OFF: SETI, ETs

[M Holmes]

Paul Mather writes:

> On Thu, 11 Jul 1996, M Holmes wrote:
>
> > Well I dunno. You could use it to predict the ultimate fate of the
> > Universe. How much bigger would you want?
>
> The point is, *could* you use it to predict the ultimate fate of the
> Universe??  Presume, for a moment, that the state of the Universe is
> determined by the interaction of fundamental particles.  To predict a
> future state would involve projecting forwards the interaction of those
> particles, extrapolated from some known position.  Even if their behaviour
> at each step were completely known (thanks to "the theory of everything"),
> it would be impossible to simulate such an enormous amount of data
> (bearing in mind we'd have to, due to possible sensitivity to initial
> conditions).  (Even current weather simulations can only cope with a tiny
> fraction of the Earth's available weather data, and we know how good they
> are at predicting "the ultimate fate of the British summer".:)  A "theory
> of everything"  wouldn't even allow us to predict what Mike Holmes would
> be doing in 5 years time, given the aforementioned problems of scale
> (even assuming we could sift out the morass of particles comprising "Mike
> Holmes" from all those around him).

I was thinking more of the relevance of a quantum theory of gravity to
questions of the heat death/cold death of the Universe. A simulator of
the Universe would have to be pretty big. I'm not sure we'd have room
for it :-)

>
> > Sure. Most of the questions it'd enable us to answer are very much in
> > the realms of cosmology and philosophy.
>
> It would answer a couple of questions of philosophy, but not many.  And I
> wonder how well such a theory of the microscopic (i.e. how the fundamental
> particles exist and interact) would address the macroscopic (and realms in
> between).  The big problem about the reductionist quest for "the theory of
> everything" is that it tells us very well *how* things work, but not
> *why*.

I doubt we can even be sure that *why* is an answerable question. It's
applying a human level of thought and purpose to something that's so
outside of the human realm that such concepts most likely don't apply.

> (Plus, it is very difficult to apply at different levels of the
> reductionist hierarchy in order to obtain meaningful explanations and
> predictions.  I mean, we don't discuss the latest Hawkwind album in terms
> of air pressure waves, do we, even though this is what music ultimately
> "is" when you reduce it down far enough.)  What is needed is a paradigm that
> addresses both in a meaningful way.

No argument there. Hell, I even run around day to day acting as if I
have Free Will :-)

> Paul.

FoFP