Computational Complexity as Anthropic Principle by Rick Searle

Dear Rick,

thanks for this enjoyable essay! I like the approach of introducing the 'boundaries' of prediction via a little bit of pseudohistory. It's intriguing that many of these pertain to issues that would have been readily intelligible to an 18th century intellectual, even if not exactly immediately apprehensible regarding their causes. (And in the case of a black hole, the radius that drops out of the Newtonian calculation is equal to the Schwarzschild radius only somewhat by accident, of course.)

You tie all of these 'esoteric' notions down to very down to earth problems, showing that even such apparently remote concerns can be relevant for pressing present concerns.

One thing I found particularly intriguing was your suggestion that such limitations---in analogy to the limitation given by the impossibility of perpetual motion---rather than just frustrating our attempts at prediction, may in fact serve as valuable guides to theory-building. This is something I would have liked to see explored a little more---thermodynamics can basically be reformulated in terms of impossibilities: no perpetual motion of the first kind, of the second kind, and no reaching absolute zero.

What if we take the impossibilities and limitations of prediction, of computation on board similarly? May there even be a connection---what could a Maxwell's demon accomplish if it had access to a hypercomputer? (Of course, and just in passing, by way of advertising, my own essay tries to connect these limitations to the failure of classical physics to apply universally, so it's perhaps only to be expected that my thoughts might turn to that. And as for the mind, I have an article coming out in Minds and Machines that takes a look at how such limitations apply to the problem of consciousness.)

Anyway, thanks for an engaging and well-written essay. Wish you best of luck in the contest!

Cheers

Jochen

Dear Dr Rick Searle,

Thank you for giving a wonderful essay please. In your imagined tale some of the nice words.......

"The problem of three bodies," Laplace exclaimed.

"What?"

"The position of three orbiting bodies cannot be calculated exactly."........

I want to tell few words about "Dynamic Universe Model". This model is a singularity-free General N-Body problem solution. That includes 3 Body's of-course!

For further details, have a look at my essay please.

"A properly deciding, Computing and Predicting new theory's Philosophy"

Best Regards

=snp.gupta

Dear Rick,

A very interesting essay in the Cartesian spirit. It makes one strain the mind and "dig" to the most remote meaning-distinguishable depths ...

With kind regards, Vladimir

Dear Rick,

I hope you and yours are safe and healthy in this crazy situation.

Thank you for a very creative essay. It is very interesting.

Of your five "deepest discoveries of since over the last two centuries" deterministic chaos, computational complexity, the Black hole information paradox, and the paradox of self reference, I believe that the paradox of self reference is

of a somewhat different character. The limitations posed by self reference does not matter how much information is known. It would be impervious to Laplace's demon. It is inherent in the system as opposed to the dependent on the observer.

(Perhaps the Black hole paradox is also. I do not know enough about that.)

Another slight point is that I am not sure your question to Laplace's demon is really a self reference paradox. In my Outer Limits of Reason book I give two formualations of such self refential paradoxes when discussing predicting the future. It is from page 173:

Imagine for a moment that we are capable of perfectly predicting the

future. The simplest formulation of this puzzle is that we program two

computers with this ability. Call one computer Mimic and the other Contrary.

Both will simply print out the word true or false. The Mimic computer

will predict what Contrary will print at some specific time in the future

and print the same thing. In contrast, the Contrary computer will predict

what Mimic will do at that specific time and print the opposite. If Mimic

will print true , then Contrary will print false. If Mimic will print false, then Contrary will print true. This is a paradox. The astute reader will notice

that this is nothing more than a simple formulation of the liar paradox

that we met in chapter 2:

L_2 : L_3 is false.

L_3 : L_2 is true.

In a similar vein, we can formulate the same puzzle with one computer.

Program a single computer to predict what it will do at some specific time

in the future and have it do the opposite. In other words, the computer

will negate its own prediction. Such a computer would cause a contradiction

and hence cannot exist.

Again, thank you for writing such a nice essay. Please take a look at mine.

All the best,

Noson

Dear Rick,

thank you for a very enjoyable essay, it has really a unique approach. I wish you the best for the contest!

If you have a moment, I would appreciate your opinion on my essay as well.

All good wishes,

Flavio

Your essay was certainly enjoyable to read. I was especially struck by:

"Still none of this will answer what is perhaps the ultimate question when it comes to the role of computation in our world, the question that lies at the heart of our discovery of computation itself- is the world itself at bottom deterministic or random (in the sense of Wheeler's "law without law)? Everything so far would appear to suggest that it is a finely tuned balance of both."

You sound just like Forrest Gump! (The link is to one of my favorite quotes by the sage.)

Actually, I think there might another (i.e., a "middle") option. The (old-fashioned) concept of determinism has its limits. And the concept of randomness simply doesn't make any sense, except within games of chance, of course.

Dear Rick,

I greatly appreciated your work and discussion. I am very glad that you are not thinking in abstract patterns.

While the discussion lasted, I wrote an article: "Practical guidance on calculating resonant frequencies at four levels of diagnosis and inactivation of COVID-19 coronavirus", due to the high relevance of this topic. The work is based on the practical solution of problems in quantum mechanics, presented in the essay FQXi 2019-2020 "Universal quantum laws of the universe to solve the problems of unsolvability, computability and unpredictability".

I hope that my modest results of work will provide you with information for thought.

Warm Regards, `

Vladimir

Hi Rick - Nice to see you again! Get essay, thanks. The narrative about Laplace's demon was excellent and funny. Drawing upon ancient Egypt was fun - in my essay I borrow from the middle-aged mysticism of Omar Kayyam.

I hope you have a chance to check my essay out! Time is short and the end is near!

LXIX. But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays

Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;

Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

Cheers - George: The Door That Has No Key: https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3494

I enjoyed this a lot Rick...

I especially liked the image of sand pictures. I had a dream once of a chamber where characters were projected. A wonderful weaving of the historical with the evolution of Physics. Of course; some of the statements you make are weak, if hyper-dimensional super-determinism holds true. But nobody other than me is likely to call you on that point.

You won't read anything about the 7 pairs of oppositely-directed timelines at the Planck scale, in my current essay. But you might learn something about what gets contained and what goes to infinity. I hope you enjoy the kind review and boost in rankings I have given you. This is excellent work.

Regards,

Jonathan