Monday, August 14, 2006
Long Game of Solitaire
Some recent thinking about the purpose of the Universe revolves around the possibility that the Universe acts as a huge quantum-computer and that by design or side-effect represent one huge quantum calculation. No one knows what the result of that calculation might represent, though I will head off many at the pass that might suggest the final result is the number 42 (read "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" if you are unfamiliar with this number).
Might I suggest, only partly tongue-in-cheek, that the Universe represents an enormous game of Solitaire by God?
The rules:
|
Note: nothing says God can't start as many games in parallel as he/she/it wants (though "wants" may be a misapplied word with respect to an omnipotent being). Not every game ends in a win and some universes may continue forever without creating a God caliber intellect.
-------------------------
* Addendum 2006-08-20
Not to be too compulsive on this subject, but I am not so perplexed as to why the universe exists, but rather why logic or math seems to exist. If the universe failed to exist it seems that logic and math would still hold. The fact that the universe is habitable by beings able to think and reason logically and mathematically seems bound to its existence in some profound, but ultimately unknowable way. Perhaps math and logic make possible the existence of an ultimately intelligent, though shy of omniscient, entity at the end of time. An entity which, by a complete understanding of space and time, is able to signal back in time in such a way as to nucleate the universe thus leading to its own exogenisis -- we humans, or some other evolving alien race, being mere stepping stones to its emergence. A sort of "God isn't dead, he just isn't awake yet" universe.
