Re: starship-design: Re: Quantum Gravity

[Zenon Kulpa <zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl>]

> From: TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden)
>
> >[Zenon: ]
> >
> >But in the "cellular automaton model" of the universe,
> >*we* are the software (or rather, even something more abstract:
> >the patterns of cell states produced by software,
> >consider "gliders" and "spaceships" in the game of "life"...).
> 
> I wasn't sure if I wanted to include this last time, I wish I had:
> We are software that can manipulate the computer. It is like AI-"software"
> in a computer that has hands and may be able to upgrade its own memory.
> 
I wonder - what is the access protocol to the input ports of the hands? 
Maybe prayer?  ;-)
[See also at the end.]

> [...]
> >This amounts to local change of the topology of space
> >in the cellular model.
> >It is doubtful if the "patterns of cell states"
> >(i.e., *we*) can do that...
> 
> Well we would use some of natures tools that can interact with the topology
> of space in a way we would like. For that matter, masses do interact with
> the topology of space, all we may have to do is put them in the right
> configuration.
> 
But is the space-time topology as we now see it
THE SAME as the cellular automaton topology?
May be our space-time topology is quite different thing
than that - it is only modeled
by possibly large & complex patterns of cell activity.
[But then, our lightspeed barrier c might be (much?) smaller 
than the cellular-automaton limit (say, Ca),
and FTL (but only up to Ca) may be possible by proper interaction
with the space-time-modeling patterns...]


> >> >The only way to go faster within world's frame of reference
> >> >would be to change the topology of cell connections:
> >> >i.e., make more cells around any given one be "adjacent"
> >> >to it (that is, accessible in a single tick).
> >> >But this also will not make FTL possible - 
> >> >it will only make the limit speed (c) higher.
> >> 
> >> True, but I suggested, that there may be something underneath 
> >> space-time, something that isn't discrete. 
> >> 
> >True, but then *we* would have no access to this level of the world.
> 
> I assumed the underlying structure of space time interacts with space-time.
> (If it didn't there was little use of mentioning it.)
> I also assumed that interaction was in two ways: spacetime is influenced by
> the underlying structure, and the underlying structure is influenced by the
> presence of spacetime.
> So if spacetime changes, by our influence (Eg. placing matter in a special
> configuration) than we can manipulate the underlying structure.
> 
OK, if the levels of the cellular-automaton-modeling-computer
and of patterns of states of the cells are not appropriately isolated,
than of course you (*we*) can theoretically do anything with the system,
e.g. reprogram it completely so as all the laws of nature
will be quite different than now, or even switch the computer off
(Be Careful, Kyle... ;-).
I wonder if the Universe would not have been switched off already,
if that across-levels access were possible...  ;-)

-- Zenon