Related papers: Computational and Biological Analogies for Underst…
This note is a summary of the work reported in hep-th/9801073. We give a brief discussion of the fine tuning problem in pre-big bang cosmology. We use the flatness problem as our test case, and in addition to the exact numerical limits on…
Time-symmetric cosmological theories, in which the initial and final states are arranged to have similar features or are independently fixed, have been quite extensively discussed in the literature. However, a more general and perhaps more…
One of the most enduring and unresolved challenges in modern theoretical and observational cosmology is the fine-tuning and coincidence problems associated with the cosmological constant. Rather than attempting to reconcile these issues…
Computer modelling for evolutionary systems consists in: 1) to store in the memory the individual features of each member of a large population; and 2) to update the whole system repeatedly, as time goes by, according to some prescribed…
In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…
Biological systems reach organizational complexity that far exceeds the complexity of any known inanimate objects. Biological entities undoubtedly obey the laws of quantum physics and statistical mechanics. However, is modern physics…
We develop a unified, dynamical-systems narrative of the universe that traces a continuous chain of structure formation from the Big Bang to contemporary human societies and their artificial learning systems. Rather than treating cosmology,…
Theories of fundamental physics as well as cosmology must ultimately not only account for the structure and evolution of the universe and the physics of fundamental interactions, but also lead to an understanding of why this particular…
Evolutionary computation offers a variety of tools to solve complex real-world optimization problems. However, research often focuses on smaller, simplified problems and optimization algorithms that sometimes miss expectations in real-world…
We review a few off-the-beaten-track ideas in cosmology. They solve a variety of fundamental problems; also they are fun. We start with a description of non-singular dilaton cosmology. In these scenarios gravity is modified so that the…
Biology has taken strong steps towards becoming a computer science aiming at reprogramming nature after the realisation that nature herself has reprogrammed organisms by harnessing the power of natural selection and the digital prescriptive…
The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative behavioural definition of computation (and of a computer) based simply on whether a system is capable of reacting to the environment-the input-as reflected in a measure of programmability.…
In order to deal with a large cosmological constant a relaxation mechanism based on modified gravity has been proposed recently. By virtue of this mechanism the effect of the vacuum energy density of a given quantum field/string theory (no…
In living systems, we often see the emergence of the ingredients necessary for computation -- the capacity for information transmission, storage, and modification -- begging the question of how we may exploit or imitate such biological…
What does it mean to claim that a physical or natural system computes? One answer, endorsed here, is that computing is about programming a system to behave in different ways. This paper offers an account of what it means for a physical…
The cosmological constant problem and the absence of new natural physics at the electroweak scale, if confirmed by the LHC, may either indicate that the nature is fine-tuned or that a refined notion of naturalness is required. We construct…
The central idea of this work is the concept of prespace, a hypothetical structure that is postulated to underlie the fabric of space or space-time. I consider how such a structure could relate to space and space-time, and the implications…
A mathematical model of the Universe evolution, based on asymmetric doublet of classical and phantom dcalar Higgs fields with a kinetic connection between the components, has been constructed and studied. A detailed qualitative analysis was…
Many of the classic problems of particle physics appear in a very different light when viewed from the perspective of the multiverse. Most importantly the two great ``fine tuning'' problems that motivate the field are far less serious when…
Self-replication is central to all life, and yet how it dynamically emerges in physical, non-equilibrium systems remains poorly understood. Von Neumann's pioneering work in the 1940s and subsequent developments suggest a natural hypothesis:…