On Tue, 18 Apr 2000, Paul Hughes wrote:
> I just got around to reading this book and loved it!
>
> For those who've read it what do you think of Egan' 'Dust
> Theory' espoused in the book?
I like the version some people call the "everything theory" - every
consistent (and maybe inconsistent) mathematical structure has
objective existence (sometimes called platonic materialism). I don't
buy the idea that consciousness is necessary or that better/worse
explanations can have the effects described in Egan's book. But if
the everything theory holds then you can actually do the things
described there. Of course, the only way of really testing the
theory is to do a launch of a Permutation City. Only the copy knows.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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