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Stephen Wolfram thinks he may have found the theory that unifies physics: it's basically automata theory. According to his theory, the universe is basically an automaton running a simple set of computational rules. The link leads to his layman's summary of the work.
Even if this isn't how things work, it lends a completely new perspective: based on a relatively simple analysis of his idea, he derives the basics of relativity and quantum mechanics. His article makes for a mind-bending and fascinating read, but it's already a summary, and trying to do a summary of a summary here makes little sense. If you're into physics, mathematics or cosmology, have a look!
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Stephen Wolfram: The Universe Runs on Automata Theory
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Endless Loop, n.:
see Loop, Endless.
Loop, Endless, n.:
see Endless Loop.
-- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 16 2020, @07:14PM (6 children)
The test is easy, it's exactly like the tests galileo performed to measure gravity. You find a model apply it and see if it predicts outcomes. The automata theory vs other models is only a matter of using the most accurate or the most useful (easy to compute or easy to comprehend).
There surely exist an automata world that can compute F = m x a for a series of inputs, but it's more practical to just multiply. This might not always be the case.
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(Score: 2) by crafoo on Thursday April 16 2020, @09:44PM (5 children)
So it's a model and not a theory? It sounds like it makes no new predictions, and so is not a theory and not testable through experiment.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 17 2020, @01:48AM (4 children)
The theory is that the automata model is truer than the functional model, but that is a mere continuation of the fallacy of calling the universe infrastructure the real reality or the truer truth, while the real reality is this abstraction I am experiencing and the truth is possibly in its meaning.
Wrong: the universe is the videogame, the real reality is the circuits on which it runs.
Right: the universe is the videogame, the reality is the videogame world, the real reality is the meaning players give to what appears on the videogame world.
In both cases, while you can attain knowledge of the real reality (imagine a videogame character that somehow acquire sentience and BELIEVES what the players tell him about their reality) demonstrating you have attained it is quite hard, and a waste of time IMHO. You die and you discover it for yourself no matter what.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @07:09AM (3 children)
OK what's the reality, dipshit?
1) You are a sentient being in a Universe perceiving itself
2) Your landlord wants his damn money, dipshit
3) Wolfram automata blah blah blah, fucking rent dipshit
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 18 2020, @03:19AM (2 children)
LOL
I am, fundamental axiom. You might be a figment of my imagination, but I am. It doesn't matter whether it is an illusion or i am living in a 59 layers deep matrix, I feel that I am right now and there is NOTHING in the universe that is stopping it. I think therefore I am? no, I am therefore I think.
Let us call this "I am", to perceive.
Let us call what can be directly or indirectly perceived, "real". Some things are perceived as altering my POV that is affecting me, so, as not really useful corollary but adherent with our layman definition, real is also what can directly or indirectly affect me.
The end. Reality is defined now. Was it soooo difficult? The rent payment resides in the abstract domain of deals, but is quite real.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2020, @06:56AM (1 child)
That is the most extreme example of accidental insight that I think I have ever read. I think I know what you meant. But you nailed it: you are a figment of your imagination in the profoundest of ways. Your self-concept and self-understanding are like the image (if you're sighted) of a loved one who you can bring to your mind's eye. (Here, nerds often invoke Godel's incompleteness theorems.)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday April 22 2020, @01:11PM
> you are a figment of your imagination in the profoundest of ways.
The actual implementation of my being is irrelevant to the reasoning above, anyway, and probably undecidable from the inside of the being. Your description, as interesting as it is, yet is a model with implications that I would safely ascribe as assumptions. For example, absence of sin (if I am the god whatever I do is ethically equivalent, right?)
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