Theos-Talk Archives (June 2002 Message tt00091)

There is an article in THE ECONOMIST about the work of
a scientist who believes there is a connection between
information and physical reality. It appears he has
calculated the total number of bits of information in
the universe, and has also calculated the total number
of physical states, and has determined that they are
the same. Somehow that does not seem surprising to
me. since one number would by definition have to be
the same as the other. However, it seemingly has
interesting philosophical implications, since
scientists are moving toward the idea that the
universe is a computer, which suggests in turn that
they may be tackling the more interesting problem of
the existence of sentience.

A bit, for the benefit of those who are not computer
nerds, is the smallest unit of information. This new
speculation arises from work done in quantum
computing.

In other news, CNN reports that scientists in
Australia have succeeded in "teleporting" a laser
beam. What that could possibly mean, since
teleportation by definition means that matter
disappears in one location and subsequently or
simultaneously appears somewhere else is not clear. 
Unidentified scientists were cites on the same report
as saying they will be teleporting solid matter in
three to five years.

That may be of historical or other interest because of
the subject we debated a year or so ago, with the
cynics and the fundamentalists squared off implacably
against each other, of whether reports of anyone
having succeeded in this remarkable feat in the past
could be true, or if they are merely misreported. It
seems to me the only entirely honest position one
could take, in the absence of a demonstration under
laboratory conditions, would be an agnostic one,
keeping the possibility open, but not blindly
believing that the stories are true or not. 
Scientists are now saying they think it within the
realm of possibility, so we may soon have an
additional item of evidence to consider.



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