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Article 4911 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: lookup tables again
Message-ID: <1992Apr4.005209.14751@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Date: 4 Apr 92 00:52:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: organpip.1992Apr4.005209.14751
References: <1992Mar31.205855.13140@u.washington.edu> 
 <1992Apr1.011348.11035@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992Apr01.204057.28962@spss.com> <1992Apr3.092019.27965@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
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Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging
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Bill Skaggs:
>  Suppose we imagine that the universe has a finite number of
>possible states, and that time is quantized.  (If quantum
>mechanics is correct and the universe is finite, both of
>these are true.)  

Mark Rosenfelder:
>I don't think this is correct.  For one thing, it's not known if space is
>quantized, so positions may still be real numbers.  And I don't think
>it's known that time is quantized, either.  For that matter, the universe
>can't be a FSA if it's not deterministic, can it?

Antum Zirdum:
>Ok, I'll bite again. Why can't the universe be REAL and
>deterministic. I think that you overstepped in your
>conclusion that being based on real numbers somehow
>escapes determinism. To me this does not seem to follow
>even though I am aware that we are talking of infinite
>sets & such. If you want to insist that the universe
>is non-deterministic, you will have to do better than
>that and say what it IS. Saying something is non-something
>is not saying much at all! (I had non-bananas for lunch
>today :-)

  I'm sorry I started this, but since it's started:  If the
energy of the universe is finite, then any genuinely quantal
theory is going to say that the number of possible states of
the universe is finite, and that time is quantized.  This
follows from the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

  Also, there is such a thing as a stochastic FSA.  They
are in many ways more interesting than deterministic FSA's,
and as far as I can see have the same philosophical consequences.

  The claim in my original post is that for all we know, the
dynamics of the whole universe could be specified by a
humongous lookup table.  This claim still holds; and I still
don't see that it has anything to do with the question of
what sort of things are conscious or intelligent.

	-- Bill


