What if we don't need (unified) theories? (Just programs.)

I'm thinking of the case where there are two theories G and Q that you want to replace by a unified theory U. (A "theory", to make the term somewhat precise, refers to a collection of expressions in a particular language, say a language whose "alphabet" consists of mathematical notations that can express field equations in physics.) The problem with G and Q is that they are inconsistent (when they are interpreted in the appropriate framework) in making predictions within a certain narrow domain. Hence the search for a U that is consistent. (Perhaps a different language is needed for U than the language[s] of G and Q.)

But suppose that instead of G and Q we have programs (written in one or more programming languages) Gᴾ and Qᴾ, and they too make inconsistent predictions in a narrow domain. (We can think of Gᴾ as simulating G, Qᴾ simulating Q.) Now we want to replace programs Gᴾ and Qᴾ with a unified program Uᴾ that is consistent. The software "art" of handling inconsistencies in simultaneously running Gᴾ and Qᴾ may involve some sort of handling of exceptions. Call this software Eᴾ. Then (simplified) Uᴾ = Gᴾ + Qᴾ + Eᴾ.

So the search for a "tidy" theory U is replaced with the coding of a (somewhat) "hacky" program Uᴾ.

Could this be an acceptable approach, or would many be left unsatisfied?

Everything is made of code

Everything is made of particles.¹
Particles are 'bundles of properties'.²

A 'bundle of properties and capabilities' is code (of an object in object-oriented programming).³

∴ Everything is made of code.


¹ from the atomists of ancient Greece (Today, their 'atom' becomes our 'particle'.)
² from an August 2013 Scientific American article (Also, Quantum Identity: lecture notes from Jonathan Bain)
³ from a computer science textbook


plus.google.com/108161427707267075271/posts/agd91xv1zC5

Quantificational Relativity

Theory of FIN (Jan Mycielski) =

      Finite Mathematics of Indefinitely Large Sets (Shaughan Lavine) =

            Quantificational Relativity

The language of code

Mathematicians and physicists may have a "love-hate relationship" because they don't speak the same language. Fortunately, the mathematician and the physicist can meet at the computer (numerical relativity, quantum Monte Carlo, etc.) and begin to speak a common language: The language of code.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_relativity
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Monte_Carlo
haskell.org/haskellwiki/Numeric_Quest
...


(There really is no concrete language of mathematics until it's expressed in code: LaTeX/Mathematics for display, a coding language for execution.)

Argument against consilience

The sciences and the humanities are two (or multiple) codesbases, each with perhaps different coding languages. Separate to a large degree in their development and purposes, but can share code (reuse) in their interactions.

See also Against Unity by Richard Rorty

Codologism

Codologism is ontic pancomputationalism, but with working code.

The brain is made of code

IBM's Corelet programming language.

TCC is made of these

The comic computer (TCC) combines code, Tegmark's universes (MUH → CUH → CFUH), Wolfram's automata (NKS), and coditrons (filling the universe like Higgs bosons and distributed like the cells of an irregular lattice Wolfram-type CA; made of probabilistic logic gates via probabilistic λ calculus or probabilistic SKI combinator calculus: SKIP).

How to think like a materialist

Materialists think in term of concrete things. Platonists think also in terms of abstractions (nonmaterial things).

Examples:

This from a recent Google+ post:

Is physics truth, metaphor, or less? David Tong, Hilary Lawson, and Lev Vaidman debate.
<iai.tv/video/uncovering-reality>
(<plus.google.com/118265897954929480050/posts/jAJgaYGPUka>)

My materialist answer:

Physics is some math expressions written in LaTeX and put into journal articles.

On whether the "mind" is a "computer":

When they say "the mind isn't doing computation like a computer", I think are using the word "computation" in an abstract sense (e.g., as "symbol manipulation"). Because in that sense, computers aren't doing computation either! All computers do is push elections around from disks and memory chips, etc. through SoC circuits back out to memory chips and out onto wireless signals, fiber optic cables, and LED displays and so forth. We only imagine they are doing "computation" (in that sense). The point is that at some level neither the brain nor computer is doing "symbol manipulation".


I think platonism clutters thinking. Assuming we live in a natural world without supernatural things, materialism should suffice.


posted to Atoms and the Void (Google Groups)


see also <huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/materialism-deconstructed_b_2228362.html>

cosmic computer posts on Google+

Why the "analogy with photosynthesis" in arguing the "mind isn't computation" doesn't work
<plus.google.com/108161427707267075271/posts/AvC7d35Prap>

CONSCIOUSNESS AND SENTIENT ROBOTS
<plus.google.com/108161427707267075271/posts/dGjetYo8ZuQ>

I think the ACers are right
<plus.google.com/108161427707267075271/posts/V5ThckjHVz7>

LaTeX/Mathematics
<plus.google.com/108161427707267075271/posts/G4VepNz7GpZ>

What if we were just outputs of nature's 4D printer?
<plus.google.com/108161427707267075271/posts/FEdx9XGnRHs>


Posting on a Google+ stream is a bit faster sometimes than than publishing on a Blogger blog.

coditrons and the void

"The world may instead consist of bundles of properties," says an article in the August 2013 issue of Scientific American. And an object (in object-oriented programming) is a "bundle of properties and capabilities." Theoretical physics, meet programming language theory.

And still, Democritean atomism ("in truth there are only atoms and the void") has not gone away (with atoms replaced with particles): "The application of Platonic reality to physics is fraught with problems."

Now if code describes the lowest level of reality, this level could be seen as composed of coditrons: the logic gates (some quantum in behavior) which, in combination, run the "software" of the universe. The most basic code of physics could be described as the microcode of the cosmic computer. On top of coditrons (think of them like Higgs bosons filling space) and (cosmic) microcode, the code of the universe runs.

As for the higher levels of code above the microcode, there in nothing that says that the codebases of the universe have to be completely consistent. "Paraconsistent logic has been proposed as a means for dealing with the pervasive inconsistencies among the documentation, use cases, and code of large software systems."

What we are seeing is that physics looks increasingly like it can be expressed in terms of programming language theory, microcode, codes, codebases, and even perhaps paraconsistent programming.

preface

What could lead one to believe that the universe is a cosmic computer?

Being a coder — especially one who has written lots of code in several coding languages over a few decades — might predilect one to that way of thinking. But also it could be reflection on the observation that codes are everywhere, and everything seems to be made of them.

There is DNA's code of life, and Dr. Phil's Life Code.

I've used LaTeX/Mathematics (a language for coding the display of mathematics on paper or on a computer) for writing math. Outside of the math in one's brain code (see Jan Mycielski's "The Meaning of Pure Mathematics" on intentionalism as compared to formalism and platonism) and math written down or stored in a computer (like coded in LaTeX/Math[ematics]), that's all the places math can be. So math is made of code.

Math written in LaTeX/Math is not directly "executable" on a computer, but Mathematica comes close to being able to do that. Mathematicians may not write completely pedagogical expressions with LaTeX/Math since it is a display language, not a programming language. But when math is expressed in a programming language, it has to be exact. Whether written to display or written to execute, math is made of code.

As physics is expressed in math, physics is made of code, too.

So life is made of code, math is made of code, and everything in between is made of code.

The universe is made of code.

the cosmic computer

This blog is not to be confused with the science fiction novel by H. Beam Piper.


The premise that our universe is a computer has several formulations, so there are several meanings to that expression. This blog will collect my own writing on what this could mean.

image from Maybe Quarterly