[ExI] Do we live in a universe that allows infinite computation?

[john clark]

 On Fri, 8/12/11, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
 " I theorized that if the universe is closed, then there is a finite number of particles in a finite 4-space.  Both are unimaginably large of course, but finite.  If so, there is a finite number of ways a finite number of particles can arrange themselves in a finite quantized space. Then the line of reasoning goes thus: if the universe exploded forth in a big bang, then after it collapses, the same thing can happen again. If so, and time is infinite (for how can time be finite?) then there are an infinite number of big bangs, over a quite unimaginably large span of time.  If so, every possible combination of particles in finite space would eventually occur in infinite space time.  If so, this exact arrangement of everything will happen again.  Furthermore, it will happen again an infinite number of times.  And it has already happened before.  An infinite number of times."
That's Eternal Return, Friedrich Nietzsche had a similar idea, but to me a finite number of thoughts is a pretty low rent sort of immortality, just repeating the same old exact things over and over, like the decimal expression of a rational number. In a way it would be the opposite of the scenario I was talking about; the objective universe says you're still alive but subjectively you only go around once and you're dead. To me immortality means having an infinite number of non-repeating thoughts, and it's irrelevant if it takes a finite or infinite amount of objective time (if there were such a thing) to do it. True immortality is more like the decimal expression of a irrational number.

 John K Clark

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