Do different observers think differently? Or does the principle of computational equivalence mean that all observers think the same way?

Stephen Wolfram takes this question and runs with it.

If we had brains the size of planets, he suggests, the finite speed of light would force us to think of space and time differently, and abandon the fiction of an instantaneous state of space.

If we had brains the size of molecules, he says, we’d no longer think of the motion of molecules as random, and we’d find the heat death of the universe a far more interesting prospect.

And if we were able to hold multiple paths through the multiway graph in our minds at the same time, we’d have multiple threads of experience... and some complicated conversations!

We think the way we think because we are the way we are... if we were much larger-scale, much smaller-scale or if we had multiway minds, then we’d think very differently.

And this has some serious consequences, Stephen suggests, in fields as diverse as molecular biology and parallel computing.

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Stephen Wolfram

• Stephen Wolfram
• The Wolfram Physics Project
• Wolfram Institute
• Wolfram Institute Community Discord

Credits

• Fullerene by YassineMrabet licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind