A Bunch of Rocks (17 Nov 2008)
A Bunch of Rocks (17 Nov 2008)
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7 comments
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Except it's not a simulation of the universe, it's a bunch of stones on the ground. There is no continuity.
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He bases the next row of stones on the previous one, changing them by a consistent rule? Its an unorthodox computer with infinite memory. Why does that not count as a simulation? I'm not following
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The only computation that is happening is when he compares two rocks. He doesn't have the memory to store all computations simultaneously.
It's like having a "simulation" of the universe on a hard drive and only really computing on plankt measurement at a time by changing the bits on the hard drive. The data is there, but that's it it's not a live interaction.
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I think I see where you're coming from. The computer in the comic is a Rule 110 automata, known to be Turing complete. It can perform complex calculations, allegedly.
I suppose it can get a bit philosophical whether an incomplete time instant is even visible from the inside of a simulation, because nothing moves after a single pass until the full frame is complete, hence limiting perception.
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Unless you mean continuity as in non discrete physics, which is fair play for this specific computer but then there is the Planck length to consider.(edit: I am aware that discrete vs continuous is a whole holy war on its own)
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7 comments