Imagine that someday we discover that DP makes sense as a model of the microscopic processes of our world. At that time we might look back and try to figure out what took so long! The germs of DP existed in ancient philosophies such as those of the Greek Atomists. They were in the ancient Kalam, which hypothesized about a cellular space. The biggest scientific step was the Atomic Theory. It wasn’t accepted too readily; less than 100 years ago Mach and others mounted a last ditch stand against the atomic theory.
As recently as 50 years ago a major intellectual barrier to dreaming up DP was the primitive level of our understanding of the various kinds of digital informational processes. Also, a lot of physics, both experimental and theoretical, needed to get discovered in order to more clearly reveal facts about the world that might be better understood in the light of Digital Philosophy.
In physics and in computer science the amazing pace of discovery and experience during the last 50 years has provided all kinds of clues to the possibilities of DP. The most outstanding clues from physics have to do with the developments of QED and the Standard Model. Especially suggestive are the quarks, their colors and their fractional charges, Noether’s Theorem and CPT Symmetry. It is an interesting task to try to see how CPT symmetry could arise as a property of continuous space-time.
In the field of computer science we started with Turing and the idea of a Universal Machine. Then there was the Cellular Automaton of von Neumann and Ulam; dreamt up to simulate the biological process of reproduction. Actually the CA predates von Neumann and Ulam. The CA is a computer with a Cartesian Space built in. What an idea! Once latched onto the CA, the problems of Universality and Reversibility stood in the way for 15 years until they were solved. From that point on, it’s merely been a matter of noticing too many funny coincidences.
What is interesting is that the pace of developments in digital computer engineering is the most astonishing achievement in the history of technology. The pace of understanding the implications of what we have called Digital Philosophy have moved so slowly as to be equally astonishing.
John McCarthy was the first person I asked to listen to ideas about Digital Philosophy. It was in 1959. John confided that he had had similar thoughts. That was encouraging. I asked John “Do you think I ought to continue working on this stuff?”
John thought for a few seconds and replied “Yes,...”
That was even more encouraging as I had (and still have) the greatest respect for John.
But he continued “...yes, the world is big enough that it can afford to have one person work on such ideas.” Who could imagine that for 40 years, about one man-year per year was all it could afford?
