 fig1.1 at
http://stardrive.org/
He does not seem to understand the holographic principle and the idea that the reciprocal of the dark energy density in our past light cone is the area of our future event horizon. The future entropy of our observable section of the multiverse is finite not infinite. We do not have a final singularity Omega Point, rather we have a non-singular future Omega surface that is a computer.
Ian Yekhlef @ Jack The reason why Tipler's cosmology is interesting is because, while thinking of the future of the universe, he includes that possibility that life may be important in the final state of the universe. Any sufficiently advanced intelligent life my engulf and ultimately be able to control the final state of the universe. It sounds like science fiction but if life did perpetuate and continue to advance a big crunch in 1-dimension would be the most useful final state, since life could literally compute with the universe itself creating an infinite state machine. Whether its realised or not is another thing.
Ian Yekhlef I just remembered that he bases everything on the 'eternal life' postulate of Dirac. Which is that Life will exist indefinately to the end of time. Then he wonders, 'so if life exists forever it will natural try and orchestrate the collapse of the universe' since a big crunch is the most favourable final state of the universe and allows the creation of an infinite state turing machine. Bearing in mind that the collapse of the universe will be chaotic in different spacial dimensions, which is desirable since the collapse need only occur in one direction resulting in an infinite temperature gradient. (We are talking at least 100 billion yrs in the future so intelligent life will be 'Masters of spacetime', in a way we cannot conceive of). He calls this point the 'Omega point' which he identifies with teilhard's Omega point God. I'm not advocating this theory, but he makes a good point. If intelligent life continues untill the final state of the universe, becoming more advanced, we cannot neglect the possiblity of its involvment in the final state of the Universe.
· Jack Sarfatti Yes, of course, but his cosmology is wrong. The final state is our future event horizon. It's not a point. The future universe does not collapse to a Big Crunch. Details in Tamara Davis's PhD you can download it - just Google.
Jack Sarfatti My theory based on Tamara Davis has all the virtues of Tipler's idea you point out without the vices as far as I am aware.
Ian Yekhlef Yes I know about the work of Tamara Davies, I was simply stating Tipler's idea. I do not advocate them, the Physics of immortality was published in 1994, so its an old way of thinking. I have read it and its an excellent book, even if it is out dated.
Ian Yekhlef I don't really understand how you can create an infinite state Turing machine with our future event horizon?...I know what your gonna say, your going to suggest I read Seth lloyd's account of a quantum computing with black holes...
Jack Sarfatti It's not infinite. It's ~ 10^123 BITS - don't need no stink'n infinities in physics. ;-) Observable universe is a finite state qubit machine non-algorithmic in Penrose's sense because of signal nonlocality violating quantum theory, but not violating post-quantum theory.