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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">this discussion lead my
free-associative, somewhat atrophied brain (or is it mind?) back
to this paper:</div>
<blockquote>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Digital Information Mechanics, Edward
Fredkin 1981</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://52.7.130.124/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/PhysicistModelofComputation.pdf">http://52.7.130.124/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/PhysicistModelofComputation.pdf</a></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">which I was surprised to find online (I
think I have looked before). I have a (very yellowed) paper copy
of this in a dusty box at the bottom of a dusty stack of boxes
somewhere. I am about to re-read it (online) but felt I would
just tangent wildly (as I am wont to do) if I did so before
sending it to the group for your own thoughts.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Fredkin himself handed me the paper
copy when I met him at the Cellular Automata conference at LANL in
1983. I was incredibly green at the time and quite eager in many
dimensions, but this particular workshop/conference really blew me
away in it's combination of abstractions and concrete examples.
From Wolfram's 4 categories of CA to meeting Conway, to seeing
Crutchfield's video-feedback-as-CA, to having Feynman hisself
introduce the Toffoli Gate and Drexler's work that became "Engines
of Creation" in the context of reeling out his circa 1957 "Plenty
of Room at the Bottom" talk. If I remember right, Margolis and/or
Tofolli had a Toffoli-gate based CA hardware device at the
conference that they couldn't quite keep running. Also, Gosper's
memoised implementation of GoL added a whole other set of entropic
implications with allusions to digital physics implied.<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I don't fully subscribe to the
variations on Fredkin's "Digital Physics/Philosophy" or Wheeler's
"It from Bit" and as hard as I try I can't penetrate far enough
into Wolfram's variations to do more than wish I could and wonder
if there is meaning (relevance?) in there?</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:6c2261b4-997b-87e4-2cd3-e27bd0c26006@swcp.com">
<br>
Frank -
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Formal logic is not a god but exists
independently of nervous systems.
<br>
<br>
A -> B <-> -B -> -A
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
But is it *relevant* to anything independent of (central?) nervous
systems?
<br>
<br>
I know this isn't precisely what you meant, but I would suggest
that formal logic and gods have more in common than not, being
both artifacts *of* special kinds of symbols and transformation
systems for them. I don't know that molluscs (even cephalapods)
have formal logics nor gods (though they may well be capable of
some kind of arcane modeling and prediction that is in some sense
equally powerful/useful/interesting).
<br>
<br>
- Steve
<br>
<br>
PS. I liked EricCs reformulation of the scenario, it fit well how
*I* parsed and sorted things out.
<br>
<br>
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