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A comment on The Entire Universe Might Be a Neural Network.

Re:The Entire Universe Might Be a Neural Network by aaron-santos on Friday September 11, 2020 @11:51AM (#24444069)
There is a Feuerbachian quality to the ideas in the category "What if the universe works like an X?" X gets substituted with the misunderstood but prized tech du jour. We've gone from the clockwork universe[1] of mechanical philosophy[2] to the computational universe[3] and now taking a tangent to the neural network universe. If history is a guide, you can bet that what ever sufficiently exalted and misunderstood technology appears there will be an associated theory of the universe attached to it. It says more about us than it does about the universe.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clockwork_universe

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_philosophy

[3] https://academic.oup.com/pq/article-abstract/53/211/243/1610...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Entire Universe Might Be a Neural Network by JacksonGariety on Friday September 11, 2020 @12:43PM (#24444578)
It is possible to accept everything you say except for the last sentence.

Technology is the result of the evolutionary process of the universe. If the process resembles its own result, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Entire Universe Might Be a Neural Network by aaron-santos on Friday September 11, 2020 @04:37PM (#24447087)
Not sure if we're in agreement then. Calling out the analogy as Feuerbachian is essentially saying that the analogies between technology and the universe are anthropological framed around our own ideals and not some universal truths.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Entire Universe Might Be a Neural Network by JacksonGariety on Friday September 11, 2020 @06:39PM (#24448067)
Right. And in the second half of my comment I explained why your reasoning is faulty.

You must think the natural and artificial worlds as being self-similar. Think them as one continuous, self-organizing process.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Entire Universe Might Be a Neural Network by usize on Friday September 11, 2020 @01:54PM (#24445404)
Thank you for phrasing this so succinctly. Self-similarity pops up again and again in nature. Mostly we think of this in terms of geometry (fractals, etc...) but why couldn't self-similarity also apply to time oriented processes like cosmological evolution?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Entire Universe Might Be a Neural Network by JacksonGariety on Friday September 11, 2020 @01:56PM (#24445424)
Bingo. Self-organization, in a strong sense, is the process of cosmological evolution.
[ Parent | on HN ]