Guestbook
Guestbook
4/4/05: Spammers win
Okay, I give up. For every sincere comment left in the guest book, there are a dozen spams left by robots trying to raise the search engine profile of a gambling site.
Please send comments to RhodesR@BottomLayer.com. I'll add them to the guest book by hand.
This virtual reality thing has its drawbacks, what?
- Ross
Name: Barrie Wright
Email: bjmwri [at]
esc.net.au
Date: 09-Mar-2005
It's fascinating to read a mathematician who can write so intelligibly for the non-math world I inhabit.
RR: I'm not a mathematician. I'm a liberal arts major. I need a calculator to remember what 2 + 2 equals. Maybe that's why you find my explanations helpful. :-)
I come from a literary/theological and amateur science/philosophy dabbler stance, but I appreciate the necessity of blending these, even without TOE!
RR: Me, too. See comment above.
It occurs to me that the revelation about the Biblical God requires me to take you seriously in order to explain Sovereignty, freewill, and classical Calvinism [for me] satisfactorily. Much of the New Testament's mystical/real language about 'Christ in us', 'In Him We live and move and have our Being', 'In Christ all things Inhere' could also be explicated by something like what you propose.
RR: That's exactly the kind of stuff I find fascinating to contemplate.
Yet I wonder if even you could help with the Trinity concept! Your God-concept is much more sophisticated than the old Deist one, as it needs to be. Seriously, I think you are wrong to accept uncritically the concept that life just arose out of 'initial conditions', and was not constructed purposefully. Do you believe that information like DNA just assembles itself!? The 'how' is not a trite question. Stephen J. Gould was wrong there, I think. Paul Davies believes 'We were meant to be here', but he accepts undirected evolution too easily too. I guess it allows for a universe [God] producing many other analogous kinds of intelligent 'people', but I still wonder in the absence of any evidence so far from Out There.
RR: Taking the Trinity as an example, I have concluded that a cybernetic point of view doesn't answer life's persistent questions. The best I can do for the Trinity is that Dad is a philosopher, Junior is a computer programmer, and Mom is a computer-savvy nurturer who looks in on Junior's projects. That seems pretty trite. I think the triteness stems from the fact that, given that we live in a computer simulation, the who-what-why-when-and-where is completely arbitrary. Is there any algorithmic reason why God should have a particular personality (steadfast in love, righteous, etc.) such as is suggested by ancient texts? I can't think of any.
Thanks for all your work, Ross. I will look in again and see how God is tampering with your/my program....
RR: Thanks for the comment.
Name: Paula
Email: a2e668e3f91f3[at] yahoo.com
Date: 09-Feb-2005
What an interesting website. It really made me think. Thank you. Paula a2e668e3f91f3-at-yahoo.com
Name: linda ingamells
Email: uizsofit2002[at]
aol.com
Date: 21-Nov-2004
Great site! Does anyone else, apart from myself, believe that God is a biological computer?
Name: Hinkle Richard
Email: siserser [at]
yahoo.com
Date: 11-Nov-2004
Keep up the good work!
Name: Yale L
Email: yale [at]
familycology.org
Date: 30-Oct-2004
Hi Ross, You are indeed treading on sacred ground! Good work! And God Speed in your search for further discoveries! BTW, I too am fascinated with what is revealed by combining Fredkin's and Wolfram's idea of the universe operating like a computer with Newton's and Kepler's idea of a continuously operating Godly Supreme Ruler of the Universe. Which seems to an odd duck like me to be much like asking the pop culture question: what emerges when you merge Obi Wan's "The Force" with Morpheus' "The Matrix"? In both cases, I have come to believe that what logically emerges (and What Else would you expect of a "Logical Logos"?)is "GNOS" (God and Nature's Operating System. I see a way of kind of seeing this Softest of Software and Hardest of Mysteries as the result of opening one's heart and mind to the logical consequences of a Puzzle about it that reveals the nature of its underlying and over-riding "Moral" (Must, Must Not, should and Should Not) character. Which just happens to be what my odd duck web site http://theometry.org and its sister sites are all about. If you visit http://theometry.org, I hope that you will not mind my scato-logical as opposed to theological method of articulating some very hard to grasp concepts. But if you do mind, try to re-mind yourself of this: as was done in an earlier era of cognitive advancement, sometimes you have to sink pretty low to bring High Minded ideas and ideals back down to earth, yes? I look forward to receiving your comments.
