First, a warning: don't read this article on your screen, it's too *dense*. Print it and read it later, or even better, buy a copy of Wired.
In this story, Kevin Kelly explores the essence of computation in an almost theological way. He quotes so many scientific works that I will not even try to summarize his thesis.
But let's look at how he defines the nature of computation.
Our awakening to the true power of computation rests on two suspicions. The first is that computation can describe all things.
The second supposition is that all things can compute. We have begun to see that almost any kind of material can serve as a computer. Human brains, which are mostly water, compute fairly well.
A third postulate ties the first two together into a remarkable new view: All computation is one.
From this, it's easy to draw a conclusion: Nature computed.
If nature computed, why not the entire universe?
If this is the case, does the universe behaves as if it was a computer or is it one?
If you're not asleep yet, I just want to quote two paragraphs near the end of the article.
Probably the trippiest science book ever written is The Physics of Immortality, by Frank Tipler. If this book was labeled standard science fiction, no one would notice, but Tipler is a reputable physicist and Tulane University professor who writes papers for the International Journal of Theoretical Physics. In Immortality, he uses current understandings of cosmology and computation to declare that all living beings will be bodily resurrected after the universe dies. His argument runs roughly as follows: As the universe collapses upon itself in the last minutes of time, the final space-time singularity creates (just once) infinite energy and computing capacity. In other words, as the giant universal computer keeps shrinking in size, its power increases to the point at which it can simulate precisely the entire historical universe, past and present and possible. He calls this state the Omega Point. It is a computational space that can resurrect "from the dead" all the minds and bodies that have ever lived. The weird thing is that Tipler was an atheist when he developed this theory and discounted as mere "coincidence" the parallels between his ideas and the Christian doctrine of Heavenly Resurrection. Since then, he says, science has convinced him that the two may be identical.
I asked Tipler which side of the Fredkin gap he is on. Does he go along with the weak version of the ultimate computer, the metaphorical one, that says the universe only seems like a computer? Or does he embrace Fredkin's strong version, that the universe is a 12 billion-year-old computer and we are the killer app? "I regard the two statements as equivalent," he answered. "If the universe in all ways acts as if it was a computer, then what meaning could there be in saying that it is not a computer?"
For your information, Kevin Kelly was the first editor of Wired and the author of "Out of Control". His latest work is Asia Grace, a picture book of celebrations in Asia -- and when I say "picture book", this is true: there is no text at all.
You can also read two columns previously published on this weblog and closely related to our topic of the day, "Universe is a computer" and "Stephen Wolfram's Simple Science."
Source: Kevin Kelly, Wired 10.12, December 2002 Issue
6:08:06 PM Permalink
|
|
