The idea that the universe can be understood as a computer program is essentially unfalsifiable. Given that at any moment the set of all observations we have at our disposal is finite, it is trivial to build a Turing machine that produces that exact set, regardless of the actual underlying mechanics. Even if, say, the universe contained some magic oracle that solved the halting problem for Turing Machines, we could never actually verify that it does. It could just be some machine that runs the input TM for a number of steps greater than what the universe can store, and then gives up and says it never halts.

I believe that seeing the universe as a computation could be useful to gain new insights, but it's just a way to think about things, not something that can be formally tested.

I agree with you that science has no right to answer transcendental questions, and no ability to do so. Conversely, it has the right and the ability to answer technical and mechanical questions.

I also agree with you that religion has no right to answer technical and mechanical questions, and no ability to do so. However, I would say that religion has no right to answer transcendental questions either, nor the slightest ability to do so.

Basically, science answers technical questions about the inner workings of the universe. Religion answers... nothing whatsoever. I mean, sure, it tries, but religion is just as competent on moral or transcendental questions as it is on scientific questions. That is, it is not competent at all. Science and religion don't overlap because religion is the goddamn empty set.

Actually, the point is that this small kernel is ultimately unnecessary, because it doesn't make the slightest difference whether you make these assumptions or not. Science, as a "strategy" to acquire knowledge, dominates all other strategies regardless of whether the universe contains a discoverable order or not.

Let me put it this way: to say that there is no discoverable order in the universe is equivalent to saying that no predictor exists for future events that does better than random, even if it can see everything that happened in the past. Science is the art of analyzing past observations in order to find predictors that do better than random. Insofar that such predictors are highly desirable, one does not need to actually believe they exist in order to search for them. Believing they might exist is sufficient, and you will dig as deep as you can not out of religious belief, but simply because there is a large enough payoff associated to success (you won't necessarily keep trying forever, though, because if there is a lack of pattern we'll usually figure it out).

In other words, while it might seem that we "assume" that gravity will always work the way it does, that assumption is unnecessary. Let's say that you assume that gravity will NOT, in fact, keep working the way it does. If you could predict when, then you would have discovered some sort of order. Ditto if you could predict what would happen at that moment. Under your assumption of a lack of order, you are left with absolutely no prediction strategy. Assuming that you get a payoff from predicting an event correctly, and no payoff if you get the prediction wrong or refuse to predict, then your best bet is to predict what you would predict under the assumption that the universe is orderly. That's just as good as anything else under your assumption, and it covers your ass if you assumed wrong. Conversely, if you do assume that the universe is orderly, you lose nothing if it isn't. The bottom line is that the "small kernel of unprovable and untestable assumptions" you speak of is not necessary: you should behave identically regardless of whether you assume these things or not.

Amen. What I find really interesting too is the concept of "reversible computation": the idea to organize computation in such a way that you always know what the "bath" contains. Obviously, such fundamental gates as "and" and "or" are unacceptable, because they throw out information, so you need gates that give you the remainder and keep it somewhere, maybe as a source of entropy for later use. A perfect reversible computer could theoretically function forever as a closed system (reversibility being a necessary but not sufficient condition for this).

I can't help but think this could be a super neat way to survive an eventual heat death of the universe, though I'm sure there are practical complications :(

That's a simplification of the theory, not how it actually works. There is no actual branching. The universe is just a quantum superposition of all possible universes, each of them with a complex amplitude. Every time there is what we perceive as a random quantum event, it's just that the amplitude of the universes where the event's outcome is unknown to us sank to zero, and the amplitude of the universes where we know its outcome went from zero to something. The "multiverse" theory really just boils down to "observation is quantum entanglement of the system with the observer".

It also follows that there is no infinity, real or potential, of universes. There is merely a fixed, exponential number of them, on which a "universal wavefunction" operates, shifting amplitudes from some configurations to some others. If you really want to use a branching interpretation, keep in mind that it is not a tree, but a directed and potentially cyclic graph, where certain universes might be attainable through several different paths. Basically, branches can split but they can also merge.

I believe that the "branching" view is really just a way to wrap one's mind around reality and figure out a way to "track" it through some continuity. Truth to be told, there is no clear definition of what it means for universes to "branch" and in my opinion the whole concept muddles understanding. Branches can split, they can merge, they can quantum-interfere with each other, I mean, what's the point, really. What the many-worlds interpretation actually is in its most fundamental form: a fixed set of all possible universes, with merrily fluctuating amplitudes.

I'm not sure what you think I was saying. Many meat farms just pack animals in cages so small they can barely move at all, I'm not sure how you could argue it's not cruel. Hunting, or killing free range animals for food, is not cruel, but that's not what the industry does (for efficiency reasons). By itself, eating meat isn't really unethical, it's just that current methods of mass production are questionable. That doesn't mean people should be vegetarian, just that maybe we should treat animals a bit more considerately before (and while) killing them. It doesn't come down to whether you value animals enough not to eat them, it's more like do you value them enough to pay a bit more for meat, or to eat a bit less of it. Maybe you do, maybe you don't, I don't care, but it's a valid question to ask.

