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

[Stefano Vaj]

2011/8/15 john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
> If an infinite amount of matter is not allowed why is an infinite amount of time OK? And even if I knew that the idea was true, just repeating the same thing over and over would not soften death's sting one bit, at least not for me.

Nietzsche's view is that infinity of time does not make for a
"biblical" attribute, on the contrary, it is biblical thinking that
time was created by God and will come to an end after the Final
Judgment. As for "death's sting", the myth of the Eternal Return is
not supposed to be consolatory, rather the opposite. Such thought, by
being "unbearable" for most contemporaries, would select the strongest
amongst them. In such sense, it need not be "true" in any strict
physical sense, but it might be enough to contemplate it as a radical
form of refusal of eschatological expectations.

This is what I referred to by saying that it is not basically, or
exclusively, a cosmological concept. In this sense, I think Max More
is too severe with Nietzsche, because one may well still think that
his or her destiny is to overcome its mere human status while being
persuaded that such overcoming is a process to be forever repeated (in
the double sense that horizons move and that the same scenario may
represent itself over and over).

> No, the second law of thermodynamics allows massive decreases in entropy if you have infinite time, in fact it insists on it, and such things would happen an infinite number of times.

Yes, if you have an infinite time at hand anti-entropic fluctuations
of arbitrary amplitude are bound to take place sooner or later. Some
multiverse theories, AFAIK, exactly imply that universes are born as
bubbles of extreme low entropy popping out just because they can, and
slowly decaying back to a very high entropy status. There are however
a number of objections to this ideas...

--
Stefano Vaj