X-Message-Number: 8300 Date: Mon, 09 Jun 1997 09:09:46 -0700 From: Peter Merel <> Subject: Bits or Souls? Bob Ettinger writes in a speculative mode, >First, Feinberg and others have suggested that faster-than-light signals may >indeed be possible through tachyons, although the possible paradoxes have not >been dealt with satisfactorily, as far as I know. Trouble with tachyons, if there are any such beasts, is observing them. Much of the mathematics that describe physical laws can be used to give rise to improbable effects, especially with regard to infinities (tachyons tend towards an infinite speed as their energy drops ...). Many of these improbables are so empirically disasterous that it is assumed they are artifacts of the imperfection of our understanding, and so they are "normalized" out. Tachyons, as I recall, are very much beasts of the "show me one" realm, being a possible solution to (general?) relativity, but not necessarily an accessible one. That said, my physics isn't strong - does anyone know any different? >Second, what about Mach and centripetal force? Supposedly, a rotating body >would not exhibit this effect in the absence of the distant stars, which >provide a reference frame for the rotation. How does this become a local >effect? The same has been said of inertia, I recall. I believe Cramer's interpretation, at least, provides a useful (non-local) explanation of such, but I reserve the right to fold under pressure - I gave the Cramer URLs a while back, and don't know any more than you'll find there. >He thinks some of the quantum >rules are statistical only, not applying to actual individual particles. Regrettably (?) the "spooky action at a distance" bit has been observed in experiments that deal with one or two particles at a time - Aspect and subsequent tests of Bell work like this. Of course the effects are seen only after multiple runs - they are effects in the aggregate - but explaining these empirical effects as "only statistics" seems to be to dismiss rather than to account for them. -- Peter C. McCluskey writes, > It is fairly easy to write a simulation such that no behavior of the >simulated entities can crash the simulation - That may be, but it's not possible to prove - cf. the General Halting Problem in any Computability textbook. I quite agree with you that our Bob is off the beam with this "there would be bugs ..." bit, but I think that the disagreement here is philosophical rather than logical. To we folk who regard information as a physical property, Bob's position looks irrational, but to folk who regard identity as a physical property, the info position looks irrational. Interesting, ain't it? Maybe we should investigate the ascription of physicality a little more, rather than keep wasting bits on slanging ... Peter Merel. -- 10022 Paseo Montril #224 San Diego CA 92129 Telephone 619 484 4728 mailto: Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8300