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18 - Pancomputationalism: Theory or Metaphor?

from Part VI - Info-Computationalism

By
Vincent C. Müller
Edited by
Ruth Hagengruber  and
Uwe V. Riss
Vincent C. Müller
Affiliation:
American College of Thessaloniki
Ruth Hagengruber
Affiliation:
University of Paderborn
Uwe V. Riss
Affiliation:
SAP
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Summary

Prelude: Some Science Fiction on the Ultimate Answer and The Ultimate Question

Many many millions of years ago a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings (whose physical manifestation in their own pan-dimensional universe is not dissimilar to our own) got so fed up with the constant bickering about the meaning of life which used to interrupt their favourite pastime of Brockian Ultra Cricket (a curious game which involved suddenly hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away) that they decided to sit down and solve their problems once and for all.

And to this end they built themselves a stupendous super computer …

‘O Deep Thought computer’, Fook said, ‘the task we have designed you to perform is this. We want you to tell us … ’ he paused, ‘the Answer!’

‘The Answer?’ said Deep Thought. ‘The Answer to what?’

‘Life!’ urged Fook. ‘The Universe!’ said Lunkwill.

‘Everything!’ they said in chorus.

(At this point the whole procedure is interrupted by two representatives of the ‘Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons’ who demand to switch off the machine because it endangers their jobs. They demand ‘rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!’, and threaten: ‘You’ll have a national Philosopher’s strike on your hands!’ . . . )

Type
Chapter
Information
Philosophy, Computing and Information Science , pp. 213 - 222
Publisher: Pickering & Chatto
First published in: 2014

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