<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Mike Dougherty <msd001@gmail.com> wrote:</span><br></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><font face="Arial" size="2">></font></span><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">> Do you believe the world is *intrinsically* digital, Giulio? </span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-size: 13px; font-family:
Arial;"><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></span></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;"><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;"><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">> At what level of concern? You may discern an analog nature </span><br></div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">> of a color wheel. When you start probing wavelengths of light, </div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">> you'll find discreteness all the way to quanta of energy </div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york',
times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">> related to the working theory of electrons. Beyond that you </div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">> return to probability distribution of where/how an electron will exist.</div><div class="y_msg_container" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div><div class="y_msg_container"><font size="3">Those probability waves are thought to propagate </font>continuously<font size="3">, so it is not really clear that quantum mechanics tells us that the world is discrete. It only appears discrete when we're measuring it. In any case, the question of discreteness is not exactly what I mean by the question of intrinsic digital-ness, and quantum mechanics makes my brain hurt.</font><br><br><font size="3">> So is the world *intrinsically* any particular way? I don't
think we</font><br><font size="3">> can answer that without first defining a lot of parameters that</font><br><font size="3">> eventually forces the answer to depend on those parameters.</font><br><br>If the world is intrinsically digital then at its most basic level it is made out of something comparable to on/off switches. I don't believe that to be the case, but if it were so then it might be fair to say that everything including the brain is a digital computer.</div><div class="y_msg_container"><br></div><div class="y_msg_container">Gordon</div> </div> </div> </div></body></html>