[No Independent Existence] - A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum

A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum

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No Independent Existence

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Posted by: Phillip Craig

As a thought experiment, consider that everything that we call reality is the outcome of NKS-type rules that have had billions of years to operate (it is even possible there is only one rule). A consequence of this would be that we humans, along with everything else in our reality, are the product of these operating rules and nothing can exist or mentally get outside of them.

In addition to our physical bodies, all of our feelings, thoughts, reactions, sense of history and such things as typing this paragraph could be driven by the underlying rule or rules. Could such a system produce self-aware entities who could discover the rules of the system? Or, are we part of a completely self-consistent reality such that no entity in this reality could comprehend it, because there is no actual comprehending going on other than what the "reality rules" produce?

NKS opens the door to some very profound possibilities which have the potential to shatter our previous understanding of reality. But, are we doing this independently or is this an outcome of the "reality rules" operating for an additional few years so that such thought processes arise?


Posted by: John Gelles

NKS may offer a different way to describe kernels that generate scripted outcomes -- but NKS descriptions don't alter the nature or predictability of real world scripting.

There may be no adequate proof that outcomes, if replayed from earlier starting conditions, would be different. But I believe they would. Which is another way of saying that knowledge of all the rules would not offer predictable futures.

I think NKS would call the problem of unknowable futres, which we are forced to accept, (even if the cosmos is a giant clockworks), because we know so few of the rules, a problem whose solution is not computable.

Accordingly, NKS leaves such uncomputable problems/solutions to artists of fiction -- which is where it was when NKS came on the scene microseconds ago.

Significantly, I believe, this does not affect political or academic effort. Progress is made by discovery of rules whose scope is exceedingly narrow.

And then there are values that we adopt outside the realm of current effective control. These can outlast years of failure, as we strive to see them accepted.

But the idea of thought experiments is very appealing. They are done in the head and yield, perhaps, "results" that vary greatly -- even when focused on the"same" thought-questions.


Posted by: Phillip Craig

I agree that the ideas behind NKS do not radically alter human activities and learning that operate in a relatively narrow range. In other words, there is a certain amount of predictability in these things that allows us to learn about and act on our world more or less coherently.

The occasional political surprise or scientific breakthrough does not seem to be so much out of left field that we get suspicious of its origin. There is a certain amount of consistency to our world that has a certain "feel" to it, i.e. we accept the unpredicability around us because there is a certain range to it. Even with hints of something else going on (paranormal events, etc) we seem to keep those in a familiar context.

Thought experiments might allow us to discover what might be going on under the surface. If we ask the right question(s) would we begin to see or suspect something fundamental in our world that has gone unnoticed? One could ask "What if...?", and the question asked might be more interesting now that NKS has given us a different perspective.

For example, what if we (and everything around us) are the result of a causal network that is updating itself billions or trillions of times faster than our perception? What might such a system produce and would we be able to detect that this is going on? By the time a single thought enters our minds, the underlying network might have gone through billions of state changes.

Several questions flow from that idea. One is, who (or what) is really running the show? In fact, what is the show exactly? Another question is, what does it mean if this causal network is inherently unpredictable? At this point, I find it difficult to talk about this without recharging my brain.




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