From: Robert Bradbury (bradbury@genebee.msu.su)
Date: Sun Apr 09 2000 - 19:58:13 MDT
On Sun, 9 Apr 2000, scerir@libero.it wrote:
> Has the "it from bit" statement (by J.A.Wheeler) something to do
> with extropians?
IMO, generally not. Interestingly enough, Wheeler does get discussed
a bit in Egan's "Distress", as the source of a philosophy that the
observer "creates" the universe. But I'm unaware of any extropians
that are strong followers of that perspetive.
> Has the "Big U" (by J.A. Wheeler) loop
> (universe>matter>man>info>universe>...) something to do with
> extropians?
This gets into really deep issues about the source of the universe.
Extropians are more concerned with how we make optimal use of the
universeuniverse we have, rather than whether or not there are others. In the
long run (trillions of years), we may be concerned whether we can
make new universes and tunnel from this one into new universes, but
most would put this in the class of thoughts best handled by
superintelligences (SIs) rather than our rather own meager wetware.
Robert
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