Physics of Information: great panel discussion
Last week on CBC Radio's national science program, Quirks and Quarks, they broadcast a recording of a fascinating panel discussion on "The Physics of Information: What the Universe Doesn't Want You to Know," held at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. In this wide-ranging discussion a panel of distinguished and likable physicists run down such subjects as the universe as a computer, quantum teleportation, the fundamentals of information science, The panelists were in a state of near-hilarity through much of the the event, and that only made the subject better. Included on the panel were: Dr. Leonard Susskind (Stanford), Dr. Seth Lloyd (MIT), Dr. Christopher Fuchs (UNM), Sir Anthony Leggett (Urbana-Champaign), and the moderator, Bob McDonald, host of Quirks and Quarks.
The Physics of Information was the topic of a recent public forum, sponsored by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, and moderated by Bob McDonald. And Quirks was there to record the event. Do ideas about information and reality inspire fruitful new approaches to the hardest problems of modern physics? What can we learn about the paradoxes of quantum mechanics, the beginning of the universe and our understanding of black holes, by thinking about the very essence of information? Those are some of the questions our panel tackled.Link, Link to MP3, Link to podcast feed
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It used to be that the Universe was like a giant clock. Now it's a digital computer. When these scientist use a metaphor like this, I wonder how many of them get to the point where they say, "A computer does not organize itself out of raw matter. Complexity of that sort required design." How many of them have a cosmology that absolutely requires Mind? I can't get around it myself.
Jeff, one of the scientists specifically addresses that thesis in his talk and make a very good case for why physicists describing the universe as a computer is different from the clockwork metaphor.
Yes, but are we just products of computation, semi-autonomous cells (programs) interacting with all the other programs? Lots of ideas that beg lots of questions. If our reality is the product of computation it would be interesting to look at the code. First line: All is the Void (define void as S (singularity). And then there is X (expansion). The light and then there massive particles and then gravity...and 14 billion years later you have bits of the self-aware Universe talking about how they are products of computation. As Frank Herbert said, We live in a Magical Universe. And as Ray Kurzweil says, "Sigularities beget Singularites." After the next one we may not question --if-- the universe is a computer, but rather --how-- we can design our own.
I doubt we're going to nail that one down anytime soon. We can't even predict how New Hampshire is going to vote.
Ha! I don't want no stinkin nails, "I want off this cross of fate." Being able to predict the future isn't everything it's cracked up to be. Half the fun is --not-- knowing what's gonna happen.
Oh, if only I could once again live in a place with access to CBC broadcasting. Unlike the Beeb (high drone factor), the CBC was often lively and engaging. A fine example of the far-too-excessive evils of government ventures that could be better handled by the private sector (*snicker*).
Trivia question: what was the name of the show with the theme song that included the sound of someone typing?
can't you get this there through somewhere?
http://www.cbc.ca/listen/index.html
There is a lot of this sort of thing going around. Gives people a chance to have some fun and network. It can be called Bat Braining . I am all for it and attend as many as I can afford. Understanding ourselves as a programable Bio-Computer can be a first step toward having more fun being alive. We can learn how to enjoy the freedom of self programing. Just don't tell anybody. You probably won't spend much time shopping.