Thread: The Fire in the Equations

If a Turing machine were to emulate this universe, we could argue that this would make it as real as ours (I am essentially assuming functionalism).

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Functionalism is dead, it died.

Hence in order to make my universe real we would have to have an infinite chain of Turing machines which seems paradoxical. So what is the source of the fire?

If you restrict yourself to set theory then maybe, however I'm pretty sure you can reduce the universe to a finite set of equations using category theory.

The other problem of using a Turing machine is that it will miss Godel's undecidables conjuctures. You still have to get the correct axioms, which is a big problem. For example, if the universe didn't go by the axiom or theorem of the continuum hypothesis, then once you assume it something about the universe you emulate will be different too the real universe.

A better idear would be to try and get some mathematical results about existence, then maybe using that too find the theory of everything, then trying to run that on a computer.

Functionalism died? Do you mean formalism?

I am referring to functionalism, which says that if an algorithm acts something out, that thing which is being acted out is just as real as its real world counterpart. It is mainly used in reference to consciousness, and the idea that if you emulated the brain on, say, a computer, it would be just as conscious as us. I find it very hard to argue with this principle, because the converse is essentially asserting that sodium ions and plasma membranes etc. are somehow necessary for consciousness.