Name: chet
Email: ckozarski [at]
comcast.net
Date: 09-Oct-2004
nice job! up to chap 3. do you have comments on how this applies to our everyday life in the later chapters? hope so. thanks,
Name: Graham Copsey
Email: jsf [at]
linknear.com
Date: 11-Sep-2004
Nice work, keep up the good work .
Name: Jess Kray
Email: jesskray [at]
pacbell.net
Date: 04-Sep-2004
Fascinating! Thank you. One question (among many): If I hadn't read your article, would it have reached different conclusions?
RR: Love it. But I think decoherence has pretty well fixed the contents by now. OTOH, your comments and feedback in the present can influence its conclusions in the future, but that's commonplace. :-)
Name: Mark
Email: mark [at]
marklaurence.co.uk
Date: 17-Aug-2004
Very interesting - just read the lot in one go - really not what I expected. I guess the next qeustion is - if reality is a computer program, who/what made the computer? Are we just all visitors to a computer simulation, but we have no idea that we asked to be here. We may be just playing a game and death is the end - or a return to the beginning. The site has helped my understanding of reality but there are still so many more questions to be answered.
RR: Good questions, but they seem unanswerable from within the simulation. (Unless one believes that the Programmer can and perhaps has provided answers -- clues to be discovered or even fully articulate revelation. Many people believe this to be the case, but I am not aware of any rigorous proof to date.)
Name: David Drill Bits
Email: spamless [at]
sterlins.com
Date: 19-Jul-2004
What can I do to Benefit your cause in southern Nevada?
RR: Never thought of myself as having a cause in this regard. You mean BLAMM (the BottomLayer Anti-Materialist Movement)? That was kind of a joke. If you want others to have the benefit of my writings, then spread the word, link to the BottomLayer (raises search engine rankings), stuff like that. Should work in southern Nevada as well as anywhere else.
Name: Andreas G. Szabo
Email: silva * psi5.com <- replace " * " by "@"
Date: 29-May-2004
found: Pictures encoded within the Torah In the past I have found a kind of round record-shaped bitmap-pictures that are embedded by a steganography method using Gematria into the Torah (the Hitomi-Function). Now I have found this site and tried to contact the Author via email to share some thoughts and informations but did get no response yet. If anyone is around, please respond. Some of my decryption work is published at: http://otaku.onlinehome.de/gematria.html
RR: The author did, in fact, respond. Very speculative stuff. Not that I should criticize. :-)
Name: Richards,Wade
Email: waderdebbyr [at]
al.com
Date: 14-May-2004
how do I reloade/refresh?
RR: In your browser of choice, click either the "Reload" button (Netscape, Opera) or the "Refresh" button (Explorer). Don't know much about AOL, don't care to.
Name: Francois
Email:
Date: 22-Feb-2004
I'd like to suggest a variation on the delayed choice experiment and I wonder if anyone has tried this, as it appears that, logically, QM would always be wrong. It goes like this: run the double slit experiment, with detectors at the slits, but keep *both* the detector results and the screen results (clumping or interference) hidden. Once the experiment is over, look at the screen: * If you see an interference pattern, go look at the result of the detectors (to obtain which-path info). * If you see a clumping pattern, destroy the results from the detectors (hence destroying the which-path info).
RR: I have received a number of comments along this line, perhaps the bulk of feedback to the BottomLayer. The common assumption is that QM correlations are effective after an initial observation of some part of the data, such that a later observation of another part of the data may affect the earlier observation. AFAIK, this is not correct. A completed measurement is a completed measurement, so that the next measurement begins with quantum randomness and goes from there. A thought experiment that points in this direction is known as Wigner's Friend, which is a variation of the Schrodinger's Cat paradox (you can google them). Unfortunately, I am not aware of any experimental evidence testing Wigner's mathematical and intellectual logic. Perhaps the nearest approach is Caslav Brukner's analysis of "entanglement in time," pre-print at
http://www.arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0402/0402127.pdf
in which he concludes that a measurement "disentangles" the quantum system. However, I have not been able to confirm that Brukner's analysis really has anything to do with the situation presented by delayed choice experiments. Alas, it appears we must fall back on common sense which dictates that we can't change a known past, nor deterministically influence a free-will choice in the future. This is not rock-solid science, but it comports with the generally accepted view that quantum correlations such as the EPR effect (Reality Program at chapter 7) do not violate relativity by allowing faster-than-light (FTL) communication of meaningful information.
