Nature's Computer

Fursat Friday 10 - April 18, 2008

The following thoughts (rather absurdity) are side-effects of my ongoing reading of "The World Within the World" by John David Barrow of University of Cambridge…

As Cicero once said: There is nothing so absurd that it has not been said by philosophers. So the following piece is absurdity pennified. That's good way to become self-proclaimed philosopher... :-)

We always wonder when we look at the world around us. Is there any order and certainty OR is it completely random OR there is some order in such seeming disorder i.e. Nature is Chaotic? (Ref. http://narendrashukla.blogspot.com/2006/07/711-and-chaos.html)

Apparently, behind this ever changing world of ours there lies a changeless world of order and certainty. i.e. This visually changing world is overlaid (as SS7 is an overlay network on PSTN) on a world upon which we can exert no discernible influence. It is completely oblivious whether its operations are intelligble to us or not? But without which there would be no cosmos and no life. Whether observable "Mother Nature" presents before us is governed by certains laws OR there are no laws altogther? Who has built these laws bounded nicely by deterministic mathematical equations?

Who else but us, the homo-sapiens. We have built it up, step by step, through observations, and trial and error...or so, it seems…

Nature appears to possess laws which are mathematical not because we know so much about the nature, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover (Bertrand Russell). How limited we are in our sensory capability? How accidental our existences are really and how full of influence by circumstances...

Looks like we are confronted with a cosmic computer whose output we are trying to decipher through our limited five senses… though few people possess the sixth sense as well... we observe patterns presented to us and the responses given by tinkering with its keyboard. We try to piece together the inner logic of its programming .. very similar to 20 questions game where just by Yes/No kind of answers, you can read presenter's mind.

Is it possible to physically build an elephant by enumerating its, say, 20 characteristics? Reminds of famous Buddhist parable of the Blind men and the Elephant ... Isn't it ?You will agree that behind this apparent rationality of Nature's Computers there must be some expert programmer (or say the Architect of the Matrix)… so who is that architect or programmer? Is it a Divine programmer, or just Man, the Mundane keyboard operator, seeing the reflection of his own mind as it struggles to describe the Elephant?

The search continues… Can Google OR SWoogle help?

As Robert Frost says : You're searching, For things that do not exist. I mean the beginnings. Ends and beginnings. Ends and beginnings - there are no such things. There are only middles

Till next post…
Have a Great Weekend…
Narendra