
The Entire Universe Might Be a Neural Network - jonbaer
https://futurism.com/physicist-entire-universe-neural-network
======
aaron-santos
There is a Feuerbachian quality to the ideas in the category "What if the
universe works like an X?" X gets substituted with the misunderstood but
prized tech du jour. We've gone from the clockwork universe[1] of mechanical
philosophy[2] to the computational universe[3] and now taking a tangent to the
neural network universe. If history is a guide, you can bet that what ever
sufficiently exalted and misunderstood technology appears there will be an
associated theory of the universe attached to it. It says more about us than
it does about the universe.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clockwork_universe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clockwork_universe)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_philosophy)

[3] [https://academic.oup.com/pq/article-
abstract/53/211/243/1610...](https://academic.oup.com/pq/article-
abstract/53/211/243/1610975?redirectedFrom=fulltext)

~~~
JacksonGariety
It is possible to accept everything you say _except_ for the last sentence.

Technology is the result of the evolutionary process of the universe. If the
process resembles its own result, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

~~~
aaron-santos
Not sure if we're in agreement then. Calling out the analogy as Feuerbachian
is essentially saying that the analogies between technology and the universe
are anthropological framed around our own ideals and not some universal
truths.

~~~
JacksonGariety
Right. And in the second half of my comment I explained why your reasoning is
faulty.

You must think the natural and artificial worlds as being self-similar. Think
them as one continuous, self-organizing process.

------
ncmncm
The entire universe is always whatever the people looking at it know of but
don't understand. It was a god, once, i.e. some guy. Then it was clockwork.
Then it was a computer, then a quantum computer. Now, a neural network.

What will it be next week?

~~~
infradig
Probably the genetic (as in algorithm) universe.

------
dawg-
How does the saying go? When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail?

~~~
patagurbon
If we ever make _any_ progress on general AI then everything might actually be
a nail... But we're so very far from that.

