From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Sat Feb 23 2002 - 15:33:57 MST
Certainly Godel himself, of whom Scoville quotes, provides a certain "out"
for those seeking resolution, especially if the universe is found to be
rotational on even a marginal basis. Let us plot Scoville's universe onto a
M-brane or D-brane theory map or manifold. The result could open up new means
of communication and travel, but only for a very advanced physics that can
make use of hyperdimensionality-something that Scoville doesn't seem to
preclude. This purported scientific and technological advance shan't happen
tomorrow or the next day, but quite a few eons down the road of time.
As for Dyson and Tipler's ideas being viewed as passe', lets just consider
them for what they were. inspired essays into the fringes of physics,
information, and life in the far future. Their thinking was based on physics
as we new it, in the standard model SUš. According to what I have read of
many theorists, the minning of data from the past minkowskian light-cone is
concievable. That is, at least, there is nothing inherent in relativity or
quamtum theory or any new observations from Keck, or Hubble, or Boomerang, to
prevent this hypothesis.
As for the "tape" that the Von Newmann cosmos may use, consider that we may
not also be the tape, but at some point, part of what performs the
record-punch.
<<Beyond the 'algorithmically random parameters of physical law' aspect
the paper has some ideas which touch upon topics discussed here.
Scoville's cosmic UTM has an absolute arrow of time, not a statistical
one, due to cosmic evolutionary events being irreversible for
consistency reasons. I'd guess the outlooks for time travel and FTL
both look bleak; a limit on the propagation speed of information is
built into the system.
And for that most extropian of topics, the long term future of life in
the universe, Scoville kills both Dyson and Tipler. He doesn't mention
them, but his universe is discrete -- _has_ to be discrete, to be a
consistent computational system; a continuous universe wouldn't work.
And in a fixed discrete universe Dyson and Tipler's ideas won't work;
there's only so much you can do.
Except that Scoville's cosmos isn't fixed. Energy is conserved in
between symmetry breakings/random incorporation of new random
parameters, but not between them. There's always new tape for the UTM.
Of course, we might not survive the transition...
-xx- Damien X-) >>
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