Name: Thomas Rüdel
Email: thomasruedel [at]
mac.com
Date: 22-Feb-2004
This is a very good site. Thank you very much. I would like to see more progress on the hypothesis that the World is a computation, it just sounds very plausible to me. There are two possible next steps, as I see it. One is to derive predictions which are at least in principle testable. Has this been done already? The second would be to develop cellular automata that are able to reproduce some features of real physics. The game of life is fantastic to get you started on the idea, but I haven't seen any "real" application. Or have I just not found it? Thomas Rüdel
RR:For predictions, Fredkin has suggested that a "preferred frame of reference" is inherent in the model, and suggests ways to look for it quite different from the Michelson-Morley approach. Also, some of the components of the model that he is developing should, in principle, cause slight differences in certain nuclear interactions. These proposals are covered in his papers posted at
Karl Svozil suggests that certain mathematical structures are possible in a digital universe that would not fit into standard QM. He gives examples when he addresses the desirability of experimental predictions, in "Computational Universes,"beginning at p. 15.He doesn't really predict that certain structures would appear, only that if some structures did appear that were capable of calculation but not within QM, that would be good evidence. So we don't know what we would be looking for exactly.As for implementation, there are a fair number of people looking into it, but I haven't heard of any results that would convince anybody. Wolfram seems to think he is on the verge of find the universe code, but he stops well short of making any such claim. Fredkin has been putting a lot of effort into his "Salt" model, which I understand is being revised and refined as we speak. The model is described at the digitalphilosophy website.These two, Wolfram and Fredkin, illustrate the two approaches. One school would find a simple code with the simplest CA rules, and show that it can produce anything we know in physics. This is related to the "Garden of Eden" program. The other begins with known QM and/or GR and tries to reproduce known behaviors, which is kind of what Fredkin is about.Considering that we have only about 50 or 60 years of experience with computer architectures and programming, I remain hopeful that good progress will continue.
Name: An outsider
Date: 05-Nov-2003
I'd forget about Jeffery. He's a fake amongst other things.
Name: Francois
Date: 23-Oct-2003
First, I can't wait to see missing Chapter 6. Ever since I first learned about things in the universe being quantized, I figured out we were living in a digital world. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks that way.
[RR: Chapter 6 is unlikely to return. It was an extended discourse on the subject of standing waves, and it was very patiently explained to me that the particular waves that interested me were not standing waves. Until I am ready to publicly disagree with a Ph.D. researcher in quantum optics, I'm just letting that one lie. I'll probably renumber the chapters. But thanks for the interest.]
One thing still puzzles me though, and I'd like to see it addressed in some future chapter or appendix: the idea of complementary property values being held in the same memory location certainly explains why there is an uncertainly principle, but falls short of explaining why the AMOUNT of uncertainty increases as the accuracy of the measurement of the complementary property increases.
[RR: The metaphor of the memory location is almost certainly over-simplified, but I think it is useful. Interestingly, a strict uncertainty principle has been formulated, such that the gain-and-loss of uncertainty is a zero-sum-game, as one might expect in a computer set-up. See M.J.W. Hall and M. Reginatto, "Quantum mechanics from a Heisenberg-type equality," www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0201084. As for the question of amounts, I'm not sure I understand your puzzlement. The amount of uncertainty of one complementary property increases because the amount of uncertainty of the other property decreases. Increasing the accuracy of measurement decreases the amount of uncertainty of that property. But all of that is built in to the equation, so what still puzzles you?]
On the more philosophical side, the essay gives a clear explanation of the workings of the physical universe but there remain unanswered questions like why is it there and who is it for. Since God seems to have/want a close relationship with us and (as far as the Bible tells anyways) with nothing else in the universe, we have to somehow assume that all of this is for our benefit. Because consciousness (and the ability to observe) could be what brings things into existence in this digital universe, perhaps consciousness (spirit?) is what God is cultivating and harvesting.
