There are considerable advantages to using many degrees of freedom to store information, stability and controllability being perhaps the most important. Seth Lloyd More Quotes by Seth Lloyd More Quotes From Seth Lloyd Quantum mechanics is just completely strange and counterintuitive. We can't believe that things can be here [in one place] and there [in another place] at the same time. And yet that's a fundamental piece of quantum mechanics. So then the question is, life is dealing us weird lemons, can we make some weird lemonade from this? Seth Lloyd pieces fundamentals believe Meaning is like pornography, you know it when you see it. Seth Lloyd pornography knows Some folks think life and technology and mind can keep expanding forever. Others say it can't. We are still not clear on that. Seth Lloyd technology forever thinking Every physical system registers information, and just by evolving in time, by doing its thing, it changes that information, transforms that information, or, if you like, processes that information. Seth Lloyd information evolve process Science consists exactly of those forms of knowledge that can be verified and duplicated by anybody. Seth Lloyd form At some point, Moore's law will break down. Seth Lloyd breaking-down break law [With quantum computers] you can calculate how many bits are in the universe, how much energy it takes to flip them, how much energy exists, and use that to rule out lots of things about the universe's history. Anything that takes more bit flips couldn't have happened. Seth Lloyd flip energy use Another feature that everybody notices about the universe is that it's complex. Seth Lloyd complexes features universe I would suggest, merely as a metaphor here, but also as the basis for a scientific program to investigate the computational capacity of the universe, that this is also a reasonable explanation for why the universe is complex. Seth Lloyd program metaphor capacity Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics. All three are processes in which useful or accessible forms of some quantity, such as energy or money, are transformed into useless, inaccessible forms of the same quantity. That is not to say that these three processes don't have fringe benefits: taxes pay for roads and schools; the second law of thermodynamics drives cars, computers and metabolism; and death, at the very least, opens up tenured faculty positions. Seth Lloyd car law school All physical systems can be thought of as registering and processing information, and how one wishes to define computation will determine your view of what computation consists of. Seth Lloyd information views wish Indeed, as the above calculation indicates, to take full advantage of the memory space available, the ultimate laptop must turn all its matter into energy. Seth Lloyd space energy memories It's also a reasonable scientific program to look at the dynamics of the standard model and to try to prove from that dynamics that it is computationally capable. Seth Lloyd dynamics trying looks Of course, not everybody's willing to go out and do the experiments, but for the people who are willing to go out and do that, - if the experiments don't work, then it means it's not science. Seth Lloyd experiments mean people One of the things that I've been doing recently in my scientific research is to ask this question: Is the universe actually capable of performing things like digital computations? Seth Lloyd performing digital research The amount of information that can be stored by the ultimate laptop, 10 to the 31st bits, is much higher than the 10 to the 10th bits stored on current laptops. Seth Lloyd currents information laptops When it comes to their capacity to screw things up, computers are becoming more human every day. Seth Lloyd computer becoming capacity The primary consequence of the computational nature of the universe is that the universe naturally generates complex systems, such as life. Although the basic laws of physics are comparatively simple in form, they give rise, because they are computationally universal, to systems of enormous complexity. Seth Lloyd simple law giving By separating the function of adaptation from the function of maintaining the integrity of individual genes, sex allows much greater diversity while still keeping genes whole. Sex is not only fun, it is good engineering practice. Seth Lloyd fun integrity sex Science has an uncomfortable way of pushing human beings from center stage. In our prescientific stories, humans began as the focal point of Nature, living on an Earth that was the center of the universe. As the origins of the Earth and of mankind were investigated more carefully, it became clear that Nature had other interests beyond people, and the Earth was less central than previously hoped. Humankind was just one branch of the great family of life, and the Earth is a smallish planet orbiting an unexceptional sun quite far out on one arm of a run-of-the-mill spiral galaxy. Seth Lloyd stories running people
