This brings a question to mind: are there any qualitative properties of
systems that are provably _not_ representable in terms of bits?
The theory of computation says that anything computable can be computed
using a finite state machine (if I understand it right) so I suppose such
properties - if they exist - must not be computable. If so what are they,
and are they socially interesting?
Alan
>
> Hi SIMSOC,
>
> Jorge, I'd love to underline what you've written.
> Let me add just one more perspective:
>
> On Tue, 1 Apr 2003, Jorge Sima~o wrote:
>
> > Clearly, only for a very simple real world phenomena can the bit
> > flipping be considered an appropriate model, in the sense of
> > producing at least some qualitative similarities with the real
> > phenomena.
>
> True. Moreover, in theory, every computer model is in fact only bit-
> flipping. No matter how big your numbers are they are represented by
> bits. Any increase or decrease is a bit-flipping, and can be broken
> down to single-bit-flipping like in a sugarscape world.
>
> So, if you look at it the other way 'round: If you do not feel
> comfortable with values represented by single bits just make your
> sugarscape bigger and look at it from a macroscopic point of view
> where you can not distinguish single bits. Or, if you like it
> more sophisticated: Find an interpretation that translates a certain
> number of bits to whatever quality you like.
>
> HTH,
>
> --
> -- Andreas
>
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