[RR: The questions why and for whom will not be answered by examination of the physical universe. I'm not sure I agree that anything in the Bible implies that God does *not* have/want a close relationship with other beings in the universe. (Unless you are distinguishing between conscious spirits and "things"?) The subject for the most part doesn't come up. But then there are cattle -- God seems to have special concern for cattle, e.g., Jonah 4:11, which strikes me as most peculiar. Anyway, I like the image of God cultivating and harvesting consciousness. Thanks for the note.]
Name: Leo
Email: leo [at]
pertiman.com
Date: 10-Oct-2003
Hi! For the first time this things became clear to me. You should publish this, in a book, I mean. Not everybody has the talent to make complex things simple, specially those that have a profound meaning in one's most basic nature. And you do. Go on, visit some publishing agent. Best regards. Leo Lospennato - Berlin (Germany)
Name: nuno
Email: nuno [at]
aol.com
Date: 18-Sep-2003
great site to make you think. it makes me wish armchair philosophy and meta-science was falsifiable.
Name: Brandon Schmidt
Email: brando [at]
sssnet.com
Date: 03-Jun-2003
Great site Mr. Rhodes. If Jeffery Winkler comes back again he should look more in depth do your site before claming useless accusations that relate to the exact meaning your site offers to other people. At least he has his own URL Winkler! Great work! (Don't mind my self advertisement!) http://brandonet.netfirms.com/
Name: author-labyrinthofchaos
Email:
Date: 03-Apr-2003
nice work
Name: Dev
Email: Etherealthyrst [at]
aol.com
Date: 13-Feb-2003
This sight rocks. If John has nine apples and Bobby takes away two two of them, how many apples does John have? None, because apples apparently do not really exist, and nothing is real. hehe.
There certainly is some crackpot stuff on your site, like when you claimed that reality was a "computer simulation".
Jeffery Winkler
[RR: Actually, that's what the whole site is about. Thanks for dropping by.]
Good site. I read "The Reality Program", very interesting. I very want to read missing chapter 6 - when it will be there ?
[RR: Hard to say. Chapter 6 had some serious problems with fact, and so the conclusions were, shall we say, severely undercut. For the nonce, I consider the withdrawal to be semi-permanent.]
RELATIVITY END! (see,www.tsolkas.gr)
I want to see your comments on Bell's inequalities and quantum computation. I think they show that if the universe is a simulation being run on a computer, the programmer has an immense amount of computational power and very strange esthetics.
[RR: On Bell's inequalities, I am convinced (some still hold doubts; can't blame them for demanding strict proof). Preliminary comments at http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/dp-reviews.html#ref7 Quantum computation is just QED shown to be real, but we knew that. Join the digitalphysics e-list to eavesdrop on programmers who have been known to argue that the many-worlds interpretation is the most elegant programming solution.]
~Scratches head~ What on earth is this all about?
~opens sleeve and shakes it~ Hmm ~passes you a small green frog~ Nothing weird here then.
please let me know how your program is coming along. i am immensly interested in this topic. i know nothing about computers, but i have always been interested in math and i am currently studying hebrew. perhaps i can be of some help... adrienne
A great website. I've spent hours reading and re-reading the essays. DP theory is worthy of scientific pursuit and Ross Rhodes does a masterful job of explaining it. But it loses much of it's legitimacy when it deteriorates into support for his Xtian religious dogma. Using DP theory for Xtian masturbation fantasy is "not even wrong". Still worth a look.
[RR: "Christian" should be abbreviated as "Xian." Adding a "t" is redundant because the "X" (i.e., a cross or the Greek letter chi) stands in for "Christ," as in "Xmas." Thanks for stopping by.]
I encourage everyone to visit my homepage.
[RR: Welcome back, Jeffery!]
EXCELlENT !!!!!
Thank you for your effort, to explain in a simple way, this great observations.
I have being working and investigating in the field of self development, basically taking knowledge an from the mystical or spiritual realm.
Since 1 o 2 years, I am trying to develop with a group of young friends, a modern language to communicate this understanding in a experimental way.
I am from Chile and I´ve had some experiences that describe reality in a way that only fits with these sayings or observations of modern physics.
