From: Matt Mahoney (matmahoney@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Jan 24 2008 - 09:38:28 MST
--- Nick Tarleton <nickptar@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 23, 2008 8:51 PM, Matt Mahoney <matmahoney@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Most likely there are many sets of laws of physics that would result in
> life.
> > Why does space have 3 dimensions?
>
> Maybe this is why: http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/dimensions.html
That's true if you assume that life requires planets or atoms or a type of
physics that can be described using fields and partial differential equations.
As a counterexample, intelligent life could be simulated on a Turing machine,
which has one (discrete) dimension of space and one of time, or zero of time
using an equivalent nondeterministic machine. If the computation is halting
then you could use an equivalent finite state machine with zero dimensions of
space and zero or one of time.
-- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com
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