From: pdugan (pdugan@vt.edu)
Date: Sat Jul 23 2005 - 00:09:27 MDT
Its intersting you all talk of strings to define subjectivity. Superstring
theory talks about a supposedly objective reality which is composed of causal
strings connecting particles. Both "objective" models and subjective
understandings are comprised of causal associations, which one might describe
as a great big string. Maybe we can all agreed that subjectivity and
objectivity are just causal assocaitions with different degrees of certainty
assigned to different associations. Greater certainty means greater objective
reliability, e.g. modern science, while lower certainty means more
subjectivity, examples being sociological analysis and poetry as a general
description of the universe.
The talk of smallest (thus most efficient) Turing machine strikes me as
highly reminescent of TOE speculations. What if an adequate description of
reality was not Turing-compatable? What if reality is so real that any TOE
would be unreal in the sense that its a string of characters on a piece of
paper trying to describe a subjectivity rather than reality as it is?
Patrick
>===== Original Message From Joel Pitt <joel.pitt@gmail.com> =====
>Peter de Blanc wrote:
>> If we inject some rigor into this, subjective reality consists of
>> sensory data - in its most primitive form, a binary string. Objective
>> reality, then, would be the Turing machine which produced this string.
>> Occam's Razor suggests that, of the multiple Turing machines which
>> produce this string, the smallest one is most likely to describe the
>> universe.
>>
>> Is there any need to say more on the subject?
>
>In addition, different observers would recieve different chunks of the
>string being produced. So each observer would have their own subjective
>view about the smallest Turing machine that would create the string they
>received.
>
>Combine the strings, overlapping where appropriate, and you can
>formulate an objective reality which is correct insofar as the number of
>observaters/observations. This objective reality is again the smallest
>turing program to produce the string, and the more we observe it the
>more complex the program. Just like reality! ;P
>
>Joel
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