An interesting twist on solving the universe via Kurzweil:
"The answer to the universe is biology -- it's as simple as that," says Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of research and scientific development at Advanced Cell Technology.
more:
Wired News: You call your theory of the universe a biocentric theory. What, exactly, does that mean?
Lanza: This new theory presents a shift in world view with the perspective that life creates the universe instead of the other way around.
I'm not sure I buy Lanza's theory, even if I do believe biologically inspired computing can "solve" the stock market. The most remarkable part is here, though:
WN: Can you explain why we should doubt the things that are accepted as the truth in science classes everywhere?
Lanza: For the first time outside of complex mathematics, this theory explains the provocative new experiment that was just published in Science last month. This landmark experiment showed that a choice you make now can actually influence an event that has already occurred in the past.
This is astonishing if true. No, you can't go back and change your bad stock picks just yet - this effect is apparently limited to the quantum world where it's already known quantum mechanics can transcend space via quantum entanglement (Einstein's "spooky action at a distance"). It's thought that quantum entanglement cannot be used to transmit information (it would be the ultimate wireless technology if it could) because transmitting information faster than the speed of light violates causality. I'm certainly not qualified enough to comment on this experiment, however, appears to me to be able to send information back in time, an infraction for which the causality cops would throw you in the slammer for a long time. If true, it's a very spooky world indeed.
What would this mean for the existence of randomness in the universe? Causality implies that nothing is random, it only appears so. In theory, knowing the state of the universe at any given moment implies that you have everything you need to predict it from that point forward, like predicting a dice roll, except impossibly tougher. It's always been my pet armchair theory that string theory, with it's extra dimensions we can't see could hold the key (it's still just a theory). To the degree we can access these extra dimensions, perhaps we can alter the universe to our will per Lanza's theory. Jim Simons, that quintessential super quant, is co-author of Chern-Simons Theory, which is used in string theory, and is an Einstein of our times. He's no doubt one of the spookiest forces in the financial markets because he apparently alters them to his liking at will.
Update: a blistering critique of Lanza's article by Good Math, Bad Math.
Comments