Physics is not the territory, physics is (quite explicitly) the models we have of the territory.
People tend to use the word physics in both the map and the territory sense.
We can imagine, to a point, that we live in a universe which contains hypercomputers, but since our own brain is not a hypercomputer, we can never fully test such a theory.
That would follow if testing a theory consisted of solely running a simulation in your head, but that is not how physics, the science, works. If the universe was hypercomputational, that would manifest as failures of computatable physics. Note that you only need to run computable physics to generate predictions that are then falsified.
This IMO is the most fundumental significance of the Church-Turing thesis: since we only perceive the world through the lens of our own mind, then from our subjective point of view, the world only contains computable processes.
If true, that is a form of neo-Kantian idealism. Is that what you really wanted to say?
If the universe was hypercomputational, that would manifest as failures of computable physics.
Well, it would manifest as a failure to create a complete and deterministic theory of computable physics. If your physics doesn’t describe absolutely everything, hypercomputation can hide in places it doesn’t describe. If your physics is stochastic (like quantum mechanics for example) then the random bits can secretly follow a hypercomputable pattern. Sort of “hypercomputer of the gaps”. Like I wrote before, there actually can be situations in which we gradually become confident that something is a hypercomputer (although certainty would grow very slowly), but we will never know precisely what kind of hypercomputer it is.
If true, that is a form of neo-Kantian idealism. Is that what you really wanted to say?
Unfortunately I am not sufficiently versed in philosophy to say. I do not make any strong claims to novelty or originality.
People tend to use the word physics in both the map and the territory sense.
That would follow if testing a theory consisted of solely running a simulation in your head, but that is not how physics, the science, works. If the universe was hypercomputational, that would manifest as failures of computatable physics. Note that you only need to run computable physics to generate predictions that are then falsified.
If true, that is a form of neo-Kantian idealism. Is that what you really wanted to say?
Well, it would manifest as a failure to create a complete and deterministic theory of computable physics. If your physics doesn’t describe absolutely everything, hypercomputation can hide in places it doesn’t describe. If your physics is stochastic (like quantum mechanics for example) then the random bits can secretly follow a hypercomputable pattern. Sort of “hypercomputer of the gaps”. Like I wrote before, there actually can be situations in which we gradually become confident that something is a hypercomputer (although certainty would grow very slowly), but we will never know precisely what kind of hypercomputer it is.
Unfortunately I am not sufficiently versed in philosophy to say. I do not make any strong claims to novelty or originality.