Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!quiche!utility
From: utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Another letter to the New York Review
Message-ID: <2353@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca>
Date: 4 Mar 90 18:12:49 GMT
References: <18883@bcsaic.UUCP> <1589@skye.ed.ac.uk> <11488@venera.UUCP> <36Is02Wr8diC01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <361@dlogics.UUCP>
Reply-To: utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN)
Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Lines: 15

In article <361@dlogics.UUCP> dsa@dlogics.UUCP (David Angulo) writes:
>As I said before, all these arguments and examples about reproducibility,
>determinism, and computability of the universe or ANYTHING are moot.  The
>universe (and everything in it) is not deterministic, not reproducible, and
>not computable.  Quantum physics dictates that ANYTHING is possible.  There
>is only an overriding probability that "normal" type things will happen.
>Particles CAN come out of black holes!  But what does this have to do with
>thinking systems anyway?
	The universe can equivalently be regarded as deterministic in much
the same way any non-deterministic process can -- the objects are sets with
associated (real number?) probabilities.  I would argue the universe is
indeed computible as it IS being computed (by the universe).  And the
probability function for things is not at all arbitrary.  The point is
really that particles are not exactly the real objects of our universe.
		Ron