Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 22:20:53 -0400 From: Tim Vanderhoek <vanderh@ecf.utoronto.ca> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: Doug Barton <Doug@gorean.org>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, Arun Sharma <adsharma@sharmas.dhs.org>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Subject: Re: The Ethics of Free Software Message-ID: <20000524222053.A80883@mad> In-Reply-To: <200005250137.SAA12207@usr05.primenet.com>; from Terry Lambert on Thu, May 25, 2000 at 01:37:24AM %2B0000 References: <20000524205815.A79001@mad> <200005250137.SAA12207@usr05.primenet.com>
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On Thu, May 25, 2000 at 01:37:24AM +0000, Terry Lambert wrote: > > Consider that for wealth to exist, it must be accounted, and > there are a finite number of particles in the universe. Now > consider if we use them all to account wealth... Even with any > notational mechanism you choose, you will eventually run out of > bits; and that's not counting a "wealth owner ID field". The sentences that I deleted from my original message before posting it were "To even discuss an infinite sum game economy, it is necessary to first assume an infinite available universe. You must then show that the economy is not constrained to a finite level." We seem to have suffered a misunderstanding: I viewed implicit in the statement re: "infinite-sum game" the same, but inverted, assumption you were using to disprove the statement. However, that particular misunderstanding cleared, the quoted paragraph now leaves my interest piqued, albiet only slightly. :-) The universe must have some mechanism to remember time. Clearly the past is different from the present. Is the amount of time that the universe can remember finite? Or, rephrased, the same question: "Are there a finite or an infinite number of states in which the universe can be?" I know of no evidence that space is quantized. This suggests an infinite number of possible states. This in turn suggests that a notational mechanism can be chosen such that infinite wealth can be accounted. However, it seems that a certain uncertainty principle should come into play here somewhere. Perhaps a notational mechanism can be chosen to account for infinite wealth. However, for an arbitrary notational mechanism, we are not guaranteed to have any way to read a person's associated wealth data. There is also an implicit assumption in rephrasing the question from step #2 into that in step #3, namely that the universe can remember time only through mechanisms that transform passage of time into physical changes. -- Signature withheld by request of author. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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