Hypercomputation.info

The 7th AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy will examine whether computation is observer-related. In different words, participants will discuss whether computation is a sponteneous natural phenomenon or not. I think that computation, like art, is not a natural phenomenon. Nature is not a sculpturer or a painter, and for that matter not a programmer. To animals, a sculpture is just a stone or a piece of metal and that's all. Flowers are not beautiful or ugly: they just attract bees and other insects. Mountains are not fearsome and lakes are not picturesque. Only humans give this attributes to these physical entities. Similarly, no chair and no desk computes anything. In fact, even a computer does not compute anything unless someone would be able to interpret the result of the computation. I am sure that if one could present a computer to Aristotle he could not easily realize what kind of machine it is.

In a recent issue of Time magazine there was an article about quantum computing entitled The Quantum Quest for a Revolutionary Computer . The article describes D-Wave's machine and how quantum computing might affect our lives.

Quite recently, Takaaki Musha published a book entitled Superluminal Particles and Hypercomputation . I have not read the book but from the description I see that he proposes a new model of computation that is based on the existence of tachyons, that is, particles that travel faster than the light. I suppose that in Possibility of Hypercomputation from the Standpoint ofSuperluminal Particles he presents an earlier version of his idea.