We are not evolved "carnivores" either, we are omnivores. We do not "require" meat protein - it is perfectly possible to have a healthy vegetarian diet, as evidenced by millions of healthy vegetarians all over the world. Saying that everybody should eat meat is as dumb as saying nobody should. It's not because PETA's retarded that you have to overreact in the opposite direction.

I would say that the end does justify the means most of the time. It's just that PETA's means are too extreme and misguided to be effective and that their end (valuing animals as much as humans... or more!) is retarded.

Industrial meat production is indeed rather cruel, but most people value fellow human beings a lot more than they value animals, which makes sense since their capacity for empathy with humans is much greater. Animal rights activism is basically an attempt by people who can empathize with animals to make their peers empathize with animals to the same extent that they do. Some of them value animals just as much as they value humans, if not more, and that's where there is a problem: virtually nobody is willing to go that far, and although I believe most people are open to treating animals more ethically, you need to argue within their capacity for empathy.

I know I have

I actually often skip even the fallback behavior. This happens especially often when I read novels that take place in foreign locations and the characters have names that I am not accustomed to reading. I read the book from cover to cover and then realize I have not the slightest clue what the main character is named. I recognize the overall shape of the name and the letter it starts with, but the rest is a jumbled mental mess, because I never took the time to read it and sound it out. For instance, while reading Crime and Punishment, to me, the main character's name was always R***********kov, and it would have been R********** if not for the character named R***********khin I had to tell him apart from.

Visual caching does not require re-parsing and sounding the word. You can just cache an unparsed blob. In general, I only bother parsing and sounding out a word if I expect to hear it, say it or write it later on. For this reason, when I read a name, a neologism or an unknown word that I can guess from the context, I rarely ever bother parsing it. Maybe it's just me, though.

It is as eminently compatible as it is eminently empty. "Powers far greater than our own" is a nice phrase but it's not clear at all what it even means. Are these sentient things? Are they mechanisms? What are they? What do they do? How are they relevant at all, to anything?

It might have a positive psychological effect on some people. Personally I just get irritated because I never have the slightest clue what the hell it is that spiritual people are rambling about.

"Transcendent plane" doesn't really mean anything at all. In particular, there is no evidence whatsoever that any of the qualities ascribed to deities are found in that plane. In fact, you fail to show that the "transcendental plane" has any properties at all, and your argument boils down to "something created the universe". What something? A God? A machine? A random process? Who knows?

You see, science is not only about figuring out things about the physical universe. Science is the general process of filtering the likely from the possible using evidence. Your "transcendental plane" is a complete unknown. You can try to guess what's in it, but there are so many things it could be that you're almost certain to be wrong. If you wanted to know with reasonable certainty, you'd need to peek in it, form hypotheses about the underlying processes, and test them in order to gain confidence. Without science, your "transcendental plane" is an empty and meaningless abstraction.

Besides, even if you could somehow "prove" the existence of a transcendental plane, nothing in your argument is inapplicable to that plane itself, so you'll end up with an infinite hierarchy of "transcendental planes". I don't see the point.

Natural events have culled biodiversity throughout the history of the Earth. Even if 90% of existing species die out, within a hundred million years or so, biodiversity will be back to what it is now. Probably better, if humans die out and are not replaced. That's the beauty of evolution :)

I tend to see C as a regression, and Unix as a great system that unfortunately cannibalized its own succession. Of course, Plan 9 is a poor example since it was made by the same people who made Unix, but had C and Unix not existed, we might just be using Pascal and Multics instead. Would that be better or worse? I have no idea. I think it'd probably be roughly equivalent.

Special relativity was an elegant mathematical framework that gave a basic postulate through which *existing equations* could be derived. Einstein did not discover time dilation nor length contraction. Lorentz/Poincaré/etc did. Einstein merely showed a derivation from simple postulates, which was deemed more satisfactory. That is actually a very incremental contribution. Of course, somebody had to think about it, and he made many more contributions, but it's almost a given that somebody else would have had the idea that "the speed of light is the same in all referentials" eventually.

Ritchie made great contributions, but if C didn't exist, Pascal still would. Unix took inspiration from Multics, which was probably too far ahead of its time. There is no reason somebody else wouldn't have tried something similar, and technology would have caught up anyway. Ultimately, something like Unix has success because it is good and because it fills a niche. People do great stuff all the time; new OS with great ideas are made all the time. They don't take off because they can't stand out from competitors enough in the niche they would normally appeal to. Had Unix not existed, something would eventually have fitted the bill, either something that already exists but never took off because Unix was already there (there are MANY of these), or something new from someone who didn't feel like reinventing the wheel, but would have invented it if necessary.

Apple was originally a well-packaged patchwork of existing technologies. These technologies would not have gone to waste without Apple, and as I said, new OSes pop up all the time. The void would have been filled by something else; or Windows would have had even less competition; either way, not a significant loss. Apple did not invent mp3 players, they merely made a good one. They did not invent the smartphone, they merely made a good one. Had they not done that, we'd still have mp3 players and smartphones, either marginally worse or marginally better, but still.

If Walt Disney hadn't existed, cartoons would still exist. He wasn't the first to make them. A different dominant style might have appeared instead, and perhaps we'd have sane copyright terms. Now that would have been nice.