I observe no absolute truth in these Universe and life... No division at all is there. May be we are just one big happening Experiences of energy, of seeing reality with no interpretation of the mind, of expansion of the limits, and others have transformed my perception of things, and definitively this kind of understanding is enlightening.....
THANK YOU
DANIEL BRAVO B JUAN MOYA 346, ÑUÑOA, SANTIAGO, CHILE
F: 0056-2-752 7509 danielorian [at] yatraexpedition.org
golf vacations http://www.discount-golf-vac...
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payday loans http://www.fast-personal-cash...
[RR: perhaps this visitor was so shocked she figured other visitors would need a vacation? Never had a reaction like this before.]
(gravity) = (inertial reaction)
<snip>
[RR: for elaboration on the above premise, visit http://www.webspawner.com/users/analog75/ ]
Retarded spiritualism. Maintenance of material forms embodies our "physical" existence. Private "property" guarantees our secular existence. Other ideas are religious "trash" and grant power to the fashists. Yes there is a structure underlying our constructions which is potentially destructible but our secular civilized human society has evolved structures to safeguard us against nature's physical strengths. Read Ayn Rand and the Fountainhead. Sometimes we suffer acts of God but we consistently evolve to overcome our weaknesses as humans. This is the good of our civilization which confronts the evil of ignorance and ingratitude, irresposibility and the lack of obligations and independant thinking. That there are common, intelligible matrixes is a kabbalistic certainty which inspired the Hebrew chemical renaissance. Yet these same matrixes give legal strength to our civilized existence as beings in a society. Lest we never forget as adults who we are and what our history is. Perhaps too much democracy has polluted some thought and the intelligence of a king is necessary to dominate 'ideas' for there is truth without the sword and 'we' are proof for this truth.
[RR: hmmm. well, perhaps some overlap.]
Quantum Universe:
Hello
<big snip.>
[RR: see above.]
My interpretation.
Russell E. Rierson analog57[at] yahoo.com
thank you for the off-topic essays ... funny, heartbreaking, scary ... although i don't understand the main topic, i feel these as flakes or sparkles from the same great source ...
RR: The commenter is the author's sister. She loves the author very much, and he loves her if possible even more so.
Merry Christmas to Ros Rhodes.
José Blasco Llopis.
Author of The universal computer
fantastic! my interest in philosophy and QM meets a place to temporarily call home. i particularly enjoyed the piece on freewill, which is, well.. what i've been saying all along. as far as the Reality Program, i have to find a time i am not at work that i can devote more time to reading this piece. very good from what i skimmed.
- GlitterChildren unveiling on January 1, 2003 -
How on earth did I not run into this site before? It stimulated questions which I had not contemplated since my university days (I did Math - we call it Maths over here - at Liverpool University). It actually stimulated guilt because I have devoted so little time to these pursuits. I superb source. Thanks very much.
Debbie http://www.security-audit-internal-audit.com
Very interesting phenomena.
Good Health & Many Blessings for the New Year!
http://www.rivers2c.com/index.html
Sojourner
Isle of Éire
Name: Brian Wallace - author Email: Comments: I certainly enjoyed the delightfully crackpot elements to this site!
Cracked pots are far more interesting than the others.
[RR: huh?]
Name: Paul Anderegg Email: paulanderegg[at] msn.com Comments: Even if the universe is not a simulation, scientifically assuming it is for research will allow mathematics to let us reach faster more accurate understandings of physics and life. I wish more people went the next step and would see the binary digital reality of DNA and all life. Life/death, pain/pleasure, fight/flight, get the picture? If the universe is a simulation, as I like to live my perceived existence, then I theorize two possibilities. One, we exist as merely an observable event of programming either for entertainment or research purposes, maybe "some being" likes to see what an infinite number of life forms can do? Two, "God" is at the terminal, and people "programs" who meet the standards are "saved" for some other application...."heaven", or deleted to a non existent "hell". My God theory can also be viewed as simulated existence as a learning/training medium. If you wanna get to the next level, your brain better be in order when your number's up, or you're nothing but error filled programming and we all delete old programming. Do you want a murderer or close minded person (program) running around on your system causing crashes and slowing down the CPU? I sure don't! Paul Anderegg