Digital philosophy is a new direction in philosophy and cosmology advocated by certain mathematicians and theoretical physicists, e.g., Gregory Chaitin, Edward Fredkin, Stephen Wolfram, and Konrad Zuse (see his Calculating Space). Ongoing events • Abramoff-Reed gambling scandal • Al Jazeera bombing memo • Avian influenza (H5N1) outbreak • Black sites scandal • Conservative leadership race (UK) • Fuel prices • Irans nuclear program • Jilin chemical plant explosions • Kashmir earthquake • Malawi food crisis • Malaysian prisoner abuse scandal • New Delhi bombings investigation • Niger food crisis • North Indian cyclone... The Philosopher (detail), by Rembrandt Philosophy is a field of study that includes diverse subfields such as aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics, in which people ask questions such as whether God exists, whether knowledge is possible, and what makes actions right or wrong. ... Cosmology, from the Greek: κοσμολογία (cosmologia, κόσμος (cosmos) world + λογια (logia) discourse) is the study of the universe in its totality and by extension mans place in it. ... Gregory J. Chaitin (born 1947) is an Argentine-American mathematician and computer scientist. ... Edward Fredkin was an early pioneer of digital physics (in recent work he uses the term digital philosophy (DP)). His main contributions include his work on reversible computing and cellular automata. ... Stephen Wolfram (born August 29, 1959 in London) is a scientist known for his work in theoretical particle physics, cellular automata and computer algebra, and is the creator of the computer program Mathematica. ... Konrad Zuse (June 22, 1910 – December 18, 1995) was a German engineer and computer pioneer. ... Calculating Space is the title of MIT´s English Translation of Konrad Zuse´s book Rechnender Raum (published in Germany in 1969), the first book on digital physics. ...

Digital philosophy grew out of an earlier digital physics (both terms are due to Fredkin), which proposes to ground much of physical theory in cellular automata. Specifically, digital physics works through the consequences of assuming that the universe is a gigantic Turing-complete cellular automata. In theoretical physics, digital physics holds the basic premise that the entire history of our universe is computable, that is, the output of a (presumably short) computer program. ... A cellular automaton (plural: cellular automata) is a discrete model studied in computability theory and mathematics. ... In computability theory a programming language or any other logical system is called Turing-complete if it has a computational power equivalent to a universal Turing machine. ... A cellular automaton (plural: cellular automata) is a discrete model studied in computability theory and mathematics. ...

Digital philosophy is a modern re-interpretation of Leibniz's monist metaphysics, one that replaces Leibniz's monads with aspects of the theory of Cellular automata. Digital philosophy purports to solve certain hard problems in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of physics, since, following Leibniz, the mind can be given a computational treatment. The digital approach also dispenses with the non-deterministic essentialism of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory. In a digital universe, existence and thought would be equivalent to computation. Thus computation is the single substance of a monist metaphysics, while subjectivity arises from computational universality. This approach to metaphysics has been dubbed multism since it posits the existence of multiple universes. Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (July 1, 1646 in Leipzig - November 14, 1716 in Hannover) was a German philosopher, scientist, mathematician, diplomat, librarian, and lawyer of Sorb descent. ... The word monad comes from the Greek word μονάς (from the word μόνος, which means one, single, unique) and has had many meanings in different contexts in philosophy, mathematics, computing and music: Among the Pythagoreans (followers of Pythagoras) the monad was the first thing that came... Plato and Aristotle, by Raphael (Sistine Chapel, Rome). ... A cellular automaton (plural: cellular automata) is a discrete model studied in computability theory and mathematics. ... What is the mind? Phrenologists attempted to answer this question by correlating mental functions with specific parts of the brain. ... Philosophy of physics is the study of the fundamental, philosophical questions underlying modern physics, the study of matter and energy and how it interacts. ... Computation can be defined as finding a solution to a problem from given inputs by means of an algorithm. ... The Copenhagen interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics formulated by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg while collaborating in Copenhagen around 1927. ... Fig. ... Monism is the metaphysical and theological view that all is of one essential essence, principle, substance or energy. ... Universal has several meanings: Universalism - properties of universality in concepts or application For the concept of a universal in metaphysics, see Universal (metaphysics). ... Plato and Aristotle, by Raphael (Sistine Chapel, Rome). ... ...

Newsgroup: sci.physics.discrete.

Mailing lists on yahoogroups.com: digitalphilosophy, digitalphysics.

See also

• Mechanism (philosophy)
• cellular automata
• digitalism
• digital physics
• multism
• algorithmic information theory
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
• Edward Fredkin
• Gregory Chaitin
• Konrad Zuse
• Calculating Space

In philosophy, mechanism is a theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by physical causes. ... A cellular automaton (plural: cellular automata) is a discrete model studied in computability theory and mathematics. ... Digitalism is a term that refers to all expressions of digital culture. ... In theoretical physics, digital physics holds the basic premise that the entire history of our universe is computable, that is, the output of a (presumably short) computer program. ... ... In computer science, algorithmic information theory is a field of study which attempts to define the complexity (aka descriptive complexity, Kolmogorov complexity, Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity, or algorithmic entropy) of a string as the length of the shortest binary program which outputs that string. ... Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (July 1, 1646 in Leipzig - November 14, 1716 in Hannover) was a German philosopher, scientist, mathematician, diplomat, librarian, and lawyer of Sorb descent. ... Edward Fredkin was an early pioneer of digital physics (in recent work he uses the term digital philosophy (DP)). His main contributions include his work on reversible computing and cellular automata. ... Gregory J. Chaitin (born 1947) is an Argentine-American mathematician and computer scientist. ... Konrad Zuse (June 22, 1910 – December 18, 1995) was a German engineer and computer pioneer. ... Calculating Space is the title of MIT´s English Translation of Konrad Zuse´s book Rechnender Raum (published in Germany in 1969), the first book on digital physics. ...

External links

• Fredkin's digital philosophy page.
• Juergen Schmidhuber's site "Zuse's Thesis: The Universe is a Computer."