Dear Rajiv,
Thank you for this amazingly detailed analysis of my essay! I will address some of the issues you raise below, with >> indicating the excerpts from your post that I am responding to.
>> An infinite number of any reality, or object, even infinite computations, (...) places the argument in serious jeopardy.
I am well aware of the issues with infinity --- the infamous "measure problem" that plagues cosmology! I explicitly addressed these issues in my essay for the previous FQXi contest, "My God It's Full of Clones". But a finite reality would be even more problematic, in my opinion, because it would have a particular size, and that size would be a brute, arbitrary fact --- so metaphysicaly ugly, in my opinion!
>> Moreover, the moment we allow indeterminism of any kind at any level, mathematics loses its absolute position to be the most fundamental cause of everything.
In my view, indeterminism and mathematics are not incompatible: an indeterminist framework is still a structure, and there is no such thing as a non-mathematical structure, since mathematics is the general study of structures.
>> A universe based entirely on absolute determinism of mathematics cannot come into existence, since a deterministic universe allows back tracing, and at no point of time an universe could emerge from null reality. On the other hand, if it always existed, then the definition of eternity demands that there could be nothing that has not happened in the past. Such an universe could only be cyclic or non-deterministic.
I am beginning to suspect that we have divergent views about the fundamental nature of time, and that's one of the reasons my argument sometimes seems so strange to you. In my view, the basic level of reality is not really eternal, it is more like timeless/atemporal. Cyclic universes do exist within the Maxiverse, as do non-cyclic ones. Within the infinite set of all abstract computations/structures/relations, you can have finite physical sub-domains, each with its own concept of time. It does not really make sense to ask how these different sub-domains are related in time or space.
>> Information has not existence if not associated with physical states, such as bits, or neural states, or for that matter any state.
In our world, information does require a physical basis, because at our level our world is physical. But at the most fundamental level of reality, I think it makes sense to talk about the information of abstract structures/relations. I think that a more serious issue about "disembodied information" is the fact that the information content of some structure really makes sense only relative to some point of view or observer... hence the need for some sort of co-emergence.
>> No processing can occur without interactions that result in change of states. A computation without such an association can only be imagined as a reference to the logical steps in mathematics. But then, [in ISAAC] there is no time element to control the steps, the steps can be thought of as having executed all at once.
Once again, I think this boils down to our different ideas about the fundamental nature of time. In my view, our physical time emerges when consciousness observes the steps of the computations. The computation exists atemporally, in a complete "static" form. The flow of time is part of our conscious experience of the computation, not something outside of it.
>> We will have no forceful need for maxiverse, as an Universe is logically complete within its limits of indeterminism.
Deterministic or not, if only one particular universe exists, it seems to me unbelievably arbitrary. The Maxiverse is an elegant solution and should be, in my opinion, the default ontological hypothesis. Now, if you want to argue against the Maxiverse, fine: just find an explanation as to why some perfectly possible universes are "forbidden", and why only a few or only one is left in existence. By the way, I hold similar views concerning the interpretation of quantum mechanics: I think that the many-worlds view should be the default interpretation. If you want to argue for the "Disappearing World Hypothesis", where only one outcome has "real reality", the burden of the proof is on you! :-)
>> In Indian mythology, at one point, (...) In this contest, people do not seem to appreciate humor, therefore, I am making it upfront clear that relating the story from Bhagvad Gita was in plain humor, no other motive.
I appreciate humour... and Buddhism, so I appreciate the comparison you are making between co-emergentism and Ved Vyas' argument!
>> I have discussed in my essay the specific logical construction of the emergence from the elemental properties (semantics), where the emerged property is not a part of any of the elements.
I am looking forward to the ideas about emergence that you present in your essay, and will comment soon on its thread.
Marc