Re: poly: Infinite calculations in an open universe?

From: Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se>
Date: Tue Dec 09 1997 - 13:06:08 PST

"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> writes:

> Am I the only person around here who feels like they aren't at all
> sure they believe the "infinite amounts of computation lets you
> simulate everything" notion? The reasoning feels as specious as Zeno's
> paradox in a lot of ways to me.

This depends on if you believe in the Church-Turing thesis (everything
calculable can be calculated on a Turing machine) and the
calculability of the universe. If you accept them, then everything can
be simulated (and even better, emulated). If you don't, then things
get trickier.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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Received on Tue Dec 9 20:58:22 1997

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