![]() ![]() So statistical mechanics has explanatory power even though in this instance it adds no information.Įnthusiast: I think your criteria for "explanatory power" is still too stringent. But in practice, applying statistical mechanics will allow you to make certain predictions much more cheaply, such as the average velocity of the particles in one particular spot. Technically speaking, if you know a physical (Newtonian) system perfectly, the laws of statistical mechanics are completely unnecessary: you can predict exactly where every particle will be after any specified amount of time. OP: Let's take these points one at a time.Įxplanatory power in a deterministic system: Consider the laws of statistical mechanics - most notably entropy. Many things (like eyes) appear to have been designed for a specific purpose, but were in fact produced by natural selection without any actual intent. Second, you can't assume intelligence just because you have an elaborate mechanism for accomplishing a purpose. The Game of Life is deterministic and we know all the rules. Skeptic: Where to begin? First of all, postulating intelligence cannot possibly add any explanatory power to what we already have. In the same way, we can look for patterns in the Game of Life that - while not violating the rules - are virtually impossible to imagine without deliberate design. If we were searching for alien intelligence, we would look for signs like buildings or radio message patterns that can most easily be explained by the existence of an alien civilization. The most relevant response here is that minds have explanatory power: there are certain actions people take - such as having discussions about the nature of minds - that would be absurd if they did not, in fact, have minds. ![]() Consider why you think other people have minds (as opposed to being mindless automatons). Įnthusiast: You don't have to define intelligent life to search for signs of it in astronomy. Skeptic: What is life? What is intelligence? If you will not define these two, your question is unanswerable. Philosophical digression (trying to provide a substitute for the best of the comments moved to chat) What sorts of things would scientists (and philosophers) consider when trying to decide if intelligence had arisen? What sorts of debates might they have? And the "signs of intelligence" need not be definitive. The goal is to see if, given enough simulated time steps and a large enough random initial canvas, intelligent life will evolve.īut here's the question: even if intelligent life did evolve, how would the simulator civilization know it was there, when all they (or rather, their algorithms) can see is a semi-chaotic pattern of blinking dots?Įdit: The "life" bit isn't that important "intelligent non-life" would also work. They decide to run a massive simulation of Conway's Game of Life with a random "big bang" initial state. A civilization has a "magic" computer with memory and processing capacities far beyond what our physics says is possible. ![]()
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