Joscha Bach: Software is a Physical Law

January 17, 2022

Joscha Bach Λ John Vervaeke on Consciousness, Idealism, and Computation [Theolocution]

[dannywest]

So glad someone else caught this moment. It's cool seeing someone else react to Joscha's work the way I do all the time.

[davidallen]

Software are specifications of behavior for computers to engage in. Physical laws are descriptions of behavior that the universe engages in. What they have in common are that they are both types of abstractions.

[derekmcdaniel]

But it's not a physical law! It's a pattern of abstraction, a logical construct.

In other words, there are many different physical forms that can be made to reproduce the same phenomenon. It's an inherent aspect of logic. Logic itself is a part of relation and representation, abstraction.

Literally nothing to do with physics, except in the sense that you can lay down rocks in a triangle or circle. These shapes are an aspect of geometry, and many different physical systems can exhibit different geometrical structure. We literally study all possible physical laws in mathematics.

It's almost like this guy has never heard of universal turing machines. I mean, that's what it sounds like.